Saving Money When Shopping for Kids Who Like Video Games

If you’ve been shopping for video games for your child or teen lately, you already know they’re expensive. You can easily spend several hundred dollars on a gaming system, games, and all the equipment that goes with it – and within a week your offspring is asking for new games! Smart shopping can save you hundreds when you’re shopping for a kid who devours new video games on a weekly basis. Here are a few options to try.

 

For games, cases, controllers, battery chargers, and other equipment, try shopping secondhand. Go to garage sales and look on online auction and classified websites, including Craigslist and eBay. You can often get a really good deal, especially on games. Sometimes other kids get games for Christmas or a birthday and end up not enjoying them that much… and the game ends up on eBay. You can save a fortune by getting gently used games for your child.

 

Another option is to let a child who likes video games trade in his old games for new ones. This is what lots of older gamers do. Every few months, take your child shopping at your local video-game rental store. He can trade in used games, get store credit, and go shopping for new games. Sometimes you might have to add a bit of money in to cover a brand new game, but you can still save a lot by shopping this way.

 

When it comes to actual video game systems, you don’t want to buy used unless you know the seller. Gaming systems are just as complicated and expensive as laptops. There are just so many things that can go wrong, and you don’t know if a machine is broken even if it momentarily acts fine – so exercise caution if shopping for a used gaming system.

 

A better idea when shopping for gaming systems is to wait until the weekend after Thanksgiving or a few days after Christmas. Around these times, electronics and game systems drop low in price, as store try to clear out the surplus unsold stock they ordered for Christmas. Just get to the stores early because lots of other moms know this trick, too!

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