Most of the time, waiting really pays off
Posted by: SueI’ll confess to being an impulsive shopper in the past. Oh, yeah, especially if I was out with friends on a shopping expedition, or heaven forbid, the “shop till you drop girls getaway weekends.” Let’s face it, especially when with friends in a party-like atmosphere, it’s easy to get carried away and buy, buy, BUY.
And it was exciting initially. I remember my friend and I, on one such weekend, chuckling over the fact that the entire trunk of her car was filled with our purchases. Did we need most of it? No, but it sure was fun at the time.
At the time. Those are key words. Because a day or two later, or maybe a week or two later, the thrill was gone from most of the purchases. And on more than one occasion, buyer’s remorse set in. WHY did I buy that? What WAS I thinking? I probably wasn’t. Thinking, that is.
Over the course of the years, I decided to get my spending in check. Let’s face it, I have too much STUFF. You know you have too much stuff when you donate a few bags of stuff to Goodwill, throw out several bags, and have no extra room to show for it. I mean, what’s up with that? Does stuff expand when you remove other stuff, to fill in the blank spaces?
So what I decided to do was to institute a wait policy. Not for groceries or necessities; if I did that, I’d spend too much of my time - to say nothing of gasoline - going back and forth to grocery stores. No, this is for other things that are not of a necessary nature, but are optional. Or they may become necessitites, but at the moment, they are not. The waiting period varies, but it is at least several days, and is more often measured in weeks.
Case in point - my husband managed to break the big food processor last month. It had been a yardsale purchase over 10 years ago, and I paid all of $2 for it. It was old when I bought it, and ancient when it died. We do consider a food processor a necessity - it really helps speed up food prepartion during canning season. I mean, we did all the chopping for salsa by hand one year (before it occured to us that this would be a good use for the food processor.) We do a LOT of canning, and we really appreciate our food processors. We have a mini food processor, but that just isn’t the greatest for big batches - and has serious limitations to the size and type of cutting and shredding it can do.
Fortunately, the food processor died in March. Certainly not canning season, not around these parts. So my husband and I went out looking for a new one. LOOKING. We were not going to rush out and buy. If you have the luxury being able to wait to make a purchase, you can save a lot of money. No, this was just a fact finding mission, to see what was out there, and what the price range was for what we wanted. Because of how much we’ve come to use the food processor, we decided that we wanted a brand new one this time, so we could get the options we want.
Oooh, baby, food processors have changed over the past 30-some years. And they can be expensive. We saw some cheapy ones, but had serious doubts and reservations about them. Predictably, a food processor with the features we wanted would run us anywhere from $150 to $200. We decided which models would fit the bill, then sat back to wait.
And wait. The next few weeks, nothing we wanted went on sale. Then, I saw a Kohl’s flyer that had one of the models we were considering on sale for $99. AND…this was during one of those promotions where you get either 15%, 20% or 30% off all purchases with either the catalog mailed to Kohl’s credit card holders, or scratch-offs given at the register. I said to my husband “If I get a 30% off on my catalog, we’re buying it.” Woohoo, that’s exactly what happened. So we ended up getting our new food processor for $69 and change. Less than half of what we would have paid if we rushed out and bought a new food processor the day the old one died.
So waiting saved us a lot of money on that purchase. Now, there are always exceptions to waiting paying off, mainly if you see something you truly need at a phenomenal price and you know it probably won’t be there if you wait and come back. Strangely enough, this happened to us on the same trip as the food processor purchase. We noticed an 80% off clearance area, and there were thermal shirts in both my size and my husband’s size. We live in Wisconsin. We spend a lot of time outside year round. We also keep the house cool in winter. Thermal shirts are a very good thing. These were originally $20 each, and were now $4. And remember, I had the 30% off coupon. $2.80 for brand new thermal shirts is about as good as it’s gonna get. No waiting on this purchase. Those four thermal shirts were scooped up along with the food processor.
So it does happen that sometimes it’s best not to wait, but I’ve found that to be the exception to the rule. For the most part, waiting before purchasing has saved us a LOT of money.
April 29th, 2009 at 11:28 am
I understand all about the necessity of being patient when bargain shopping. One site that has EXCELLENT deals for clothes, etc is http://www.kohlsbargains.com. Some days the deals are the same as the previous days, but other days…WOW, deals galore. I am now able to dress my sons for under $5 an outfit (yes, brand new stuff), and my husband for about $10 (work clothes, with dockers and chaps dress shirts).
One thing you have to do sometimes to get the best deals is to sign up for a store charge card. Kohl’s is no different. When you have a Kohl’s card, you qualify for free shipping and additional discounts (up to an additional 30% off). Just make sure you pay it off each month, and you will soon find yourself dressing your family for pennies on the dollar!
May 12th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
I like to go to slickdeals.net, they have a whole area for coupons plus all kinds of deals, not just Kohls. It’s like going to a super discount mall, everything is in one location. They do have some threads for specific stores like Kohls so be sure to check those out too. Lots of people post so you can usually find someone to answer a question or even give you feedback on a product.
May 25th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
I like slickdeals and fatwallet as they have deals for everything (not just Kohls clothing), coupons, freebies and some chat - you can search and find what you want from this wonderful selection.
Also, if Kohls is your store of choice, slickdeals has a thread with codes to discount your purchases further, even free shipping (requires a kohls credit card). A shout out to becky - my last shout out to you, happy searching for your own deals!