While I’m working out the kinks on that one (it currently requires 4 D-size batteries), I did come across a site that will allow you to eliminate all those pesky grocery store club cards that dangle from your keychain and hit you in the knee while you drive: www.justoneclubcard.com.

Just gather up all your membership cards and enter the numbers below the bar codes. When you’re done, you have a printable card that can store up to 8 different club cards. Laminate it for extra durability. The people at the register never cease to be amazed by it.

Aside from knowing where to look for deals online, the biggest factor in getting a great price seems to be patience. Since I knew I would be purchasing a TV early this year, I started looking about 3 months ago. Prices have gone up and down, but I got a good feel for what is a good price and what isn’t. The easiest way of doing this is to find a product on Amazon.com, add it to your cart (or “save for later”), and check your cart every now and then. If a price has increased or decreased, you will be notified at the top of the cart page.

As for knowing where to shop, I used to rely on Froogle or PriceGrabber. However, just this week, I discovered a site that found a price that was $100 lower than any price I had seen for this TV: Bountii.com. Bountii only lists prices from reputable sellers and it lets you track price changes by RSS or email. But the real genius of the site is that it pays people to find the best deal. You can go to the “price hunt” page and if you find a better deal, they will pay you a small reward, or I suppose I should say “bounty” (between $4 and $8). While I haven’t been able to find any prices that beat theirs, it definitely gives people with time on their hands incentive to find the best deal which can be shared with others.

In the end, I got my Sharp Aquos TV from Dell and a 6′ 24AWG HDMI cable for less than $10 from Monoprice. In the coming weeks, I’ll be using Bountii to get the best deal on a Tivo HD.

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Update: The link no longer works (probably from the huge increase in traffic from this site. . .). I’ll update again if the site comes back.

Update: I asked Dr. Bert Vaux, the creator of the survey, why the results were taken down. He is now working on a new study at Cambridge. The site is in a pilot phase and requires registration to view the results.

We recently sold our home in the Chicago area by using a flat-fee MLS service from Flatland Homes and we couldn’t have been happier with the decision. Rather than pay close to $20,000 to sell our home with a broker, we paid a total of $300 (no zeros are missing in that number). Using a flat-fee service isn’t for everyone, but if you are willing to put in a little extra effort to hold your own open house and print your own listing sheets, the payoff can be tremendous. Next week we close on a new house in Charlotte that was for sale by owner. Without having a broker involved, we were able to get a great price on a house and the sellers can put more money in their pocket as well.

I don’t intend to criticize the career choice of thousands of real estate professionals, but it seems like some much-needed adjustment is starting to take place in the real estate market.