And companies know that. After working at Walmart for years, I finally learned the lesson of selling two $3.50 products with a 'two for $7' sign.

Magic tricks. They don't always involve cards or pulling rabbits out of hats.

Its called "frugal".

Yeah.

I got into the habit of automatically rounding prices up in my head, never taking a 2-for-1 deal unless I actually would use 2 of it, and shopping online instead of going into stores where they pull out all the stops to trick shoppers into buying more. Those all helped a lot.

Also, reframing prices in terms of hours worked or lunches-out. So I see a game and say 'this looks good, but it costs as much as 2 lunches out. How much do I want to cook this week?' Then I usually wind up having leftovers anyway.

Also, garage sales in middle class and higher neighborhoods are great places for durable goods. Got a leather briefcase and jacket for the price of a good meal, and almost all of my kitchen gear.

Social psychologists and other people in social behavior-related fields have studied consumers' emotional and psychological behavior for so many years--motivated more than just the "science discovery" factor--have found how to formulate the best techniques to dissuade people from saving their money.

As for the OP, by asking the question "Am I cheap?", it implies a negative connotation to being someone who is "cheap". I would say this was caused by society's aversion due to an injected belief system put in place by those who want us to spend (or at least aided by targeted marketing to reaffirm this negative connotation.)

dal4fsu should consider his buying strategies to be intelligent. By going against the grain of automatically buying when things are "on sale" takes more willpower than one might think… especially based on the years and money spent training us all to be consumerist bitches.

Now, if you'll all excuse me, I have about 30 minutes before the sale ends on "Starpoint Gemini 2" and Adam Smith's Invisible Hand has put me in a chokehold and is literally forcing me to buy this limited-time offer now! ;-P

"Am I cheap???"

yes, and ur feet stink.

haha.

I do wait for deals more often now cause the canadian dollar dropped a lot and a 5 dollar game is now almost 8 dollars here so :(

but when I see a game released that really does capture me I will spend the money to support the dev right away even though it will kill the wallet a bit.

A new Humble Bundle will be released tomorrow.

It will benefit cheap people.

I just don't get the thrill I used to of getting a game on sale. Maybe because games are always on sale, it has to be a killer sale before I'd grab it. And then I'd just put it in my backlog.

Yes, game buying had become a game... and recently I have gone into my library and found something that I would like to try playing. I was surprised at some of the games I actually owned that I knew nothing about - I blame bundles for that. So the actual games somehow became more fun than the deal-hunt.

I still have about 27 games in my Steam wishlist (fewer here) but even then, when a deal comes up, more often than not I just ignore it.

I sense great irony. :P

Basically yes. People look only on the big discount numbers and don't bother to do the math and see that they are actually paying more.

You're not cheap. I can't imagine having to pay so much for games. It's why I'm a trader. $5 each would be too much money for all of the ones I want. :)

Say what?
Not. For. Beginners ;(

After all these replies, yes, I heard of it right now :/