Family Guy Box Set, Volume 1 – $1.88
Family Guy Box Set, Volume 2 – $1.25
Family Guy Box Set, Volume 3 – $1.88
Family Guy – The Stewie Griffin Story – $1.25
The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring Box Set Extended Edition, Standard Definition – $6.26
The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers Box Set Extended Edition, Standard Definition – $3.75
The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King Box Set Extended Edition, Standard Definition – $3.75

In addition to the dollar amounts noted above, I also received $4.01 in bonus store credit for choosing store credit over cash. In total, those DVD box sets brought me $20.02 in store credit to use at F.Y.E. Overall, not so bad.

Thanks again, F.Y.E.!

And so we have Round Three of trading in my old, dusty DVDs to F.Y.E. for store credit!

Amid the happiness that I feel about turning old, dusty DVDs into a functional asset (store credit) I have to admit that there’s something unsettling about the process of trading in these DVDs. I’m not sure what it is – it could be the fact that I’m receiving back in store credit only a fraction of what these DVDs originally cost me (and a small fraction, by the way). I don’t know what it is, but that unsettling feeling is more than squelched by the dual fact that I have less unused/not-going-to-be-used stuff laying around my bedroom and that, in return for getting rid of this stuff, I have a new functional asset in F.Y.E. store credit.

So how much did I earn in store credit for trading in all of these DVDs? Take a look at the list below and find out for yourself!

Ducktales Season 1 – $6.25
Smallville Season 1 – $3.75
Smallville Season 4 – $2.50
Smallville Season 5 – $5.00
Smallville Season 6 – $2.50
Smallville Season 7 – $10.00
American History X – $1.88
Beetlejuice – $2.50
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (new one) – $1.25
Creep Show – $1.25
Dane Cook: Harmful if Swallowed – $2.50
Great Outdoors – $1.25
Killer Klowns from Outer Space – $1.88
Lewis Black: Black on Broadway – $2.50
Lewis Black: Unleashed – $1.25
Life – $1.25
Masters of the Universe – $3.75
Meet the Fockers – $1.25
Meet the Parents – $1.88
My Cousin Vinny – $2.50
Office Space – $2.50
Robots – $1.25
Rudy – $1.25
Shrek – $1.25
Shrek 2 – $0.63
The Addams Family 1 – $1.25
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad – $1.88
The Passion of the Christ – $2.50
The Simpsons: Gone Wild – $1.88
The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror – $1.25
True Lies – $1.25
Wedding Crashers – $1.25
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (old one) – $2.50

I think that part of the unsettling feeling is seeing an entire season of the Smallville television series bringing in $2.50. I mean… good grief! Two dollars and fifty cents?! I probably paid $25 for that box set when it was released for goodness’ sake! Geez…

Anyway, in total I generated $77.53 in store credit from Round Three of my DVD trade-ins this year. As you might recall from Round One and Round Two, I’ve been trading in my old, dusty DVDs throughout 2010. In total, this year I generated $244.22 in store credit at F.Y.E. by trading in some of these unused old DVDs that were doing nothing more than taking up space in my bedroom. Add in another $25.25 that I generated by trading in some old video games to GameStop and another $54 that I generated by returning an unopened video game controller to Walmart and I’ve done pretty well this year in generating usable assets from completely unused stuff laying around my bedroom.

What remains of my once huge DVD collection

And I don’t think I’m done yet.

Take a look at the picture to the right to see what remains of my DVD and video game collection. It’s getting pretty scarce, don’t you think? Let me walk you through this thing starting with the media tower on the left side of the picture. The top and second shelves are filled with different DVDs that I haven’t yet traded in or that I’ve decided I’m not trading in. The third shelf with the stack of DVDs on it are product that I bought at a discount to give away on one of the wrestling sites that I own. The fourth shelf contains a few t-shirts that I’ll also being giving away on that wrestling site and a three-pack of DVDs that I received for Christmas. So in this media tower I really only have two shelves worth of DVDs that you can actually count towards my collection.

As for the media tower on the right, the first shelf contains all of my Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS video games. The second shelf contains the wrestling DVDs that I’m holding on to as well as some PC and PlayStation 2 video games. The third shelf mostly contains my Christmas DVD collection and the first few Family Guy box sets.

And that’s it. That’s what left of my DVD and video game collection. Pretty amazing, I think – especially when you consider that I once had probably 400 or so DVDs and video games in my college/post-college collection. What about you? Are there any old DVDs or video games laying around your house that you can trade-in to a store for some credit or sell on eBay for a few bucks?

If so, then what are you waiting for?!

