One time in the past, I would pass by deals that might come my way if I didn’t directly want them. Often time, such deals would be at a cost of only 10% or less of their true value.
Today, I now understand that skipping such deals is like throwing money away! In fact, I now understand that I could buy the deal and sell such items on eBay for a return of greater than 100% of what I paid. Such deals could actually make me some money if I so desired.
Of course deals don’t come by and knock you on the head… Mostly, you have to look for them or even be clever enough to make them yourself. I know a guy that buys cars that have been refurbished for a fraction of the cost it would take to buy the car in the marketplace. While he chooses to keep such cars, he would turn around and sell them if he wanted.
The same guy also takes advantage of traveling expenses with this company. While the rest of the travellers goes out to fancy restaurants and enjoys expensive over-priced meals, he’s go grocery shopping the first day of the trip then just eat that food that he prepars back in his hotel instead of going out. Then when it comes time to expense the food for his employer’s T & E expenses, he’ll take the maximum meal amounts that doesn’t require a receipt. Often time he will make over 100% on what he spent on the food that he bought and prepared himself!
While some may think that the employee is robbing the company by doing what he does, it actually works out to be a win-win for both the employee and the employer, since what he claims would still be less that if he were to go out and buy the overpriced meals.
These are just come quick and obvious examples of ways to take advantage of deals… You’ll have to look outside of the box to take advantage or create your own deals.
Watch out for such deals!
MR
That is clever working with the per diem in that fashion to actually profit.
Yeah, I was impressed. Although it seems a bit underhanded. At the max, one of the members that had this conversation said that he heard of one persona actually making an additional $2000 for the year (or was it per a certain trip), doing these methods.
I don’t think I could do most of these though.
I was one of the few people on a business trip to California that didn’t go over the $35 a day per diem. I didn’t have a car to go grocery shopping, but I would buy the large meals at a $1 or so more than the smaller sizes and then eat whatever it was for lunch and dinner. I think I banked $100 that week…
Nice, very nice 🙂
When I traveled for company business, I rarely was alone so those savings were not available. There are deals everywhere, if you ask. If you poll the airline passengers on any flight you will be surprised with the different prices. The Internet and search engines like Kayak can help in that respect.
I learned a lot from scheduling my own flight, hotel and rental car. It’s like everything, if you look there are deals to be had!
I do this quite often! I still have some items I bought at a discount I need to get rid off!
Smart way to do it, that’s for sure 🙂