Haven’t heard of camelcamelcamel? Well, today is your budget’s lucky day. This free site can help reprogram your spending mindset for delayed gratification while saving you from Amazon “sales” impulse buying.
I learned at work that this past week was Amazon Prime Day. We aren’t really paying attention because we dumped Amazon Prime earlier this year when the relationship changed to “it’s complicated”. (Yes, Ross, we’re on a break.)
I was out to dinner with a friend, and we were chatting about computer builds, as one does over ramen. He mentioned he got some of his new computer components on sale during Prime Day that he’d been saving up for. My husband mentioned a (not so?) little secret tip we learned a few years back: the beauty that is camelcamelcamel.
camelcamelcamel? Is that a triple stacked cigarette? Nope, is it an awesome price tracking tool you can use for anything you want to purchase on Amazon. This website shows you the historical pricing data of any product you want to buy on Amazon. The feature I really love is that you can set a desired price and when the item hits that amount, camelcamelcamel will send you an alert so you can snag it.
Here’s an email I got a few weeks ago on an item I actually forgot I had an alert on:
This site is a great way to check to make sure the “lightning deal” is really a deal at all. If something you want is more expensive than you think it’s worth or that you’re willing to pay for it, camelcamelcamel allows you to assign a value to that item in terms of your specific budget. For example, I would love to get the complete series of Better Call Saul on DVD or Blu-Ray but AMC has lost its ever-loving mind if they think I’m paying anywhere near $104 for it. Hit me up when it’s closer to $50, and I’ll see if the husband have a birthday coming up or if Christmas is around the corner.
Speaking of the big J-C, for people who save for Christmas giving, it can be a great way to plan ahead on items you know you want to gift without having to panic buy at the last minute.
Word of Caution
If you are on a strict budget trying to get out of debt, now is not the season to go set a bunch of alerts on entertainment items. That’s just going to trigger you to want to impulse buy something because it is a deal. You have bigger goals right now than the second season of Outlander on DVD! Save this little nugget for down the road. The chart above shows seven years of pricing history. Notice how it fluctuates but drops to almost the same low price over multiple years.
The deal will come again. Breathe deep, keep calm, and carry on with your debt free journey.
Have you used camelcamelcamel or any other Amazon hacks? Share them in the comments below!