[heatherlst]

I play the raincheck game. My husband only gets paid once a month, so I do a really big shopping the first week, and then only really cheap stuff and milk the other weeks. So I don't miss out on good sales, I get rainchecks. How I do this...I wait until the last day of the sale, go in that night, usually after 8 or so. Often they're sold out of whatever was a good sale, or the staff has already cleaned out the area to make room for new sales. I then pick up what small items I was already going to buy, and then get rainchecks for the stuff they were out of. I can then use that raincheck later with coupons, hopefully during super double coupons, during that first week of the month. Using coupons and rainchecks, I've gone from $450 a month for our family of four to $200-$250.