Tommy Ai retweeted
I bought a $249 vacuum on Amazon last Friday. My brother-in-law, who sold on Amazon for 5 years, looked at the page and said: "You just bought it at the highest price of the year."
He pasted the link into a price-history tracker. A graph popped up. That vacuum had been $159 for 8 of the last 12 months. The price jumped right before the weekend, because the algorithm saw 3 people viewing it.
Then he opened my order history. 41 purchases. He found the same pattern in 29 of them. Prices rising when I was in a hurry. Dropping when I wasn't looking.
"Amazon doesn't have one price," he said. "It has the price you're willing to pay today."
I cancelled the order, waited 6 days, and rebought it for $163. I did that on 11 more items and saved $412 in one month.
Here are the 8 Amazon settings and tricks that stop you from overpaying:
Tommy Ai retweeted
A girl paid $1,600 for her MacBook and has only used it for Chrome and Netflix for 3 years.
Last Thursday, she was fighting to merge two PDFs. She opened a website, uploaded the files, got hit with a paywall, closed it, and tried another one. Her roommate walked by, watched for a few seconds, and quietly asked:
"Wait... you've never used any of the built-in tools?"
"What built-in tools?"
He took the laptop and started talking: "You can dictate a full email by talking. Your screen can be split into two windows in one click. You can copy text from any photo or screenshot. You can sign a document without printing it. You can find any file in 2 seconds. Your clipboard, your trackpad gestures, your shortcuts. All of it has been sitting there since day one."
She stared at the screen.
"You didn't buy a $1,600 laptop. You bought a $1,600 browser."
He spent 30 minutes changing settings and showing her shortcuts. Afterward she said: "I just got back 5 hours of my week."
Here are the 12 Mac features and settings most owners never open, in the exact order he showed her 🧵
How to start today:
- Open a 401(k)/IRA
- Grab any employer match (free money)
- Automate even $50/month
- Raise it 1% every year
Don't wait until you "have more." Start with what you have.
Tommy Ai retweeted
A man paid $65 for a Costco membership and felt like he was being scammed.
He only needed paper towels. Twenty minutes later he was pushing a cart past a 48-pack of rotisserie chicken seasoning, a kayak he had no place to store, and a pallet of olive oil he swore he'd never finish. At checkout, the screen said $312.
He sat in his car, stared at the receipt, and thought: "I'm terrible with money."
The next day he told his coworker, a former Costco department manager of 12 years.
The coworker smiled.
"You're not bad with money. The store is designed to make you feel that way."
Over lunch, he shared 11 rules. The man now saves about $240 a month on the same groceries.
Here are the 11 Costco rules that turn a $65 membership into $2,800 a year in savings: 🧵
Tommy Ai retweeted
Over 6 billion smartphones are in use worldwide.
Almost every owner treats the battery the same way: plug it in overnight, panic at 15%, and buy a new phone the moment it starts dying around the 2-year mark.
A battery engineer who's worked on lithium-ion packs for a decade told me:
"Your phone isn't dying because it's old. It's dying because of how you charge it. Charging to 100% every night, running it down to 0%, and leaving it hot in your pocket or car are the three habits that quietly eat away at a battery's lifespan. The hardware is built to last years longer than most people ever get from it.
Most of the settings that fix this are buried a few menus deep, and manufacturers don't exactly advertise them, because a worn-out battery is one of the biggest reasons people upgrade."
I tested every one of these on my own phone. Here are 7 settings and habits that can add years to yours 🧵
5. Short-form to long-form funnels
Short clips get the reach. The money comes after: a newsletter, a product, a paid community.
Attention is the top of the funnel, not the business.
If you do decide to help, use this rule:
Only lend what you can afford to never see again.
If losing it would damage your finances or the friendship, the answer is no. Treat any money you get back as a bonus.