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brief break
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I hope your holidays are blessed with love, laughter, fun, and fellowship. I’m taking a short blogging break, but hope to be able to resume regular posting soon into the new year. Blessings!
right place, right time
Sometimes you’re just in the right place at the right time….
A couple of days ago, I went shopping at Target to finish up my Christmas shopping. The night before, I made a list of the items I still needed (stocking stuffers and things like that), perused the Sunday ads to see which store had the largest number of the items on my list on sale, and went through my coupons and found all of the relevant ones. I found more coupons on Target.com and printed them out. I found some really great deals ~ several of the items I needed were on sale at Target, and I had a manufacturer’s coupon as well as a Target coupon for most of those items. Triple up on the savings ~ that makes it worth the trip. 
So, there I was at Target, checking items off my list and concentrating on getting the items I knew I needed to get ~ sticking to the list is usually the best way for me to get in and out of a store without spending more than I intend to spend. But on this day I think God just decided I needed a little extra gift. I was heading towards the electronics department when I passed the clearance rack at the back of the bedding section ~ and that’s where it caught me eye. On one of the clearance shelves was a boxed Simply Shabby Chic white decorative shelf. We’ve been slowly trying to redecorate a few rooms in the house, and one of the things I’ve been on the look-out for are good decorative items. This particular shelf was just the kind of item I had on that mental list. So even though I was on a mission to the electronics department, I stopped at that clearance shelf. And I’m glad I did!
I checked the box over, and there was no damage to it. So I looked at the price tag. Are you ready for this? The regular price was just under $56 ~ and the little red clearance tag read $6.84. WHAT?! There had to be something wrong with it. It had to be a return or something. But for $6.84, I was willing to snag it, take it home and check it out.
I finished my shopping, checked out (where the cashier commented on my adept combining of sale items and coupons, and my clearance shelf find), put everything into the trunk and headed home. I was still a little doubtful that the shelf would turn out to be as good of a deal as I was hoping it would be, but again I was willing to take the chance.
After I got home and put away all of my sale/coupon items, I carried into the house the box containing my “steal” of the day, the decorative shelf. I examined the box again, and still couldn’t find any damage to it. I opened the box, and noted that it did not appear to have been re-packed. You know when you buy something, get it home, take it out of the box, and realize there’s something wrong with it, and no matter how hard you try you absolutely cannot put it back into the packaging and make it look as good as it did coming out of the factory? Yeah, well, that didn’t appear to be the case here. So I carefully sliced the packing tape, opened in inner box, took out the directions, and found the package of hardware needed to put the shelf together. That hardware package contained 8 small packages of groups of hardware. I pulled out each small package and compared it to the individual package contents listed in the book of directions. None of the hardware packages appeared to have been opened, and every single piece of each of those 8 hardware packages appeared to be present in its package.
At this point I thought to myself, “Self, you may have just found the deal of the week!” I took a picture of the box just to show you (because I know how much you love when I share my big savings finds with you) ~ here it is:
I took a couple of pictures of the little red clearance tag that reads $6.84, but they didn’t turn out well. They’re too blurry to read. I’ll try to get a good pic with my better digital camera and post it ~ I need to put a picture of this box with the readable tag in a scrapbook or something! LOL
Despite my intention to be in and out of Target that day, buying only the items on my list, I’m thankful to have noticed this gem of a deal. Now, I haven’t put the whole thing together yet, so there’s still the possibility that the shelf (cabinet) may NOT turn out to be the deal of the week. But you know what? At this point I’ve had my $6.84-worth of pleasure from this item, so if something is wrong with it my heart won’t be broken!
coupons, rebates and savings galore
I am not a fan of the holiday shopping season. A lot of people are, and that’s great if it’s something you enjoy ~ but getting up at 4am the day after a holiday to fight the crowds just to save a couple of dollars is not on my list of fun things to do.
I am, however, a fan of shopping online, and I’m definitely a fan of big savings. Do you know how many web sites there are that will help you save some serious money while doing almost all of your shopping online? About a gazillion. Seriously. A gazillion. Recently I became a member of several of them ~ all free memberships ~ and already they’ve paid off (literally).
I have needed a new mixer for a while now. My in-laws gave us a Sunbeam stand mixer as a wedding present over 20 years ago. Earlier this year I started noticing that electrical smell that small appliances give off when they’re about to quit working. I let Roger know we were going to need to get a new mixer soon, and outlined the benefits of a couple of different brands I was interested in possibly purchasing. I won’t go into the debate over whether a Bosch is better than a Kitchenaid ~ that’s one of those things you’ll have to decide for yourself.
A few nights ago Roger and I were talking about what we would like for Christmas. We’ve been married for a long time now, and quite honestly getting a nice appliance I know I need is no longer offensive to me. Roger spent the first 17 or 18 years of our marriage giving me nice jewelry as gifts, because he knows how much I like pretty, shiny, sparkly things I can wear. He has proven he truly does understand that giving your wife a vacuum cleaner or a mixer for her birthday, anniversary, Valentine’s Day, Christmas, or any other day that it’s conventional to give a gift to one you love is NOT okay. I’ve trained him well.
This year I asked for a new mixer. Roger was a little taken aback by that, and he questioned me over and over to make sure a new mixer really was the thing I wanted for Christmas. I was finally able to assure him that I WANT (not to mention NEED) a new mixer, and that buying me a small appliance for Christmas was not something that would go on the “Hold Against Roger Forever List” (unlike buying a $500 dog ~ that I didn’t even want ~ on our 14th anniversary. Sorry honey, but that is one I don’t intend to ever let you live down!)
I did all of the research, and decided for my purposes a Kitchenaid would be a very good investment. If I were an everyday bread baker I would probably have asked for a Bosch ~ and again, I really don’t want to get into that whole debate ~ but since I bake bread only occasionally, and I’ve never needed to make more than one loaf at a time on any given day, the Kitchenaid has the features I was looking for. The spoiled little girl in me wasn’t willing to settle for the lesser Kitchenaid though. I wanted the big mama of the Kitchenaid family ~ the professional 600 series mixer. Try as I might to get rid of her, that spoiled little girl inside me always seems to reappear. This time, however, I was able to satisfy the spoiled little girl in me AND the grown-up in me who really would like to get the most for my money.
I joined Ebates because I have heard people talking about it and have read quite a number of posts on blogs and Facebook by people who love shopping through Ebates. Then through Ebates I was able to find a store that had the mixer I wanted on sale, and they were offering free shipping with the purchase of $100 or more. I also had a coupon code for that store for an additional 20% off. The store’s page for the mixer had a link to a rebate form I could print out and receive $$ back from Kitchenaid. On that particular day, the store was offering rewards dollars (basically a gift card that can be used at that store for a future purchase), and the cash back value on Ebates on that day was higher than it usually is. Wow.
All told, I bought a mixer that normally sells for $500, and I paid a little over $200 for it. There’s a possibility that if I had continued looking around for a couple more days I may have been able to save a few dollars more, but I’m VERY happy with the deal I got. My time and effort are worth more than the additional $5 or so I might have saved if I’d waited and done a ton more research.
If you’re not a member of Ebates, you really should check it out. The membership form doesn’t take long to fill out, and you don’t have to give them any kind of credit card or bank account information.
If you decide to join Ebates, please use my link. You and I will each earn a $5 credit to our accounts from Ebates just for you signing up and becoming a qualified member! Really it’s a win-win situation. The next time you need to buy something, look it up on Ebates and buy it through their site. Ebates will give you a percentage of your purchase price back ~ so what have you got to lose?!