Since F.Y.E. doesn’t take video games, I stopped at GameStop, too. Oh, and since I wound up with a few DVDs that F.Y.E. wouldn’t take, I dropped for movies off at the local SPCA as a donation for them to sell in their thrift shop. A final note – F.Y.E. had some deal where I was getting 20% more than I would have received if I opted to get cash back instead of store credit so I obviously went with that deal! Here’s what I wound up with at the end of the day:

Thanks, F.Y.E. and GameStop!

From GameStop:
Children of Mana (Nintendo DS) – $5.09
Sonic Rush (Nintendo DS) – $7.33
Super Mario Advance 2 (Nintendo Gameboy Advance) – $6.50
WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2008 (Nintendo Wii) – $6.33
Total: $25.25

Donated to SPCA:
Big Momma’s House – Special Edition
Little Shop of Horrors (Jack Nicholson Edition)
Barber Shop
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys (New, CGI-based Musical Version)
Total: Not applicable, but I feel good for having donated these otherwise unusable DVDs!

All told, at the end of the day I’ve got two gift cards worth $61.08 and $25.25 each. When I woke up this morning, I didn’t have that extra $86.33 worth of buying power so I feel good knowing that today I translated some unused, dusty “assets” into usable store credit. And while I had some very minor, almost nonexistent, conflicts about whether or not to trade in some of the titles listed above (which I definitely didn’t have when I traded in the titles two and a half months ago) I know that trading in these DVDs and video games was the right thing to do on so many levels.

As people, we all run the risk of getting too involved with our physical objects. For me, what it boils down to is that there’s no reason for a person to feel any type of connection or need for a DVD that they haven’t watched in years and that has contributed nothing to a person’s life or space other than acting as a dust catcher. Frankly, I don’t need any more dust catchers thank you very much.

All of that being said, I now look at my remaining DVD collection of about 150 titles – easily half of what I used to own – and I’m wondering what Round Three of this purge may look like one day. I have a bunch of Christmas movies that I know I’m not going to part with because I watch them all at least twice a year. Same thing with my Lord of the Rings Extended Edition DVDs – I enjoy watching them once or twice each year. However, I look at my Family Guy box sets and I know that I haven’t opened them up in over a year and a half, if not longer. Same thing goes for my Smallville box sets, though I think I’d like to watch the Smallville box sets again one more time before sending them off to F.Y.E. I also have a bunch of WWE DVDs that I certainly haven’t watched in a long time. Instead of bringing them to F.Y.E., though, I’ll probably wind up giving them to my younger brother and letting him do what he wants with them, I guess.

Then I have some movies that I really do like, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever watch them on a consistent enough basis to warrant allowing them to continue to collect dust. These titles include (among many others) Nothing But Trouble, Funny Farm, The Great Outdoors, Private Parts, Caddyshack II, Spaceballs, Office Space, Wedding Crashers, Shrek, and Shrek 2.

Stay tuned and see what I trade in or donate next! I’m thinking that it’ll be some of my used books to those good folks at EcoEncore.org. Oh, and on that topic – does anyone know where I can donate used cell phones for a good cause?

Done? Good!

Thanks, F.Y.E.!

What was all of that spending for? I don’t really know. What I do know, however, is that these days I literally have to blow the dust off of my DVDs before I pull out a case to watch a movie. I also know that the only movies that I watch on a regular basis are my Christmas movies and Lord of the Rings movies – and I only watch them once or twice per year!

My reason for going over all of this information before getting to the meat of this entry is to lay the groundwork for how good I felt the other day. You see, the other day a video game was released that I wanted to buy. I don’t buy many video games because, frankly, I don’t have the time to play them. However, whenever a game comes out that seems like it might be fun and worth the money, I’ll buy the game. Well, you all know that I have this incredible student loan debt that I’m paying off via a crazy intense repayment plan that I put myself on. Let’s do some quick math:

New Video Game + Student Loan Debt = You’re Not Buying The Game

It’s simple. As I alluded to in my last student loan entry, I wanted the game, but I didn’t need the game. Yet in the real world game of money (which we’re all playing whether you know it or not) there are often opportunities to rearrange one’s existing assets to allow for new assets to be acquired.

What does that mean? Easy. It means that I set my eyes on the dusty DVD collection sitting in my bedroom and thought to myself, “I want that game and I’m willing to unload these assets to get it.” And that’s just what I did at the end of last week. I rounded up some 50+ DVDs, threw them in a bag, and went to my local F.Y.E. to trade them in. F.Y.E. actually offers either cash or store credit for your used DVDs. When I arrived at the store, the kid behind the counter told me that I would get more for each DVD if I accepted store credit instead of cash, so I went with that option.

Below is a list with all of the DVDs that I traded in for store credit and how much I received for each one. It’s pretty interesting.

