How to bargain hunt like a pro: Part One-The Basics

INTRODUCTION

I'm just gonna say it. I am relatively good at finding clothing and household items at really good prices. I pride myself on getting very nice quality items for a fraction of the price. A lot of my close friends and family ask me how to do this, and though I will say there are some things that help, part of being good at this is that I simply like shopping. If you walk into a thrift store and start sweating as you look out into the abyss of piles and racks, can't stand the thought of walking into a Ross, or just hate shopping altogether, bargain shopping might not be for you. Don't get me wrong. I have converted many who were wary of trying it once they realized how easy it is and that they could actually get the same $200 Guess purse their friend was carrying for $30. To all you people who always find themselves asking..how did you get THAT for THAT price???...you have come to the right place.

NOTE (about the advice in the following blog): I am not one of those crazy shopping ladies who show up 3 hours early for specials or tear through sales throwing everything in their cart that they can find. Nor do I spend all my free time looking for deals. These concepts are things you can apply without really changing that much except how you shop when you do go shopping. I do not advocate cheating, swindling, or conning people out of their money. Like any good advice, it can be misused and abused. I recently went to a church garage sale where they had a deal where you could get a plastic grocery bag of clothes for a dollar. Great deal right?! There were some people stuffing the bag so full, they could barely close it and when volunteers offered them another bag, refused it and kept cramming in more clothes. Seriously...over ONE dollar? There is a fine line between being a smart bargain shopper and being a greedy, selfish, and somewhat crazy abuser of bargain hunting principles. Please...don't be one of THOSE people. God gave us a conscience for a reason, and he did not intend us to throw it out the window just because we see a clearance sign.

THE BASICS

The one thing I cannot stress highly enough as a must is to always buy high quality items. If you take nothing nothing else away from this post, I hope you will practice this habit. Unless your need is something that is rarely or never made in high-quality or is purposefully not made to last,it is always important to ONLY buy high quality for two reasons:

1. If is is made cheaply, it probably will not last you will probably end up thinking "Why did I buy this? It's a piece of junk. You can't get nice stuff bargain shopping. I'm not getting "thrifty" next time. I'd rather pay a little more and have something that actually lasts...ugh."

This is a very normal reaction when something that is not made well breaks, but buying something that is not made to last is setting yourself up for failure. You will end up taking it out on your "thrifty" shopping experience and generalize that all places like that only carry junk, when in fact it is your fault for accidentally picking out something that was bound to fail you.

If you shop my way, you will be able to buy a pier-one quality item for the price of a sale item at wal-mart. You choose. which will last longer? Sound good? Read on.

2. Buying high quality items (clothing in particular) will not only last much, much longer, but your experience using it will be more enjoyable. For example, high quality clothing often times fits better, washes better, and doesn't shrink drastically or pill easily. With the exception of that one pair of shoes from Payless that you have had since 10th grade, most of the time, high quality items always last longer, and will serve you right from day one until you have used them into the ground. That is why buying them used is no big deal because..say it with me...they were made to last. Okay, now that we have established that they are made to last, that is not to say they are indestructible. The way we treat our things has a great deal to do with how long they last regardless of the quality, but say a cheap backpack from walmart will last 4 years if treated well, a backpack from REI will last 44 years if it is treated well. So you buy the REI backback used in year 4... 40 years to go.

MYTH: All high quality clothes are high maintenance. REALITY: The maintenance of any clothing regardless of how well it is made completely depends on the material it is made of. Think about sheets for an example. You can buy 100 count or 600 count. They both go in the washing machine. They both go in the dryer. There is a HUGE difference in how they feel. One is a little scratchy but fine. The other feels like butter in your hands. If you could buy 600 count sheets for the price of new 100 count sheets would you? Okay. Same concept with clothing. I will say that there are more clothes that require dry-cleaning that are considered "nice" simply because they are made with more expensive material. You can easily avoid clothes that are high maintenance by looking at the wash instructions. Like me, at first when you realize you can afford clothes that are really really nice, it is tempting to buy dry clean only clothes and think "oh, it won't be that bad". Unless you want to dryel yourself to death,(I do this some, but personally it gets old after awhile) I would not suggest buying dry-clean only for things you wear on a regular basis, unless you don't mind paying the bill for the cleaners. You CAN buy low costing, high quality, LOW maintenance clothes.

