For the longest time, I would simply take whatever price was given at launch. However, it is upon having acquired the following deals — [Haul] Bayonetta: Cereza and the Lost Devil (NS1), Astral Chain (NS1), Pokémon Legends Z-A (NS2 Edition), and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment (NS2) in addition to a copy of DKBananza & an extra $60USD; [Payment] three old Switch games + $30USD — which I have come to realize that I’ve been wasting a *ton* of money.

In order to share the good news that indeed, yes, you CAN game on a budget, I have created this thread.

Share all your tips, tricks, and whatever offers you come across.

My current strategy: Follow Wario64 on X & play hardball with deals on Facebook Marketplace. Don’t settle for less than your value; a better deal will come up sooner or later.

Word of Advice: If only you’re looking to get one or two NS2 games from this offer, to get the discount purchase two or one (resp.) pre-owned copies of DKBananza & resell each for $50-60 (or trade). All the sudden, you’ve gotten yourself an NS2 game for only $10-30.

Patience is probably the best way to save money, especially when combined with a price comparison service that lets you compare the prices of products across different stores.

Some services have price watches that alert you when the price of a product/search meets the watch price you've set. Internationally, I know gg.deals has such functionality, but I think the site tracks only digital stuff, so that's definitely a limiting factor. For physical stuff, a local eBay-equivalent has this, but it's probably not very useful to most of you. I'm not sure if eBay and such have such alerting functionality too. Maybe?

Note that this is coming from a North American perspective.

I use Deku Deals a lot. You can filter games by "Currently discounted", "At all-time low", or "New lowest price".

If you're okay with the international versions of physical Switch games (versus the N. American versions), you can often find them relatively cheap on sites like Woot.

I live in Canada. I find some physical games are gone faster than waiting for it to get a price drop/sale. Maybe they're even being short printed or not shipping as many copies here?

Was waiting for a physical copy of the Indiana Jones PS5 to get cheaper or any sale; it was gone less a year's release. Here's to wishing they'll rerelease it, or release a new one with the new DLC bundled.

Ooh! Just snagged Super Mario Party for $20 off FB Marketplace. I’ve been searching for the game at this price for literal years!!

Necrobumping: Anybody have any good deals they know of at the moment? I'm seeing Steam has a big sales for Sonic, Crash, and Spyro— though admittedly there have been better sales (according to IsThereAnyDeal.com). And these a digital, not physical.

Smyth games has Sonic Crossworlds at £25 in the UK, and Amazon has it for £30. One week after I paid £40, that's my luck lol.

No Man Sky is £15.99 on the Eshop right now with free SW2 upgrade. Awesome game.

I'm waiting for Crossworlds to go below or at $20 before I consider purchasing. I'm stuck on whether this would be better for Switch 2 (for ownership and portability purposes) or on PC (for performance and convenience of access).

Here are some tricks I know based on how old the game is.  I'm in the US.

Brand New or Relatively New - Walmart sometimes sells new games $10 cheaper than other retailers.  Buying online (Ebay or Amazon) can often save a few $.

Current Generation Systems - Buy and Sell on Ebay.  Mostly you are paying shipping plus around 13% in Ebay fees.  Gamestop sometimes has buy 2 get 1 free deals, but I find Gamestop's selection to not be as good as they were 10-20 years ago.

One Generation Old - You can buy a lot of games cheaply on Ebay if you search for "game lots".  This is probably an ideal time to buy PS4 game lots, and you might find some good Switch ones too.

More than one Generation Old - Cheap games are best to find at flea markets and retro game stores, because you can avoid shipping costs.  After that you have to compare retro game stores to online prices.  I have found one store in my area that is competitive or better than online prices, but the other retro stores tend to be more expensive.