What's left of my DVD collection

Starsky and Hutch – $2.15
Saturday Night Live: The Best of Jon Lovitz – $0.31
Joe Dirt – $1.25
Analyze This – $1.25
Boiler Room – $1.25
Grumpy Old Men – $2.50
Grumpier Old Men – $0.31
Ghostbusters 1 & 2 – $2.50
Zoolander – $1.25
Farhenhype 9/11 – $1.25
Fraggle Rock – Where it All Began – $2.50
The Island – $2.50
The Dukes of Hazzard – $2.50
Anchorman – $2.50
Alice in Wonderland: Made for TV Movie – $2.50
Dude, Where’s My Car? – $1.25
Rocky Triple Pack (Rocky 1, 2, and 3) – $4.38
National Treasure – $1.25
Planet of the Apes – $1.25
Spider-Man Deluxe Edition – $2.69
Spider-Man 2 – $2.50
The Day After Tomorrow – $1.25
Fantastic 4 – $1.25
A Fish Called Wanda – $2.50
Edward Scissorhands – $1.88
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: Top 10 Episodes from Season 1 – $2.50
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – $2.50
i, Robot – $2.50
Seven – $2.50
Men in Black II – $1.25
The Future is Wild – $3.75
Shark Tale – $1.25
Chicken Run – $2.50
Hulk – $1.25
The Green Mile – $1.88
Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure – $5.63
TNA Genesis 2005 – $2.50
The Rock – The People’s Champion – $4.84
‘Cause Stone Cold Said So – $1.25
Austin 3:16: Uncensored – $1.25
SummerSlam 2001 – $5.91
Unforgiven 2001 – $5.63
X-Men 1.5 – $2.50
X-Men 2 – $1.25
X-Men 3 – $2.50
Forrest Gump – $1.25
Million Dollar Baby – $2.50

Who would have thunk that Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (one of the many DVDs that I purchased, but never actually watched) would be worth over $5 to F.Y.E.? Amazing.

How much did I get for all of these unused, dust-collecting DVDs? How does $105.61 in store credit sound?! Not bad! What’s better is that the video game and necessary peripheral that I purchased from F.Y.E. wound up costing $102.69 after shipping and taxes. Talk about hitting the nail right on the head!

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And at the end of the day, not only have I rearranged some of my assets to acquire two new assets, but I unloaded a big portion of my dusty DVD collection. I don’t think that I’m on track to get rid of all of my DVDs, but I’m definitely looking at the DVDs you see in that picture and asking myself, “Which ones are next?”

What I’ve noticed in the last few Black Fridays is that there is a disconnect between the major retailers (Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target, etc) and the consumer-based desires of the middle class. Don’t get me wrong – these stores have the market cornered when it comes to mass producing somewhat inexpensive electronics and shoving them out the door to the masses. That’s great and I think that it is actually a service to many families in America. However, once you have that good or product, you’re not going to to go back and get another one – especially in the middle of a recession where each dollar is/should be scrutinized before it is spent.

I also think that the DVD and Blu-Ray DVD market is going to stay stagnant this Christmas season. Frankly, people don’t know whether or not they should start buying Blu-Ray discs in bulk or if this medium will be outdated in two or three years like the standard DVD. Plus, the cost of a Blu-Ray DVD is a bit out of range for the mass market. Not good for the electronics retailers.

I think that I’m going to become a Cyber Monday guy. There’s something about sitting in front of my computer to get the same exact sale price on an item that I could travel to the store to get (and that’s if there are enough items per that store and if I want to get to the store at the crack of dawn). Here’s hoping that your Black Friday adventures were more enjoyable and fruitful than mine were this year. If you have a good Black Friday 2009 story, I’d love to hear it in the comments section below!

As a part of the grand opening of this new website (which won’t happen until late December 2009 or possibly early January 2010) I am giving away a bunch of DVDs to randomly selected subscribers to the TNAStars.com Mailing List. The DVDs include:

– The 50 Greatest Moments in TNA History
– Knockouts, Volume 1
– Unstoppable: The Best of Samoa Joe
– Best of the Bloodiest Brawls (Scars and Stitches)

You can win one of these DVDs simply by signing up for the TNAStars.com Mailing List on the front page of TNAStars.com! This mailing list is completely safe and operated out of the Google Groups system so you can be sure that your e-mail and information are protected. So go on over and sign up for the mailing list today!

I’m not sure about the rest of you, but there are two Circuit City stores that I used to frequent and another few stores that I’ve been in and out of from time to time. The main store that I went to was in West Long Branch and while I knew some of the people who worked there a few years ago, I have no issues with saying that the customer service at the local store was horrendous. I’m not necessarily saying that the people who worked at the store were rude, but the local store never had the cash register open. In order to pay for your items, you actually had to stand next to the register in a line waiting to go to customer service to pay! What sense does that make?!

