Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Well, as a parent of a 1 year old, I have a slight advantage, in that we didn’t throw out a lot of stuff from his older sisters (my oldest is 16 years old). This means I have over 100 “retro” VHS videos that my son now watches, that I am sure are not available on DVD. If you go to garage sales these days you will usually find a VHS video player and/or a collection of VHS tapes, for next to nothing. Now the problem with the tapes is they do wear over age (I have noticed this with “Barney in Concert” :-), so you have to be careful or willing to blow $1 to maybe get a gem for you or your kids.

My next investment might be a DVD recorder, to transpose my 8mm Video tapes to DVD. Now remember that burnable DVD’s lifespan is not unlimited (I thought I read 10 years somewhere), but they are less likely to “snap”, “stretch” or “jam” than a tape.

One more thing to remember, is if you buy stuff at a Garage sale, you SHOULD throw out as much stuff in your house, just to make sure your house doesn’t become a junk heap! We got rid of about 8 garbage bags full of clothes (some given to friends, most donated to various organizations). Don’t let your house get cluttered! –C8j