I realized a few days back that several of the games on my 2018 wishlist are Nintendo Switch games. This is a problem, because I rather like not paying full price for any game and Nintendo first party stuff has a real tendency to stay full price for years.
I have Best Buy’s loyalty program, and that at least takes 20% off new games, but there’s still a bit of a gap between what I want to pay and what they want me to pay. 🙂
But, I got a coupon from Best Buy for an extra $5 off any game, and that was enough to convince me that I should get a copy of Splatoon 2 in my life, and then I realized that I could save even more if I didn’t mind being a little bit of a terrible person.
See, I live in a state with a very aggressive recycling program. We have a 10 cent deposit on all beverage containers, and one of my vices is soda. So, since I tend to let the deposits pile up in my Bottle Drop account for a few months before redeeming them and never empty it completely, there’s usually a couple hundred bucks in there.
I drink too much soda. Let’s acknowledge this and move on.
One of the benefits of using Bottle Drop, btw, is that you can redeem your account funds at certain grocery stores and get an extra 20% back – so 12 cents a can – as long as you then spend the refund money at that store.
The lightbulb moment was when I realized that some grocery stores sell Best Buy gift cards.
It turns out they do not LIKE selling you a gift card in exchange for Bottle Drop credit – it needed a manager’s approval, and I got a little bit of a glare for it – but the end result was that Splatoon 2 cost me a little under $37 worth of can deposit money.
So. Now I will get to see what happened to Callie and Marie after the final Splatoon 1 Splatfest AND I didn’t break the bank to do so. Wins all around!
Well, first I guess I should finish Nioh. Sadly I have gotten hooked on the online co-op and helping other people with boss fights, which is a TON of fun but is not getting me any closer to seeing how the story goes. The last thing I fought before getting into the co-op was a giant frog, and I think that puts me barely at the halfway mark.
Baud Attitude 
Your dedication to being thrifty is admirable. I wish I could buy Splatoon with empty soda cans here!
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Americans are terrible recyclers, so the state has to bribe us to bring back cans instead of tossing them in the bin. I even live in one of the “greener” states and it’s still a really low redemption rate.
I’ve only been to the UK once, for about two weeks, and my takeaway was that prices (especially in London) were a little crazy. Glasgow was a little more sane, but even there it seemed a very expensive place to live. It may just have been because I was looking at things through a tourist’s eyes of course. 🙂
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London is a special case, its prices for everything are WAY inflated over the rest of the country. I hate London, it’s an expensive, dirty, scary shithole. Most people in the UK who don’t live there feel similarly 🙂
I think the UK is generally a fairly expensive place to live, but we sort of make up for it with things like healthcare and suchlike, I guess. I haven’t known anywhere else so I can’t really comment with too much authority on such things!
When I have visited the States (my brother lives in California) stuff like games have generally been a bit cheaper, though with the exchange rate how it is at the moment that’s less true than it once was! 🙂
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If we ever go back to the UK, we’ll probably skip London – it was nice to see all the tourist stuff once, but I think I have it out of my system. It kind of had a “playground for the rich” vibe to it, and I certainly don’t qualify. 🙂
I spent a few years in LA. I don’t know if I’d go back, but I do miss the weather and the variety of things to see and do. And the food. Mostly the food, really. 🙂
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You like food, you should try and visit Toronto sometime. I’ve never known any city with so many places to get different types of authentic cuisine from all over the world. Some particularly great Asian stuff there (Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese). And poutine, of course.
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That’s some good saving there! Nice moves! The one thing about Switch that is irritating me is that the games don’t seem to drop in price much. Most of the physical releases over here are still over £40.
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They definitely have their own thing going on when it comes to software price and it seems to work for them – but it does mean that I’m a lot more cautious about which of their titles I buy or I go to extra lengths to avoid spending full price.
It’s going to be interesting to see what happens with pricing when their traditionally portable franchises ($40 3DS games, like Animal Crossing or Pokémon) move to Switch, where everything is $60. (Sorry for US-centric prices, I assume the ratios are roughly the same in GBP between 3DS and Switch pricing)
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