And almost without fail you’d reach the front of the line and the person in front of you would have an issue with the item that they were buying or you’d be caught behind a person who was returning an item in an overly involved transaction. I don’t fault the customers in these situations, but you have to wonder about the quality of the store when these types of things pop up during each trip to the place…

And it would appear that many consumers did begin to question the quality of Circuit City and instead started to spend their ever-scarcer dollars at the bigger box stores like Target and Wal-Mart. But there is another reason why my local Circuit City quickly fell out of favor with consumers…

The prices!

Circuit City was notorious for charging 15% – 25% higher for DVDs and CDs than what you could buy them for at Wal-Mart or Target! And to show you how out of touch the Circuit City people are with both the market and what their consumers want, I went to big liquidation sale at the local store over the weekend and I saw that DVDs were marked down 20%. Are you kidding me? Even after the 20% discount you still wind up paying more than you would by just going to Wal-Mart in the first place!

It’s incredible, really.

And to add an insult to the bargain shoppers, the local store had no price cuts on video games, computer hardware and software, or car radios and speakers. Amazing.

So while I do feel extraordinarily bad for the 30,000 employees who will now need to find a new job, I can’t say that Circuit City closing down is a surprise. They didn’t care about basic customer service, charged way too much for their products, and didn’t stay competitive with the times. What else could you expect from such a company?

Nintendo’s sales mark represents the most game systems sold in any month since November 2002, when Sony sold 2.7 million PlayStation 2 systems (priced at $200), Frazier says. The PS2 has gone on to sell about 43.2 million in the U.S.

A quick jump over to VGChartz.com shows us that Wii has sold 18.28 million units in the United States, which is a little less than 4 million more than its nearest competitor, Microsoft’s XBox 360. This number is also about 12 million more than the PlayStation 3, which would have almost certainly been cut as a product if Sony lost the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD war with Microsoft.

Anyway, the point here is that it is remarkable that the video game industry has only been marginally rocked by the market tumult. And it is even more impressive that Nintendo has managed to build a juggernaut system without the use of an internal hard drive or high definition graphics. Add in that the bulk of the games available for the Wii are family-friendly and generally leave the hardcore gamers out in the cold, and you have a real phenomenon in the video game industry.

As a guy who is financially invested in the successful outcome of at least one video game software company (which has not been mentioned in this post), I hope that the good news keeps coming in!

“Overall,” writes Heritage, “the typical American defined as poor by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family is not hungry and he had sufficient funds in the past year to meet his family’s essential needs. While this individual’s life is not opulent, it is equally far from the popular images of dire poverty conveyed by the press, liberal activists, and politicians.”

“Nearly three-quarters of poor U.S. households own a car,” says the study, “31 percent own two or more cars. Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions. Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception. Eighty-nine percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and more than a third have an automatic dishwasher.”

In these times of economic hardship, it makes you wonder how desperate some of our fellow Americans really are… Hey, if someone can afford a microwave, stereo, car, color television, and some type of DVD or VCR player, then they can certainly afford to pay the rent or mortgage each month, right?

When read statistics like these, it just makes you wonder how “bad off” we really are during this recession.

Each system has their drawing points. The XBox 360 has a library of games that far surpasses the competition, while the PlayStation 3 has a built-in high-definition DVD player and a vast collection of PSOne and PlayStation 2 games that are playable on the new system. The Wii, though, is priced at $250 – less than half of the competition – and sports and extremely simplified controller with high-tech motion sensors.

So do you go for the price of the Nintendo Wii, the power of the PlayStation 3, or the library of the XBox 360? For me, I’m not really sure. I’m a Final Fantasy fan, which means that I should probably focus on getting that PS 3, but I’m not looking to pay a ridiculous amount of money for a game system…which leads me to the Wii. But I also want a system with a large number of titles to choose from – hello XBox 360. Of course the XBox 360 runs us right back into that cost dilemma.

It seems like the Wii is the way to go, and given recent media reports, there is more excitement for the Wii than there is for the PS 3 launch. However, I spent a good deal of money putting together a powerful, high definition TV and surround sound setup in my apartment, so why not get a gaming system that utilizes all of these goodies?

But the thing that will probably keep me from jumping into the console wars and buying a next generation system right now (aside from price) is the fact that I really don’t get around to playing video games too often any more. I began playing Square-Enix’s Kingdom Hearts about a month ago and played it for 2 days before I just didn’t have the time to settle in with it. One of the fraternity guys who I advise was at my apartment the other day and said that he’s playing the new Final Fantasy 12 and that another one of the guys beat it in 65 hours.

Sixty-five hours?! Man…if I had an extra 65 hours in my week, I don’t know what I’d do. Actually, that’s a lie. I’d sleep more!

Getting back on track, though, I don’t think that I’m going to get a new system just yet. I want to see what Black Friday has to offer this year (it sucked in 2004 and was so-so in 2005). If there are great sales on games and accessories for these systems, then I’ll probably look into getting one. If not, then I’ll probably just wait until the new year to even think about getting one of these things!