I will start with how to find new bargain items since most people would rather have something new. I will start with the easiest things and move my way down to the things that even regular bargain shoppers may not have thought about before.

1. Best time of year to buy- the absolute best time is to shop when the seasons are changing. All the previous season goes on sale to make room for the new stuff. However, shopping right when things go on sale is not always the best idea. Say they put the items at 40% off at first, but if you wait another month, they goes to 75% off just so they can get rid of them. This applies to fancy stores just as it applies to Target.


2. Go STRAIGHT to the clearance section- Don't be afraid to walk into The Loft or Guess just because the prices of the items at the front are three time what you want to pay. It's all about the back of the store. When I walk into a store, I immediately walk to the back. Looking at all the new and full price stuff at the front depresses me because I know you don't want to pay that much, and will either end up buying something for more than I wanted to spend, or I leave before I even make it to the back. Go straight to the back, and it will cut down on your time, stress level, and credit card bill. EXCEPTION: The clearance/sale rack might not ALWAYS be at the back depending on the kind of store. For most clothing stores it is at the back. Because they want you to buy the full price clothing, they don't parade cheaper items at the front, or everyone would just buy sale stuff. Don't be afraid to ask where the clearance section is- some stores have clearance items separated by section, and some just throw it all together. If it's not at the back, its somewhere even more cleverly hidden.

TRAP #1- Sale vs. Clearance- Something that says "sale" does not mean its automatically a good deal and therefore you should buy it. Most of the time stores will actually put their "sale" items at the front, giving you the false sense that you are getting a steal. Clearance is something totally different than sale. Clearance means they NEED to get rid of it and will be priced accordingly. A sale is a calculated marketing strategy to make you buy more. Look at the full price, calculate how much you will be getting off, and if's it not at least 50%, walk away. You can do better than that. I honestly don't usually buy things unless they are at least 70% off or more.

WATCH OUT FOR: Some stores will go as far as to label a section clearance and mark down the items a whole 10%. That or they will "accidentally" mix in full price items or have them right next to the clearance so you can't tell what is what. Most of the time this is on purpose to get you to..say it with me...buy more. Ask if you are not sure before you fall in love with that sweater, or you will end up:
a) buying it for full price because you tried it on first, and THEN found out it was actually $69.99 and not 75% off. (which is EXACTLY what they hope you will do.
or
b) getting depressed or mad that you were tricked, and decide never to go to that stupid, sneaky, overpriced store ever again. You have to outsmart THEM.
The solution: ASK FIRST if you are not totally sure.




TIP TO TRY:

If something you want to purchase is a bit damaged:

Realize that sometimes (at Bed, Bath, and Beyond for example) there will be a sticker on it describing what is wrong with it and that is why it is priced down. In this case it is obvious they know about the damage, so the following tip is irrelevant. Otherwise:

If there is no sticker acknowledging the damage, politely pointing out the damage to the cashier will probably get you one of three results:
1."I'm sorry, we have an "as is" policy on clearance items"
2."We can take and extra ___% off but it will be non-returnable. Is that okay?"
3."Umm...That's why its on clearance. So do you want it or not?"

4 times out of 5 I get the 2nd answer and end up with a clearance item that is now an extra 20% off. Sweet!

How NOT to try this: Voice tone when doing this is EVERYTHING. As with pretty much every one of my tips to try, being nice goes a long way. The moment you talk to someone like you deserve something is the moment that person will react the opposite way you want them to. Gently put the ball in their court, and you will be surprised at how generous people can be. This is largely due to the fact that so many people demand things, and the fact that you are actually asking...nicely, makes them want to help you out. This will not always work and sometimes you will get response 1 or even 3. Remember, it is already on sale, so regardless of how they answer you, you are not entitled to a lower price, so please don't be one of THOSE people and get an attitude with the poor cashier who's manager probably told them they couldn't give extra off for clearance items. By the way...this concept of being nice to people...yeah it's a pretty old trick.