Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Happy Dance


Have you heard about the genealogical happy dance? It is when you are surprised with pleasant information. It's what you do when you finally found the information you needed to break down the brick wall about a particularly secretive ancestor. Generally this happens at a library or courthouse where you have to keep your dance tame and subdued.

I haven't heard about a quilting happy dance, but I would probably do a quilting happy dance after a particular successful and productive day when things went really well, or when I finally finish a pesky UFO.

I definitely haven't heard of a couponing dance, and generally don't have those. When I was living by myself, a few times I only bought the things that were really good deals, and I managed to get $50 worth of groceries for about $5, or some such extreme savings, I was happy. But now I buy the stuff that we generally buy (if it is on sale) on top of the big savings items, so the savings doesn't look as extreme. Besides, generally I know before going to the store what kind of savings I am going to have, so it doesn't seem that surprising when I get to the store.

But this weekend I had a couponing happy dance. I had just read a blog that encourages you to look at the clearance stuff. And my brother-in-law had found some gel pens - you know the frosting you use to write on cakes, they normally come in tubes, but he showed me some that were in pens, and there was a box that had several different colors in it. I've been on the look out for that. I couldn't find that, but what they did have was this Automatic Toilet Bowl cleaner, regular price $23.99, marked down to $11.99. Now normally, I wouldn't even think of it, because, after all, I don't really find it all that hard to clean the toilet bowl. Washing my hands afterwards takes longer than swiping a brush around the small space. And a dollar or two off $11.99 is still expensive for something I don't need.

But, something told me to look for a coupon anyway. And I found one, it was for $10.00! It was a surprise, and I did have to suppress a couponing happy dance.

When I went to the cash register, the cashier even remarked at the $11.99 price. She said, get this, "You can't beat that price," to which I had to say "Oh yes I can." I bought a $23.99 item for $1.99 plus tax. I would have paid that much for the cleaning solution alone, so it isn't an extraneous purchase.

P.S. If you are interested in finding about money saving ideas, deals in your area, coupons, free samples, free ebooks, etc., I've found a couple of websites that I really like. Money Saving Mom is a blog that posts several posts a day about deals she has found. You have to sign up for Coupon Mom, but she has has listings by store, which makes it convenient, and tells you the percentage of savings off the regular price, so you can tell if something is just on sale, or if it is a really really good deal. Besides showing you lots of coupons online, both tell you the date of the paper to get the coupons from, so you don't have to clip the coupons until you are ready to use them. Simply put the date on the coupon packet and file it until you need it. I clip all the coupons and take them all to the store with me.

2 comments:

Allie said...

Holy cow. I wish you lived next door, I'd follow you along on shopping day!

Paula, the quilter said...

I have heard of quilting Happy Dances when a quilter gets accepted into a prestigious quilt show. I, too, wish you lived closer so I could ride your couponing coat-tails.