22 Jan

Cheapism: Your Guide to the Best Budget Products

Written by Kathryn Vercillo on January 22, 2010

There is a new site available for people who live a frugal lifestyle. It’s called Cheapism and it serves the purpose of letting you know about the best budget buys across a variety of different product categories. This may sound like something you’ve seen before but it’s not. The difference between Cheapism and many other sites out there is that they read reviews of as many different budget products as they can and then let you know which ones are worth buying and which ones aren’t worth even the lowest budget price. Following you’ll find an overview of this new site which should help you determine whether or not it’s right for you.

Defining Cheapism

Cheapism is a term coined by the site which is defined as “an economic system in which individuals acquire goods and services at relatively low rates without sacrificing quality.”

Who Cheapism is For

Cheapism is for frugal shoppers who want to get the most for their money. It is intended as a comparison shopping tool for people who are interested in purchasing only inexpensive products (either because they believe in being frugal or because they simply can’t afford to buy anything other than budget stuff). Cheapism aims to provide these consumers with the best information about which products are worth it in the budget category.

What Makes Cheapism Different from other Sites?

A few things set Cheapism apart from other sites. Those things include:

They are the only site that focuses on reviewing only those products that fit into a budget price category. Experts in reviewing products often leave this category either untouched or underreported. Other sites may tell you what budget options are available but will then go on to tell you why it’s worth it to spend more. Cheapism is committed to telling you which of the budget products is best.
They compile reviews from a variety of credible sources. They get their information from both experts and consumers. They summarize this information so that you get the best reviews of the products that interest you without having to go from one site to another to do your comparison shopping. Most sites offer their own reviews or have reviews from just one category (either experts or consumers). Cheapism tries to give you a balanced view of what different people all think about the same products.

Straight from the Horse’s Mouth

Cheapism defines what they do by saying:

“What we do at Cheapism is review the low price products and services in
various categories and then create a thorough buying guide on how to buy
budget products in that category. Our editorial process involves defining
the low-price range for each category, identifying must have features,
summarizing key performance attributes, and then analyzing relevant reviews
and recommending the best budget buys and what to avoid. We follow strict
journalistic editorial guidelines when creating our content and take great
pride in our articles.”

Cheapism’s Goal

Cheapism points out that analysts are claiming that the recession is ending but that there are still millions of people who are unemployed or underemployed. Even those people who are newly employed are still feeling the effects of the recession. These people either need to or want to continue to live frugally. The recession has caused “cheap” to no longer be a negative term but instead to be something that people strive for. We all want to be frugal now. Cheapism’s goal is to help people meet their frugal living goals without having to sacrifice in terms of the quality of products that they purchase.

What Other People Have to Say About Cheapism

We may like what Cheapism is doing but you don’t have to take our word for it. Other people have had a lot of good things to say about the site as well. Examples include:

Cheapism was chosen as a site of the week by Consumer Reports’ Shop Smart magazine.
Time Magazine’s Money Blog lists Cheapism as a favorite site.
Kiplinger noted that Cheapism helps consumers “find quality goods at affordable prices”.
WiseBread’s Nora Dunn wrote that Cheapism is “where cheap is chic”.
WalletPop gave a positive review to Cheapism. So did Thrifty Mama and ProBargainHunter.

What do you think about the new Cheapism site?

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