Retailers Are Hurting. You Reap the Rewards.

This year, Congress sent stimulus checks to 130 million U.S. households. Its purpose: to bribe us into spending more, so we can help bail out the economy due to the housing collapse (again, caused by Congress). Guess what — it didn’t work that well. Big Shocker!

Why didn’t it work, you ask? Well, a large numbers of Americans had to spend this money on food, utilities, and sky-rocketing gasoline. Sales at nearly all retailers—except for those selling low-cost food—were depressing. This is scaring the living daylights out of merchants, and for once they actually seem to care about their shoppers (truth: they are worried about their money). Right now, it’s a consumer’s market. Here’s how to cash in:

• Use a store like Lowe’s or Home Depot’s price guarantee to your advantage — they say, “If you find the same product for less elsewhere, you get the item for 10 percent off the lowest price.” I say, “Start looking around for bargains.” Advice: Call, don’t visit the store. A local store manager will always find a reason to say no. They love to say no.

• Let Barnes and Nobles keep their overpriced merchandise. Go to Paperbackswap.com, where members can trade paperback and hardcover books for the cost of postage. This way, buying a “how to make money” book won’t cost you more than you have. “But they also have music and movies,” you say? For this, you can swap CDs on SwapaCD.com and DVDs at recently launched SwapaDVD.com. No more excuses!

• One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Freecycle.org, with its thousands of local chapters, helps people give away unwanted goods (such as brand-name clothing, electronics and furniture) to other members to keep it out of our landfills. You’re not the last stop before a Goodwill donation either— most of the times the stuff is great quality. Go ahead: ask for something specific, or see what other “freecyclers” are offering.

• Not surprisingly, cheapskates like me are also crazy about Craigslist.org. I have a $1400 kayak (with everything) that I paid $400 for; I have a grill that I got for free, and my sweetest deal: two on-field Eagles jerseys (Dawkins and Westbrook) for $20 each. The guy I bought them from also had a Terrell Owens’s Eagles jersey, but I would have probably just wound up burning, or washing my tires, with that hunk of junk (damn showboat). I mean it!

Whatever you do, I suggest you do it before next January — there will be a new “sheriff” in town, and our economy might just turn around for the better (actually, anything will be better). I also have a sneaking suspicion that gas will be back to $1.70 a gallon in 2009.