For the past year, my wife has been on a mission to find a reasonably-priced Sunbrella© outdoor patio umbrella.
When she began looking early last spring, the world was reeling from a wicked winter COVID spike and it seemed that everyone had the same idea to improve their homes' outdoor living spaces all at once.
We had a frustrating experience hunting down a ping pong table and outdoor furniture, including online orders from Costco that never arrived, and multiple dates awaiting a delivery that was repeatedly delayed until we canceled the order in frustration.
After 7 months of searching, my wife finally had her long awaited Eureka moment. Now that the skies are gray and the temperatures are cooling, the umbrellas are back on the market.
We were, at long last, benefiting from off-season arbitrage.
It reminded me of my 4th year med student rotation in orthopedic surgery at the South Tahoe Fracture Clinic.
Once I'd confirmed the sequence of my senior year rotations during the preceding summer, I hit the sporting good stores in San Francisco in order to have my pick of last season's rental snowboards and deeply discounted gear.
A lightly used rental board cost me about a hundred bucks with bindings, while a pair of last season's boots was another $60. A stop at my local Ross Dress for Less completed the look with a $30 jacket, while a borrowed a friend's waterproof ski overalls rounded out my look of discount chic.
The orthopedists I worked with helped me obtain some discounted passes (Homewood, Sierra-at-Tahoe), and what might have been an extremely expensive new sport became an affordable experience that fit my budget.
Physician finance bloggers often discuss big one-time wins like using geographic arbitrage in earning a high income while reducing cost of living expenses.
While these are certainly major wins worth pursuing, they tend to be one and done - you decide to be a neurosurgeon in the midwest and roll with that decision. This is akin to a "lump sum" win.
Committing to recurring, smaller wins in your everyday financial choices (such as seasonal arbitrage) can be an equally powerful tool in your saving toolkit, more of a gradual, "dollar cost averaging" type of win.