I love to shop. Whether in department stores, grocery stores, discount stores, or almost any other places of business, I love catching the items that I want to buy on sale, which is wonderful, especially if coupons can be used in conjunction with the sale items or if there is a manufacturer's rebate offer.
What do I buy on sale? I buy only the "on sale" products that I need. If I can't find what I want on sale at one store, I try others, or I wait until it goes on sale at my favorite store. I have been known to ask the cashier or the market stocking clerk if a particular product is going to go on sale soon or when it might be discounted.
I cut coupons from the Sunday newspaper and I look for them in throw away papers. You can find some really good coupons online, too. I really like the stores that double the coupon value, but not many stores do that.
Rebates are nice, too. Sometimes I forget that I sent off for the rebate and then one day I look in my mailbox and there is a nice check. I love it!
As a woman, and most women know what I'm talking about, the sales are what I live for. If I'm not in desperate need of a product, I wait, sometimes for months, until I see it advertised on sale somewhere and that is when I go for it.
Catching it on sale does not mean that I buy everything I see that has a sales price on it. I am very particular with what I buy and I do my homework.
I know that some things that are advertised as being on sale are not discounted at all. In some cases, stores raise the price of certain items and then put a discount price on them. Believe me, that is not a sale at all.
Several years ago, I bought an item from a department store that was supposedly on sale for 50% off the regular price. A few weeks later, I went into the same store and found that the item that I had bought on sale was being sold at regular price for what I had bought it for at at the 50% off sales price.
Needless to say, that taught me a valuable lesson. Now, when I catch things on sale, I look before I leap. I make sure that the price was not raised beforehand and I do comparison shopping at other stores.
Even with the buy one, get one free items that I look for, I make sure that I am getting the value. If I find that a store raises it's prices before putting products on sale, I quit shopping in that store because it was being dishonest and deceptive to their customers.
Nevertheless, most stores are honest when they put products on sale and they do what is in their best interest to please their customers. They know that happy customers is what keeps them in business.