Cats And Coupons

Today I was surfing the web, mainly looking at funny cat pictures a la icanhascheezburger. In my travels I came across several really odd pet products. Cat owners, would you buy a talking stuffed gefilte fish? How silly. I’d sooner buy a box of new pocket watches. Dog owners, would you buy a screaming or howling stuffed musical ghost? Do you need a dog stroller? A dog umbrella? What about a product to freeze dog poop? What about a pet cellphone collar? What about a backpack that attaches to your dog and catches his poop? There is some crazy stuff out there. Have you seen any other weird pet products? I haven’t seen anything stranger than the ones I just listed.

One of the things I pay close attention to is regular prices and sale prices. When something is on sale all of the time I won’t pay retail for it. Why? I think that even when something is on sale it’s still possible to make a profit on it, just not as much as when it’s regular price. so when I see something on sale all of the time then I know they have lots of profit margin on that item and I’ll try to never buy it at full price again. One example is carpet. I used to work in a carpet store and there’s a lot of profit margin on carpet. Another example is soda. Nationwide brands go on sale here every other week. So I won’t buy them if they aren’t on sale. Some markets have changed over the years and become ultra competitive. An item that used to have a lot of profit margin is desktop and laptop memory, but the market is very competitive now so all of the major players keep their prices pretty low. So, when you’re getting ready to make a purchase spend time comparing prices and you won’t be sorry afterwards.

I can’t use this coupon, but maybe one of you can. I got an email today for 25% off of purchases made at The Top Secret. Not knowing what it was I went to the site, where I was greeted by a login area for members only. Curious, I did a little more reading and learned that The Top Secret is an invitation only website that offers sample sales. According to the email they’re currently having a handbag sale on 06/12-06/13/08. So, if any of you are members of The Top Secret and you purchase a handbag, enter the code “SECRET” when you checkout and you should receive $25 off your purchase. Since I’m not a member, I’d appreciate it if somebody would leave me a comment on what else they have going on there if you can.

There’s a good time and a bad time to buy many items. Any item that can’t be used regularly year round should be bought in it’s off season. For example, buy snow skiing equipment at the end of winter. Buy patio furniture after the beginning of fall. This works for clothing too, if you’re willing to buy several seasons ahead. Shop clothing clearance racks for clothes for your children for next year. It’s all in the timing. I truly believe that you don’t have to pay full price for most things.

My middle youngest brother mentioned to me recently that he bought some fitness equipment, one of those all in one gyms they show on television. I must start by saying he isn’t out of shape, he’s underweight and you can see his ribs, so I don’t know what he was thinking when he got it. But I got to thinking that the shipping on those things must cost a small fortune. Why would you not find a comparable machine locally? I can’t see myself in a situation where I’d have something huge and heavy shipped. I always consider shipping costs when buying something over the internet. And, for all major purchases I almost always buy in person. Are there certain items you wouldn’t have shipped?

Many companies sell products by mail. For many of them it makes a lot of sense and is safe. What I’m not sure of the safety of is buying certain health products by mail. I thought of this because in the last couple of weeks I have seen a number of places selling diet aids like Anoretix by mail. I could be wrong, but it seems like a product that can really help someone lose pounds within hours ought to be given under doctor’s supervision. Do you think it’s safe to sell anything by mail, or do you think some limits should be set?

I’m referring to the Coupon Chief, of course. The Coupon Chief is a site that offers nothing but online coupons and coupon codes. The site is nicely organized, and allows searching by store, category or coupon. They offer an area where you can see the most recently added coupons, which is great if you visit on a regular basis. You are even able sign up to subscribe to their rss feed if you want to receive alerts when new coupons are added. Next time you’re online looking for coupon codes, be sure to check Coupon Chief.

Some people feel that buying additional warranties aren’t worth it. I have found that it’s worth buying an additional warranty on any expensive purchase. We have bought one for every vehicle we’ve bought from a dealership since we married, and used every one. I follow the example my parents set for me. Buy the warranty if it’ll save you more than it will cost you to spend to replace the product and buy the warranty if it”ll be cheaper to buy it than hire a repairman. Most recently my parents flat panel tv in the den started having problems. The repairman came out to the house and said that he couldn’t repair it there and it’d need to be replaced so he took it right off of the tv wall mount and off to the shop. Soon after the tv was replaced with a brand new one, so it paid to have that warranty. Do you purchase additional warranties on expensive purchases? Have you ever had to use it? Have you ever wished you’d bought one after the fact?

Most people are familiar with Black Friday crowds and sales, and the crazy lines that form to take advantage of early bird shopping. I always end up wondering if it’s truly worth it to go through all of that. And until yesterday, I always thought it only happened on Black Friday. A relative of someone I know had found out that the local Toys R Us was getting a small shipment of a very popular, hard to get to toy in and would be putting them out on the shelves this morning. My sister in law drove past last night and people were starting to line up at 9pm, and the store didn’t open until 8am this morning. I guess that six degrees of separation can happen everywhere. Apparently everyone had heard froma friend, or a friend of a friend, or a friend of a friend’s friend, or a friend of a friend’s third second cousin had heard the same piece of information. My sister in law said that by the middle of the night the line was most of the way around the building and people were still showing up. She said they were out there in beach chairs, soccer chairs, sleeping on the ground and in tents. How crazy is that! You’d think someone was standing there giving out gold chains or something.

I like to shop online. I love to spend money. Earlier today we were in Target and my son was looking at some books. He wanted one hard cover specialty book, and I told him I wouldn’t buy it there because I suspected I could get it much cheaper online. At that point he sort of rolled his eyes because he knows when you order online you don’t get the merchandise right away. When we came home I searched for the item for less than three minutes and found a site selling it for quite a bit less. And, since we signed up as a new Google checkout user we saved an additional $10 dollars. My son looked at me and actually admitted it had been wise to check online and that it would be worth waiting three days to arrive to save more than $10. If you haven’t used Google checkout before and see the offer to save $10 by trying it, go for it.