Computers are a very important part of our lives. Besides the television, computer is one appliance that could be found in most American homes. Some even has two or more depending on the needs. You might have one and your kids are constantly clamoring to have one in their own room. With the prices of computers going down almost every quarter, you can safely go to any computer store and buy a computer or a laptop for your kids and family.

But even though the prices are dwindling, the prices of the decent computer who can handle a few tasks get your kids to play some games are still very expensive by itself. A good computer that can handle a good number of software’s and games today will cost you no less than a thousand dollars.

Buying a brand new computer is the safest way to go to give your kids the best equipment that could stay for a couple of years. However, don’t just go any electronic shops and buy one. There are money-saving alternatives so that you could pay less and gain more.

The cheapest computers you can find today are not in your local markets but online. Websites such as eBay and Amazon are some of the places you’ll find the cheapest computers. Some of them are refurbished while others are brand new. But before you buy them, be sure to check their warranties as it could be sold “as is” which means they don’t offer any warranty that any damages either by shipping or inherent to the computer will not be repaired by the seller. There are also online stores that specialize in refurbished computers only the only downside for refurbished computers is that they may not be as efficient as they used to be considering the hardware demands of today’s computer applications.

When buying a brand new computer, don’t go for monthly payments. Even though the monthly bill could be only $15.00 a month, the staggering credit card interest rates (the payment is automatic) and the manufacturers’ interest rates will balloon the original $799.00 personal computer to a whopping $1,100. If you’re doing business with the local store, go for cash and ask for a discount. Hard cash means extra money for the owner and lesser paper pushing just to get earnings.

The best money saving tip on buying a computer is: build it yourself. You don’t even have to be a genius in computers to build one. You will be surprised how cheap computer parts are and the wide variety of choices. If you’re an office guy or your kids only need the computer to go online and work on their book reports, you can a pretty powerful computer that’s less than $400.00. The hardest part of building your own computer is only that you might be too concerned with parts that you end up spending more than what you should have. Also computer parts are built to exactly fit on each component so if it doesn’t fit, don’t force it.

When you have bought or purchased the computer, the spending doesn’t end there. You still have to buy office applications for your computer. As of this writing most of the computers could either come in Vista, XP, Leopard or Linux Operating System for free but no office applications? You don’t have to buy MS office and spend another hundred dollars. Instead look for the application called Open Office which behaves like MS Office only that you won’t have to pay a single cent to use it. It’s also compatible to MS office files so you won’t even have to convert the Open Office files to be read by the MS Office and vice versa.