Here's a little good news

This could be you for $100,000

While we all wait to see what will happen in Washington, and who will ultimately be the winners and losers, or who ultimately just gets screwed (like we don't know already), Time Magazine on-line ran a very nice piece on Saturday to lift your spirits.

It's an article called "10 Things That Are Actually Getting Cheaper." Despite sky-rocketing energy prices, rising interest rates and economic uncertainly, Time has found 10 ways your ever-shrinking pocketbook can buy more than before.

Time's list of today's ten bargains are:



Volkswagens. Passat and Jetta base prices are down. Time found this very exciting and worthy of their Top Ten list. I don't.

3-D Televisions. Except for my brother-in-law, I have yet to meet anybody who is really interested in buying one of these turkeys. Apparently, I'm not alone. Poor sales have caused the price of 3-D TVs to plummet over the past year.

In-ground swimming pools. Lots of American families are having a hard enough time holding on to their homes, never mind thinking about building a new swimming pool. As a result, sales of in-ground pools have fallen by 75% from the pre-Recession boom years, making dealers very hungry to make you a good deal.

Spaceflight. Now that NASA is out of the human spaceflight business, private companies are coming onto the scene. One, SpaceX, is offering seats for the bargain price of $100,000. It used to be that you had to be a gazillionaire and then had to pay the Russians tens of millions of dollars for a ride into space. But now the price has come down to the point where it's affordable for your average multi-millionaire.

Netflix. I don't know why Time put this one on the list. They acknowledge that most Netflix users have been screaming at steep price hikes on many Netflix services, but Time says that Netflix has cut the cost of its basic service from $9.99 a month to $7.99. Now how that puts them on the list along with bargain space flights baffles me.

I'll wait until they're the same price as Etch-A-Sketch

Amazon's Kindle. For those of you who think you're too cool to read a book, you used to have to spend hundreds for this stupid gadget. But in rapid succession, the price has dropped and the technology has gotten whizzier. The current price of $139 for 3-G Kindle may drop to $100 or less by Christmas. Mazel Tov!

Ikea products. To stay healthy in a competitive market, this Swedish design maven has generally cut prices by 2-3% this year and is expected to cut another 2-3%. Since I believe the three most despicable words in the English language are "some assembly required," I don't care.

Pre-paid Debit Card fees. Like their choice of Netflix, I just don't know what Time was thinking when they put this on the list. They don't say how much these fees have supposedly fallen, but from other research, it looks to me like not much. Again, compared to bargain fares to outer space, who cares?

Solar panels. Now this one I like. Time notes that installations have gone up by 66% this year and they attribute this to a 15% decline in the cost of materials. I think outrageous increases in the cost of conventional energy might have played a part, don't you think?

Real Estate. Talk about good news, bad news. Time reports average declines in the price of real estate at 33% nationwide. We know that we lost at least 15% here in Charlestown. But is this something to rejoice? It's good news if you're looking to buy and, by some miracle, have the down payment and credit to do so. But for existing homeowners, the beating we've taken in this terrible market decline is nothing short of tragic. But there's question that this is one item that indisputably belongs on Time's list.

There, don't you feel better?

Author: Will Collette