2 - PNY Technologies 1 GB SD Memory Card
Item Purchased: 2 - PNY Technologies 1 GB SD Memory Card
Location Purchased: Best Buy / 1000 W. North Ave. / Chicago, IL
Price: $24.99 + tax/ea. (after instant rebate)
Review: When I make a trip to Best Buy or any other store to make what I would consider a “larger” purchase, I usually go in knowing full well what I am going to buy. Furthermore, I have a rough idea of what I will spend for what I want.
I walked into Best Buy today with the intent of buying a case and a 1 GB memory card for my digital camera. I expected to spend around $65 total. No impulse buy was going to get in my way. I’m not an impulse buy kind of person. If I am going to a record store or a flea market, all bets are off but electronics stores, department stores, clothing stores… All of these places come with a plan. I don’t shop, I acquire necessites or desires. I’m in and out faster than a freshman at a senior prom.
During this purchase, Best Buy managed to throw a discounted wrench into this time-honored consumer ethic of mine. Approaching the glass case where the memory cards are kept under lock and key, I noticed one nearly empty rack with a few 1GB SD cards left hanging on. Retail price… $49.99… Just as I expected. But what was that fine print? A rebate? $25 off? My lucky day. Though I am diligent about retrieving mail-in rebates, I still count the initial money spent as gone. When a rebate comes in the mail, it gets deposited directly into my savings account. Mail in rebates are like free money to me. I don’t buy more just because I will get a refund in 6-8 weeks.
Looking closer, however, I realized something that made me question the very foundation of my consumer habits. It wasn’t a mail-in rebate. Right there on the yellow and blue tag, in miniscule black true-type font was a dilemma. “INSTANT REBATE.”
Instant? You mean I don’t have to fill out some ridiculous tail of my receipt and send it across the country to a nondescript P.O. Box? You just discount the price? Why not just call it a sale? Don’t confuse things by telling us it is a rebate. Your fancy 6-letter words don’t impress me!
So, I did what any other consumer would do. Something I normally wouldn’t do.
I bought two memory cards.
I know, I know. I’ve shown my weakness.
Maybe I should have put that extra $25 into a savings account, but in my defense, I spent what I originally planned on spending. I even saved two cents, before tax. (and I promise to put that into a savings account)
Best Buy pulled a sneak attack. Usually we think of impulse buys as buying something we didn’t actually want, but be warned, they can also come in the form of buying one more of whatever it is we set out to purchase in the first place.
So I caved, but the upside is that I probably will never need to buy another memory card for my camera. I am already in the habit of dumping any pictures I take to my computer’s hard drive. At 31.25 times the size of the memory card that came with my camera, I doubt I will need to “dump” as much. At the resolution I am currently shooting my pictures for the website (640 x 480), I can store over 3,500 images on one of these cards. At the highest quality my camera can capture, I can store nearly 350 images. As a photographer who is used to being limited by 24 or 36 frames of cellulite, I don’t forsee these outer limits of image capture being a problem any time soon.
It looks like this impulse buy just took care of my image storage needs for quite some time to come… And at such a value!
Rating: 4.5 / 5
Leave a Comment