After Halloween sale

[disneysteve]

A week ago, I stopped into Walgreen's to pick up something. On a table by the register, they had the cutest light-up Winnie the Pooh jack-o-lanterns. They were $12.99. Although I really liked them and wanted one for our collection, there was no way I was paying full price. I knew that in a week, they'd be 50% off. Yes there was the chance that they would sell out, but we have several Walgreen's in the area and I figured I could find one somewhere. So I made a mental note to get back there right after the holiday.

Today was the day. DW and I went to the library and I stopped at Walgreen's on the way home. They still had the Pooh pumpkins but they weren't 50% off. They were 75% off!

By waiting a week, I paid $3.24 instead of $12.99. Not a bad savings for having a bit of self-control and delayed gratification.

[irmanator]

awesome!!

[lovcom]

I completely agree with your post!

However and I nitpik here...I would still not buy that "stuff". I know this is a highly personal and subjective call, and at the end of the day, buying that stuff will not hurt most folks, but those types of purchases can add up over a life time. Perhaps if my adult daughters were still kiddies, I'd write differently.

Call me a kill joy, cause often I am, but in my mind, I see the $3.24 today as $324.00 in retirement dollars.

Still, your message of delayed gratification and looking out for discounts is not lost, and I do appreciate your thinking on all this.

I guess this horrible job economy weighs heavily on my mind, even as I am gainfully employed, have no debt (mortgages only), and have a fat EF (36 months worth), but it's the future that haunts me; in other words, today I am okay, but what will tomorrow bring?

I too am guilty of such subjective purchases, which are wants but not really needs. Over the last 18 months I have moved to a stance of justifying every single expenditure, especially the big ones but even the tiny ones too.

The times we live in I guess...a lot of IT jobs are flowing off-shore, or to on-shore foreigners that are working for half or less of what a typical American IT worker would get paid. It is sad our government is not watching the backs of workers here. All this talk of global village, and open trade, and sure that's all noble and great, but at what rate, and at what level of damage to our own, our fellow Americans.

Back in the late '80s, I was mesmerized by a presidential candidate: Ross Perot. You might remember his constant motto: "NAFTA, we don't HaveTa". And yet today, his company is one of the biggest off-shoring IT companies in America! Hypocracy at it's worse :-(

I guess if your current job is very secure, a $3.24 halloween item is nothing worth thinking about, but I'm very concerned about the future of all us American workers.

I try to keep all my purchases to necessities...color me a paranoid saver...I just might be! lol

These days I spend just on gas, utilities, food, and yes, some recreation and fun, but I am so careful.

[disneysteve]

Point taken, lovcom. I often say that a bargain isn't a bargain if it is something you didn't need in the first place.

Personally, my job is secure so I'm not the least bit concerned about an expenditure like this. And being 45, that $3.24 is only about $11.00 in retirement money (if you know where I can grow it to $324.00 let me know and I'll return Pooh).

We don't spend as much on these types of things as we used to, so we have cut back but have not cut out entirely.

[lovcom]

Point taken, lovcom. I often say that a bargain isn't a bargain if it is something you didn't need in the first place.

Personally, my job is secure so I'm not the least bit concerned about an expenditure like this. And being 45, that $3.24 is only about $11.00 in retirement money (if you know where I can grow it to $324.00 let me know and I'll return Pooh).

We don't spend as much on these types of things as we used to, so we have cut back but have not cut out entirely.

I have to say this "great" recession has really made an impression on me...lol...At 49 I never thought I'd become my old man; a depression era baby who was annul about turning off lights, etc...lol

In May I purchased one camera lens on special: $800. The MSRP is around $1,200. Bought it cash, but after a few weeks I returned it...I just could not get comfy with it even though it was an item I really could use and justify; it didn't cause my finances any amount of duress yet I felt releif after I got my money back. Gosh I'll be glad once the country recovers the jobs it lost in the last few years....some say they're gone forever, and this is the new "normal"...I worry for my daughters futures, their abilities to enter the job market, and get viable good paying careers, etc...

[disneysteve]

I'll be glad once the country recovers the jobs it lost in the last few years....some say they're gone forever, and this is the new "normal"

I absolutely do not believe this. Jobs have always disappeared and new ones have come in to take their place. I read the other day that 6 of the top 10 most in demand jobs today are jobs that didn't exist 10 years ago. Ten years from now, there will be plenty of jobs that don't yet exist. Many of the people who lost jobs in the past couple of years may never go back to similar jobs, but they will go back to work.

[Goldy1]

I know. I bought some dish sets for $3 from Kohl's this year. I have dishes to spare but the 90% got me.

I have fun shopping for my new son, but I have sooo much more dilemas about purchases with a child in tow.
Thank you for your retirement wisdom. I will remember that. I had a friend with a serious shopping habit(the sever kind who would be featured on a talk show) tell me that she buys stuff under $10 b/c if it's under $10 it does not count.

[marvholly]

I, too, shop the after holiday sales. Yesterday I walked to CVS to get things for grandkids for next Halloween. HOWEVER,

a clerk was working the shelf area and very rudely said"I am moving those" to me. Apparently I was interrupting her and she could not/would not allow me to toyuch anything she was working on. Needless to say, I walked out w/o buying anything and just went down the street to WAG.

[lovcom]

I absolutely do not believe this. Jobs have always disappeared and new ones have come in to take their place. I read the other day that 6 of the top 10 most in demand jobs today are jobs that didn't exist 10 years ago. Ten years from now, there will be plenty of jobs that don't yet exist. Many of the people who lost jobs in the past couple of years may never go back to similar jobs, but they will go back to work.

Yes, they will go back to work....and start at the bottom again with their new jobs that pay less then the job they had that got downsized away to some far off place.

The thing is, there are millions of IT jobs (for example) in the USA, yet tens of thousands of IT workers unemployed. This seems like a paradox, until you realize that many of those jobs are filled by foreigners working for chump changes (less then most secretary's make).

If the country keeps moving jobs off-shore, and if the Obama admin keeps touting new jobs added (at McDonalds, Walmart and other below living wage places), at what point will our 1st world country be as messed up as a typical western european country? It's happening now. In western europe (not to mention the worse off eastern bloc), the "normal" is double digit unemployment, 8% plus annual inflation, MSRP prices at most stores, sky high taxes (to pay for universal healthcare), and lots of graft too.

Adult 20-somethings are living at home with mommy and daddy longer and longer, so nope, the jobs as we remember then are not coming back, and the ones that are there in the future will pay crud.

I wish I were wrong, but the new normal is nothing like it was 5, 10, 20, 30 years ago.