<p>Eddie Bauer - 20% off sale if you have a Friends Card. Bought shawl style pullover for sale price of $39.99 less $12 manager’s special another 20% with Friends card flyer received in mail. Store then gave me a 15% coupon good through Dec 24 that I can keep and use more than once.</p>
<p>Nordstrom offered $20 coupon if you apply for Nordstrom Visa.</p>
<p>DSW Shoes also sent a $10 coupon good until Dec 24th.</p>
<p>Always look for sales after you buy something - store will usually give price adjustment if price decreases within 10 days after purchase.</p>
<p>I scored well at Salvation Army. Went there to replace a lost cherry red fleece that I can’t locate that I love. No red fleeces, but found a maroon high collared half zipped sweat shirt that is identical to the one for my son’s high school but doesn’t have the school name or emblem. But for $3, I snatched it up. Bought some $1 flannel pajama bottoms since I know my older ones will be coming home without them and will be scrounging. Heat is on low here so it is cold. Found two great silk ties for $2, and a beige dress shirt that could be used in S’s wardrobe. Also a tweed jacket for $7, some namebrand, beautifully made.</p>
<p>My big find came in the form of two great big bags full of new books from Borders–all best sellers from this year. $2 a piece, all hardcovers. Some of them are books my kids will want, and they will go under the Christmas tree. A woman who saw me paying for all of my stuff, told me that a local hospital sells books for 50 cents a piece in their waiting area. I’ll be visiting that place. NO more brand new books for us unless absolutely necessary!</p>
<p>silversvestermom, I live relatively close to AC to take a casino bus, so that wouldn’t work for me…but the parking at the casino is a little less money than what they charge at the outlets. Once , I went over there during a winter boat show and there was no parking available…I parked down the road a bit ( not a good idea in AC ) and was followed and harassed by a strung out whack job. I waited to walk back to my car until a group was heading in the same direction and I pretended I was with them. I never attempted that again.
Sorry to hear about your group event that was upstaged by Toy’s R Us. At least someone will still benefit from the donations. I tend to go commando or work thru school donations and it has yielded some results in helping the needy in our area. One time, my daughter and I worked on a community coat drive and we got more donations than a radio station promotion that did the same thing !!
It is all good when people are helping people, though .</p>
<p>mom60, how’d you do it??? No seriously. Nearly every week I traipse into Michael’s with a 40% off coupon from the Sunday circular and not once have I been able to use it. I swear that they purposely mark down every item in the store by 25% so that you can never redeem the 40% off “regular price” merchandise.</p>
<p>singersmom, you make a good point about pursuing price adjustments. The only time I have done this was on a designer suit that I had purchased at Neiman Marcus when it was marked down by 50% and then another 25%. After buying it, I left it at the store for alterations and by the time it was ready for pickup, I saw that the others on the rack were now marked down by an additional 30%! I spoke to the store manager who agreed to give me a price adjustment since the merchandise had never left the store.</p>
<p>I can’t take credit for this one – I helped, but my older DS just bought his first brand new car-- an '09 (not '08) for $2000 under INVOICE (not sticker) AND he got a decent ($3K) trade-in on my 10 yr old minivan that he’s had to drive around for the last 3.5 years. He chose to finance the car (though he will pay it off faster than the 36 mo loan he chose) because he got a 4.95% interest rate (if he took the 0% interest he’d have had to forego the 2K price cut, and that was a better deal.) And he put $3k down with his credit card that gives him 1% back (which he always pays this off in full so there will not be any finance charges ever). He was prepared to put more down but forgot to bring his checkbook! :eek: He never knows if that was the best deal he could have gotten, but he’s proud of what he was able to get and he LOVES the car (and not having to drive my old mommy-mobile)</p>
<p>When we bought our van in 2000, I was able to put 1/2 of it on one credit card that gave us 1% back & the other 1/2 on a credit card that had 0% interest for 6 months. We made paid off the 1st credit card so never paid interest or finanance charges on it & paid the minimum on the 0% interest one until just before they would start interest & finance charges & then paid it off in full as well. It worked out perfectly for us, as we needed those 6 months to get together our cash to pay off that 2nd half of the car. Toward the end of the 1st year, we bought an extended warranty–turned out to be a good deal, since they replaced the transmission & A/C during the term of the warranty.</p>
<p>HImom-
Thats a GREAT strategy!! You are brilliant!</p>
<p>The dealership wouldn’t let him put more than a $3K downpayment on a credit card or they were going to assess him a 5% fee (no way would he pay that). I suppose he could check his other credit cards to see if any are offering 0% (doubtful in this banking disaster environment!!) He got the 4.95% rate by joining a local credit union (which they did for him on the spot) so thats a good thing-- that he is now a member of a credit union! We were going to have him join our credit union, but its up here and he’s down there so it would have taken a few days, and the car loan rate difference was small (4.75% vs 4.95%). He ran the numbers and was fine with the local credit union down there. He said it was the weirdest sensation-- filling out a whole bunch of papers then simply running his credit card through like he was buying a sandwich or something, signed the slip and drove off with the brand new car!</p>
