Someone works abroad and sends a portion of his or her salary back home. The salary can be 10-20x the equivalent back home coz the philippines is a third world country.

The reverse is also true. Lots of japanese, korean, american and other westerners retire in the philippines so they can live in relative luxury with their average retirement benefits. An average monthly retirement payment is a fortune in a third world country

My mom does this with me. I mentioned above that I stock up on jeans when down south but when mom comes to see me in Brooklyn, she stocks up on yarn!

She crafts a particular thing that takes a particular yarn and the best pricing she could get on the internet (no stores carry it in her area) was Turkey, or this one little outlet store deep in a Brooklyn neighborhood on the edge of Queens. The shipping costs actually made the Turkey yarn cheaper online but the outlet store had a much wider and better selection of color, thickness, sales, etc….then mom figured out that I know how to get to the neighborhood of the outlet store and that the er…Brooklynesque-ness of the place was perfectly safe.

Last trip we spent three hours in that store. Mom was in raptures and bought a year’s worth of yarn (they drive so transport isn’t an issue). Even took her picture with the sales staff in front of the building to prove to her knitting group that she had actually found this mythical place. It was a total hoot!

Paying for the cost of haulin’ herself doesn’t change if she throws a 50lb bag of dog food in the back seat on the way back home.

I suppose, with a full truck load weight=gas considerations could be an issue. But I live in a “fashion capital” and haven’t bought basics like jeans here in years. It is much cheaper to stock up in Carolina on the annual family visits. The savings in average cost on jeans more than makes up for taking an extra suitcase home on the train. (Maybe not on a plane but I don’t fly as a matter of principal so it is a non-issue for me, personally.)

Otherwise, living in Milwaukee and commuting to Chicago is financially a better deal.

Illinois residents are also supposed to report and pay the difference between lower sales tax rates paid on out-of-state purchases and what, for example, the Cook County sales tax would have been, which would negate that theoretical 5% discount.

Not to mention, I bought my truck from another state where vehicles are cheaper, but you pay sales tax in the state where you register it, so I didn’t have to pay any tax on my vehicle either!

I’ve bought all of my cars back in my Iowa hometown (3.5 hrs away), and for thousands less. Once I figured out what I wanted I’d have my father talk with the local dealer, get the details and then see if I was interested. Each time it’s worked out great. Visit for the weekend, and drive back in the new car.

Like right now we need some new furniture but I just can’t find something I like at the right price. So I just keep looking whenever I am out or check circulars waiting for a good deal. The downside is I have a few empty rooms in my house.

A big geographic arbitrage time is Tax Free Weekend – Missouri has a tax free weekend every year for back to school stuff. Even if you don’t have a student, it’s a good time to buy clothes, computers, computer software (there’s a price limit for both comps and software that it’s applicable to), school supplies, etc. The state of Kansas does not do this, though towns are able to decide to do so if they wish.

I’ve never bought from them, but I’ve used their inventory to test drive several different cars I was interested in without having to go to a bunch of different dealerships. At the time, I was also interested in their business model but I found that their prices were comparable to local dealership’s prices and I knew a dealership would haggle so I could save more money there.

We do periodically travel overseas, and for some things, if I keep it all under the return trip airplane luggage weight limit, we can stock up on simple items, clothing particularly.

The grocery prices in the town where I was living were crazy. Just milk and bread would be double what I would have to pay in the city where my parents lived, fruits and veggies were more.

The lower cost of groceries completely, plus extra, offset the gas and other useage costs of the 8hr round trip.

If I had extra money and needed to buy clothing or other items, the savings could be substantial.

And if I wanted to double up I’d offer a ride to the city to any other student who wanted to cover 1/2 the cost of gas

When purchasing something big like a car, just make sure you thoroughly research things like taxes, too. Here in Chicago our taxes are well over 10% so it used to be common for people to go out to surrounding counties or states with lower taxes to buy a car. That loophole got closed, though. Now I can still go to NW Indiana to buy a car for less, but I’ll get sent a separate tax bill that I have to pay.

My mother lives close to the Indiana border and often buys her groceries there because they have no taxes on food, unlike Illinois.