This was something that I thought many people would know already but apparently people feel funny in doing it. Basically, we all know that you can save money by using a coupon on an item. At the same time, a lot of companies say if you find a lower price anywhere they will match it along with a percentage of the difference. What was funny to me was that a lot of people apparently feel that you can’t use both of these techniques at the same time even if it is applicable. Example, price matching and getting the cheapest price possible where they also knock off more due to the competitor being cheaper and then after using a coupon as well.

That’s how a lot of people get things like grocery items for free for example. I was even saying that many times people feel this is wrong because if you get something for too little in this fashion that it feels like you are stealing. If that is the case, just remember that many times things like these coupons are essentially paid advertisements for companies or say a loss leader where they are trying to use it as a way to get more customers. One way or another they need to advertise to get you to use the product.

Why the coupon would work in cases like this is because the business itself that is selling you the item will get reimbursed from the manufacturer of the product. So technically they don’t really lose anything. So don’t feel bad if you get a really good deal this way.

Today I was reading various reports on how the average grocery bill here has gotten really high where on a average people pay about $415. This then brought up on how many people use price comparison sites to try and find the best deals. However, it was expressed that most people simply don’t have the time or patients to use these tools when it comes to their everyday needs.

I was kind of surprised by this as I personally find that I save so much time using price comparison tools. Even when it comes to groceries I would usually look at the price and ponder if I could find the item cheaper. Instead, I usually find that if you plan everything ahead of time and do your research with various sites as an example you can make it a lot cheaper and as well can pretty much go in and out of the store where you know exactly what to buy. Ultimately, that is time saved from having to visit multiple stores or say having to walk around the whole place to try and find the best deals.

People do it all the time for high ticketed items like a new TV, so why are things like your grocery needs any different? In some ways I think it goes back to the topic of many times where if it is a necessity we think that the price we pay is in a sense non negotiable. I find an easier way too is that if you think it is too much work to research it yourself there are usually a lot of different communities even online that you can visit where bargain hunters are fully willing to share the deals they find as well.

For example, I know one good practice that people use to save money is that they first look at the flyers that the stores put out. Afterwards, they specifically try and find coupons for those items in an effort to get the best deal as usually if the item is on sale then adding the coupon as well can often mean you are getting it for the cheapest as possible. Sometimes the coupon can even end up making it where you get the item for free too.

I think you will be presently surprised at how much you can save if you tried too even when it comes to your necessities like these.

So today is Mother’s Day and like most people I spent the day with my mom. Funny enough, one of the thing she wanted to see was that new Target store where since there wasn’t a local store at the moment so we had to drive a little to a mall that did have one. Every mom must have a similar way of thinking as the place was packed with what seemed to be kids taking their mom to go shopping for the day.

What was interesting to me was that in some stores there were these signs on the shelves saying “This is a perfect gift for moms” where at first there didn’t seem to be any real theme to it. For example, at first you would see one on the shelf that sells candy and then the next one would be in the area that sells light-blubs. It wasn’t until I went to the computer section when it dawned on me.

Basically, I saw the same signage in the section that sold computer routers and of course my first reaction was “I’m sure every mother in the world wants a router for Mother’s day.” Having more knowledge in this space I was able to see that the product had a crazy markup on it. Hence, the company makes more money and so it would make sense that they are trying to convince people to buy it.

I guess that goes to show that if you are one of those people who are desperately looking for a gift the last minute and are solely relying on the store to give you knowledge on what’s best prepare to pay more than you should in a lot of cases. Always pays to do your own research as oppose to relying on like the salesmen.

Today I went shopping for some clothing for thing such as dress pants and shirts. At first I started at the well known stores as apparently they were having a sale. Despite this, the prices were extremely high to the point where you juts have to wonder how much the item is marked up. So I decided to go to a clothing discount store as I know this is usually a good way to see how cheap the products can get.

Not surprisingly, I was able to find pretty much the same brand of clothing for about 60% cheaper. While the variety was obviously way less, this then gave me a good price basis to determine if I should keep looking for a better deal. This greatly helped as for the bigger stores that were having a sale I could pretty much tell which ones were a good deal versus the ones that may say it is like 40% off when really the price seems to be inflated.

Even if you don’t intend to buy anything, those discounts store are a good way to price compare on the spot I think if you don’t happen to be an expert when it comes to shopping for certain items.

This was kind of interesting I thought. I went into this video game store looking for a gift and for this store in particular I know they sell second hand items as well. So you always need to make sure that they aren’t selling you something used as new. To my surprise, when you looked at the shelf there didn’t seem to be any products labelled as “used” as oppose to “recycled” as you can see here:

What an interesting marketing tactic I thought to capitalize on people who want to say buy green without the negative perception that usually comes with buying used products. At the same time, I was wondering if this is borderline misleading though. Usually when I think of recycling tangible items I think of people breaking down the material to make something new out of it. Whereas in this case it is mostly repackaging the used item. For example, someone selling their used car and saying it is a recycled vehicle seems a little off. Will be interesting to see if it actually works for them and how well.