How to buy a computer and not get screwed

In light of the fact that I recently just purchased a new computer (it's about a month old) I though I would write a blog entry outlining how to be successful with a computer purchase. Let me tell you my story.

For the past few years, I have used an a dell laptop that is about 6-7 years old. It's no surprise that it couldn't run the latest and greatest games, so I was looking for an upgrade. This is was my luck:

• Bought a monitor off of my friend (I got a 21 1/2 inch monitor for 50 only bucks! I lucked out.)
• Purchased a barebones kits off Tigerdirect.com (Motherboard, processor, HDD, memory, case, power supply, and cpu fan only)
• Had two separate friends give me a keyboard and a decent enough graphics card for now. 

I can't stress enough how satisfied I am with my purchase. For about 350-400 dollars I have a pretty nice setup. My specs are: 2.8 Ghz quad core processor, 8 Gb RAM, TB HDD, ASUS motherboard, and 240 series Nvidia geforce graphics card. So far it has worked great for me, and all of the games I have played have ran completely fine. I HAVE NEVER BUILT A COMPUTER BEFORE. Don't be afraid of building your own pc. I bought a barebones kit because I wanted one less headache: worrying about compatibility. Building a pc is remarkably easier than it is often believed. I literally got my 2 packages in the mail (computer case in one, all other components in the other) around 3pm in the afternoon, and by the end of the day it was already up and running Windows 7 without any problems.

Lastly a word about Apple: I'm not in love with macs or macbooks. It's too much simplification for me. I like knowing I can always open up my computer's case and replace a part at any time. But, don't get me wrong, there are certainly enjoyable aspects of the simplification and user friendliness that Apple brings. For instance, I love my ipod touch and while I personally don't view ipads as a necessity, I enjoy using my friend's and wouldn't mind owning one. It's just mac computers that I haven't been able to get in to. Not to mention you can usually save a lot of money doing similar to what I did instead of purchasing a mac, but I guess that applies to any premade computer, not just macs in particular.

Good luck, hope my little story was informative to those of you out there that are considering a computer upgrade or buying a desktop pc for the first time. :)