After work I went to print out some coupons for this week’s grocery run, and the printer said there was a paper jam. After an hour or so of taking the printer apart and looking everywhere for the culprit, I accepted the fact that something else had gone bad ( a sensor? ) and went online to look for a good deal on a replacement printer.

I found a good one on TigerDirect.com. The Original price was $100 with a $60 instant rebate, making it $40. In addition, I could use Fatwallet’s 4% rebate along with 1% cash back from Paypal to lessen the blow.

However, when I clicked on “check out”, the shipping cost was over $60!!! Are you kidding me? This was already an unplanned purchase, and it was going to ding my emergency fund more than I liked. The price at Newegg.com was about the same.

Thinking cap on, I remembered that Japanbases.com has classifieds by people who also live in Japan. I quickly searched and found a printer for $40 that was advertised in May. A call to the POC revealed she still had the printer and reduced the cost since she was just glad to get rid of it.

I went from spending over a $100 for $40 printer that would take weeks to arrive in the overseas mail, to spending $40 for a printer that I could have tomorrow.

Let the coupon printing resume!