In my efforts to cut household costs I’m going to be making a concentrated attempt at utilizing coupons and watching for sales on regularly used items. My first opportunity to try out my new thrifty attitude came last night when I walked into CVS get some Halloween candy and saw that the laundry detergent we use was on sale for cheaper than I’d ever seen it. This was followed by noticing a sign that said something along the lines of spend $30 and get a $10 gift card. What luck! I loaded up my basket with all sorts of “on sale” items that we always need at the house including some first aid items that were advertised as buy one, get one 50% off.
Upon leaving the store with all of my great buys, I started scanning my receipt to see what my total savings were and realized in my quest for great savings I may have missed some of the finer details of the sale! Firstly, my first aid items were all full showing as full price, apparently there was no mix and match on the 50% deal. As if that wasn't enough, when I got home I realized my boyfriend must have bought some first aid stuff recently so we now have way more than we need! Lastly, only $7 of my $40 purchase applied to the gift card deal! I suppose I could have gone in and returned most of it but I was too embarrassed by my blunder. This morning I stopped in again (it’s right across from my job) and picked up the store circular for an explanation of where I went wrong… I had to comb through it a bit but all of my mistakes could have been avoided had I read the ad first. At least I had earned a few extra care bucks on the purchase so it wasn’t a complete wash!
Although my first attempt at leading a more money-savvy lifestyle was not a success per se. I did learn some valuable lessons. One, a little advance planning would probably be a better approach to sale shopping to figure out what we really do need. Two, I need to stop and read the fine print!