Category: Shopping

Don’t you just love a bargain?

Kat called me to say that she had a lesson for me to share with you.  I thought she told me to tell you to make sure to close the top securely when using a salad dressing bottle – the kind with the recipes printed on the side.  She was now wearing the dressing.

But no.

She was really trying to tell me to HOLD the top securely.  Closing it is not enough!  I had the same bottle, was making the same dressing (hundreds of miles away), and minutes later, had the same experience!

Now we know why these items were at the Christmas Tree Shops for $1.99!

Mail Early

I (hope I) have learned to mail earlier rather than later.

I love sending packages to Loved Ones, and I always think they will take less time than they actually will.  Because of this, I end up paying more than I would if I had just packed it up and hauled it down to my cute little small-town post office, where they address you by name, a few days earlier!

I have, for sure, learned to never use those pre-paid return stickers for returning mail-order stuff.  They charge $6-7, or more, for something I can often mail myself for under $3.  I need the difference, you see, to pay for my procrastination, above.

Ask / Unscented Edition

If there is one theme to the lessons of the year-plus of this blog, it is “Ask!”

Steve got tired of those heavily scented inserts that come in magazines as ads.  He figured that, in this day and age, there must be a way to avoid them.

He went to the magazine’s website, clicked on some options, and lo and behold, no more perfume cards!

All he had to do was ask.

One-Stop Magazine Shopping

Tired of never knowing which renewal notices were real and which were duplicates or fake-outs (the ones that try to get you to re-up half a year in advance), I started looking for a consolidated magazine account site.

I found it on Amazon, which is where I pretty much ending up finding everything worth buying, and end up buying everything worth finding.

One by one, I will renew my magazines there, and always know the real status.

The Pro-Whining Coalition

I have always been a fan of complaining, when it’s part of a move to action.  I whined so much about my cold house, which was taking five hours to go up four degrees, that I heard my voice in complaint and said “Wait, that’s really not right!”

I called Putnam Fuel and they had someone over to FIX the problem, within the hour!

New Phones All Around!

I learned that even though Verizon is ditching their “new phone every two years” plan, they will still honor discounts already earned by sticking with your old crappy phone for two years or more.

And I learned that if you get a heavily discounted phone and sign up your adult children for two more years, it doesn’t mean you are committed to keeping them on your plan.  They can move their contract to their own deal without penalty, at any time.

Where are YOU?

From my friend Cindy via FB – Who loves this image – in Part 2?

Part 1: “Comic relief for my day: Left mall area & drove to local bookshop only to find it was no longer there. Drove BACK to the dreaded mall area & went into Border’s. Poked around & faced the serpentine-of-ungodly-length check-out line. Meandered to end of line, took a deep breath & prepared to settle in for the long wait. Looked to my right, only to see a book there entitled, “You are HERE”. It was my OM moment.”

Part 2: “…a very grounding and comical moment. I pointed it out to the person ahead of me and the one who came behind me in line. Wish I had taken it off the shelf and had people pass it down to the person who came behind them.”

Part 3: “..And throw the part about me purchasing a pair of OM symbol earrings as a gift a bit earlier in the day. SOMEONE was sending a message.”

Festive Turns Scary

From Barbara:

“Christmas shopping in downtown Boston on a Sunday late afternoon / early evening is not as much fun as one might think.  By 6pm, it gets dark and cold and Downtown Crossing gets empty.  And kinda scary.  Thanks goodness for understanding husbands who come out in the December chill to pick you up when you opt to take an earlier train home.”

Invest In Research (x2)

Jill and I had a great day of craft fairs, and two lessons in doing backround checks came up:

We went to 5 craft fairs (or fair-like things), but of those, one was good and one was great, the others completely missable.   More research needed.

My new GPS is terrible!  I assumed it had basic features (it is 2010, after all), but it does not even have “spoken street name”.  Back to Amazon for that thing!  More research was needed.