Len's News, Notes, and Stuff

Mobile Internet is an Investment in Crap-Avoidance … and that Saves You Money!

If you have shop­ping urges — and be hon­est, you do — mobile inter­net can save you money.  Just this morn­ing, as I wan­dered aim­lessly around Wal-Mart while my car was in the shop to get win­ter tires put on, my hav­ing a Net con­nec­tion on my phone saved me money.  Seri­ously.  And this wasn’t the first time, either.

Now, if you’re addicted to buy­ing clothes, shoes and acces­sories — i.e. you’re a woman — this won’t apply to you 100%.  But if your pur­chases revolve around dig­i­tal gad­gets, things with elec­tric motors, enter­tain­ment media on shiny cir­cu­lar discs, and things that come with spec sheets — i.e. you’re a man — trust me, spend­ing $30 a month on a mobile net con­nec­tion is worth it.

Let’s talk num­bers, shall we?  Let’s use today as an exam­ple.  I was going to buy The Ulti­mate Bruce Lee Col­lec­tion, a nice lit­tle DVD bun­dle for $15.  I thought about a bargain-bin PS2 game, Women’s Vol­ley­ball Cham­pi­onship, for $10.  That’s $25 right there.

How­ever, I didn’t get either of those two items. Why? Because I took my phone out of my pocket, went online, and Googled some reviews.  The reviews for the Bruce Lee DVD set were ok, but didn’t wow me enough to (a) buy it, and (b) sit down and watch all 5 movies.  The reviews for the game were piti­ful — in fact, they actively warned read­ers to avoid the game like the plague.

After that, of course I put every­thing back on the shelf.  As I write this, I’m still at Wal­mart wait­ing for my car — but this isn’t a post about mobile pro­duc­tiv­ity, it’s about how a lit­tle invest­ment in con­nec­tiv­ity saves you money.  I saved $25 today because online reviews saved my ass.  $5 more, and it’d already a breakeven propo­si­tion for the month.

I am a book addict.  I buy them faster than I can read, and I really do read faster than a preschooler.  I get tempted when­ever I drop into a well-stocked used-bookstore, or walk into Winners/Homesense with their dis­count cook­books.  Thank­fully, I have a mobile net con­nec­tion — I can look up book reviews on Ama­zon wher­ever I am.  And once again, those reviews save me from buy­ing crap, just as they did last week­end.  Or was it the week­end before?  Or was it both?

Whether it’s sport­ing goods, elec­tronic gad­gets, video games, movies, music (yes, some of us still buy DVDs + CDs rather than steal the con­tent online), per­fume and fra­grances, cook­ware, gro­ceries (hey, do *you* know how to choose a good olive oil or what the hell a choco­late per­sim­mon is?), motor oil, lotions, potions, sham­poos, house­hold appli­ances, or damnit, even a frickin’ restau­rant, vaca­tion, car, or house, an Inter­net con­nec­tion in the palm of your hand wher­ever you hap­pen to be can save you from spend­ing your hard-earned money on crap.  Heck, even if you’re a pimp and “hard-earned” is just a fig­ure of speech, a mobile Net con­nec­tion will save you money.

So if you’re tired of buy­ing crap because you (a) just love stuff — and admit it, you do — and (b) don’t have the right infor­ma­tion at the right time, get with it and invest a few bucks in a good data plan.

Now if you’ll excuse me, that cast iron skil­let in Aisle 14 is call­ing my name.  There ain’t no reviews deflect­ing the temp­ta­tion on that one.

Hey, a mobile net con­nec­tion isn’t per­fect, y’know.