Have you ever noticed how convenient those giant office super 
stores are? I mean we all use them. They're on every corner out 
here in the suburbs of Boston. It's Officethis or Officethat or 
something like Paperclips, you know, all the major players. Well, 
I've recently realized that over the past 10 years of prosperity 
that my small business has been paying a huge premium for this 
convenience. In the past several months, as a result of the 
recent economic downturn in our local economy, I have been doing 
everything I can to plug the holes in our spending and trying to 
"trim the fat" so to speak. Fortunately this is something that 
myself, my competition and other local business owners are not 
familiar with. We have all prospered and have rarely, if ever, 
worried about money.

One evening I was shopping with my family at Wal-Mart loading up 
on family stuff and I couldn't help but notice that the same 
100ct (or very similar) manila folders that I paid nearly $7.00 
for several hours earlier at Officethat were available at Wal-
Mart at an everyday low price of $1.77. Now, I never claimed to 
be a genius but a $5.00 difference on a product that I buy 5 
boxes of a month is a $25.00 a month savings. That of course is 
$300 a year. I quickly realized that I was on to something but 
I figured it was just a fluke. I had also bought a new water 
bubbler and a mini bar type refrigerator earlier and they both 
cost $149.00 each so I figured I would go and check out that 
aisle as well. I couldn't believe my eyes when I found a water 
bubbler/mini fridge combo for only $99.00. Of course I bought it 
on the spot and when I got back to my office the next morning I 
repackaged the fridge and water bubbler and back to Officethat 
they went with five boxes of manila folders and a few other 
overpriced items and I saved more than $225.00. Not too shabby. 
And to think that this was only one trip over the past ten years. 
How much could I have been saving the whole time?

When I try to mention this finding to people in my local business 
community I hear things like "who cares, it's all a write off 
anyway" or "you should buy American"(as if these office 
superstores are all loaded with American made products.) These 
are both some of the worst excuses for spending way too much 
money for no reason I have ever heard. It is all a write off but 
saving several hundred dollars a month on office products allows 
more flexibility in other areas of my business. As far as the old 
"Buy American" thing, this one makes me laugh; I would literally 
have to hire a full time employee to determine what is made here 
and what isn't. I usually just respond with something like "I'll 
buy everything American if you start buying American gasoline or 
start riding your bicycle." I am as American as the next person 
whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower but the bottom line is 
that when I am done with my office supply purchases now I have a 
lot of money left over.

Don't get me wrong, I still use the office superstores for 
certain items when I don't have time to go into a department 
store (they are convenient) and for one or two small items it is 
worth paying more. When I need to fill my supply cabinet, on the 
other hand, I will surely take a trip to Wal-mart, K-mart or even 
Target to save literally a bundle of cash. I simply don't care 
how neatly organized the office goliaths are because with a 
little more effort you can find everything you need for your 
office and a little more while saving hundreds of dollars at 
a department store. 

(c) 2005, Affordable Concrete Cutting, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Robert Short is a professional concrete cutter, a seasoned 
article writer and an expert on search engine optimization 
and linking. He is responsible for ranking our local service 
company's website at number one on all major search engines 
for more than a dozen keyword terms. Our website now generates 
as much revenue as our main service business. Visit our website 
for more articles on linking and webmaster resources 
http://www.affordableconcretecutting.com/construction_seo.html