Buying electronics components

The nearest electronic components shop was located in SS2 in  Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. This shop have a wide variety of common electronics parts but you must know what parts you needed as they do not offer a "Starter Kit" to newbies. I had a long list of parts taken from the Make : Electronics book like resistors, transistors, LEDs, potentiometers (pot in short), capacitors, alligator clips, breadboard and jumper cables.

I had no idea how much it cost per parts so I buy in small quantities but found out they were really cheap especially the resistors. Some of the parts I needed they have no stocks and I have no idea what other parts can replaced it.

The biggest issue are the resistors and capacitors, I somehow ended up with those resistors and capacitors I do not need and the lab examples always needed some other parts that I do not have. Since they are kinda cheap, I ended up buying lots of different resistors ( 220R, 330R, 1K, 10K, 20K, 1M and many many more ) and different types of capacitors in different farad ratings. Here is a good link to the resistors colour codes calculator.

So the first thing as a beginner I learn about electronics or Arduino, get the Arduino Starter Kit and save all the hassle and trouble of making a few trips to the electronic components shop.