<p>We applied for the 0% interest credit card specifically so we could charge the car on it & it worked out just right for us. The car dealership wasn’t too happy with us, but admitted they hadn’t told us we couldn’t charge the car, so they allowed us to do it without adding any extra charges. We pretty much stopped using the credit card thereafter, since we just wanted it for the interest-free loan.</p>
<p>For some reason, my sister was allowed to borrow interest free on her Discover card, so she put some of her mortgage on it & is never assessed interest or a finance charge as long as she makes their monthly payment. I don’t understand it & they didn’t know what I was talking about when I called Discover.</p>
<p>We have used our credit card to charge a lot of things including banquets and large parties. Since we pay it off in full, we get the benefits without the interest & finance charges. It works well for us, as long as there is no fee or penalty attached. </p>
<p>The private U our S attends allows us to charge tuition & expenses without any extra fee, so we charge that as well. It gives us points that we use for flights. I wish they would just lower the tuition, but at least they also have a payment plan you can sign up for where they allow you to make monthly installment payments that they put on your credit card as well. Since we pay it off in full, that works as well for us (they do have a set up fee for using the plan, but when interest rates you could earn on savings were high enough it more than offset the set up fee–with lower interest rates on savings it’s a tougher call, especially if the amount to be financed isn’t that large).</p>
<p>Our credit card has gotten us about 5 free tickets since we got it just before S went away to college. We’ve only recently started having a few hassles with it, but the pluses still far outweigh the minuses. The kids’ spring break tickets will be from points on the credit card as well, as we have credit for 2 more tickets!</p>
<p>You were smart to plan ahead like that. I might mention to DS to look into a credit card with a 0% teaser, but I dont know if he will want another credit card. He’s only 22 years old, and though his credit score is great (780) don’t know if he’ll want another card to deal with, or if he’ll qualify (now that he has the car loan). </p>
<p>DS#1’s college didn’t allow credit card charges for tuition. DS#2’s does, but charges a “convenience fee” of about 3%, so we dont do that. You are lucky HImom…</p>
<p>I honestly would prefer lower tuition instead of the privilege of charging “with no fee.” The tuition & fees at the private U is over $33,000/year excluding books, room & board & everything else. I still count my blessings and am grateful we can give our kids options & able to do what is working for our family.</p>
<p>The van purchase was the only time I ever took advantage of the 0% teaser rate but it made a lot of sense to us at the time.</p>
<p>We have used 0% loans to finance every major appliance purchase if it was available (made sure we had the money in the bank to pay for it). Home Depot often sends us offers of 0% financing for 6-12 months which we used a couple of times to get truckloads of pavers and retaining wall blocks. The trick is to remember to pay it off in full a couple of months before the end of the promotional period.</p>
<p>^^lje62–I didn’t mean to imply at all that Toys 'r Us “upstaged” us in any way. They had their own internal food drive and chose our community food drive to be the recipient. The employees were wonderful, we just didn’t know our own drive had come to their attention
via our local publicity. We hope they do it again next year. The truck and driver that drove our stockpile to the Community Food Bank was volunteered by the Teamsters Union. We are delighted.</p>
<p>Yea, we mark & circle on the calendar the date we will pay off everything which is weeks before the deadline & have never had problems. </p>
<p>I always charge just about everything I can so I can get $ back or points for trips. Since I always pay everything off & never carry a balance, I can say I’ve gotten a LOT of extra cash & nice trips that way & don’t have to have a lot of cash on hand. I enjoy having an interest-free loan on the credit card before I have to pay the balance. I try to call & pay be phone the day I get the statement so it doesn’t get lost & is never late.</p>
<p>Starbucks Advent Calendars go to half price tomorrow (Wed.). I went in to buy 2 today and the woman working was kind enough to tell me about the upcoming sale price of $10 (normally $19.95). It opens up to a cute 3D Christmas tree and each day has a chocolate candy so freshman S can enjoy one at school and my other kids can take turns at home. </p>
<p>The Advent Calendars at the Florham Park, NJ Trader Joe’s were .99 a piece today but the Starbucks quality chocolate is probably better. Last year at TJs they were $1.29.</p>
<p>Not a good buy, but I like that mirrored Advent calendar I saw at Target today. I was only there to get a furnace filter on sale, none left…rain check.</p>
<p>At American Eagle, buy one top and get another at 50% off. In addition, I had a 20% coupon. So, bought a sweater for one kid and a hoodie for another (50% off) plus 20% off the total. Pretty good deal.</p>