Buying Parts & Saving Money

I recently wanted to build a solid state voltage & current regulator for the Zenith Transoceanic radios from an article I found.

Now I called maybe 15 different companies, and looked on the 'net to find what I needed.
 Finding the company, I called them & spoke to a very nice rep.
 I inquired about buying the special IC I needed, as well as the other parts.
 Well, it seems that the 1N4148 diodes were .10 ea., and I needed a number of them.  I asked where the price break was and he said 100 pcs. The price dropped to .01 ea!!!
  The same was with the other parts I needed. Huge price drops when buying 50-100 of them all.
 So, when you need just one part, check on the price break quantities, especially on common items like diodes, resistors, capacitors, etc.

 What? You will never use the 100 diodes, capacitors, transistors, etc? Well, just find a friend or two who would like some and make a bulk buy.
 Just be aware that some prices can be too good to be true and you can get counterfeit or out of spec parts.
 Sometimes a few more cents per item will result in good quality parts, and that will make your project work first time without having to troubleshoot it. 

  Also check every part before installing it. I learned that the hard way. It doesn't matter who makes the part, there will be DOA parts right out of the box. QC is never 100%.