Retail Savings

[dollardaze]

With the new school year beginning soon, many of you will be hitting the stores to buy those school clothes and needed items for your children to begin the new school year. Next will be the awesome task of buying gifts for friends, and relatives for Christmas. With the economy in the toilet right now, we need to save as much cash as we can, while still getting good quality clothing and needed items. Here is how some people are doing just that.

Track sales prices on purchases, then ask retailers for the savings. Example: keep receipts, then check sales fliers from the retailer. If you see any of the items that you purchased at a lower price in the sales ad, call the retailer and ask for a refund of the difference between what you paid and the new sales price.

Claim the price guarantees offered by stores. If the store you shop at offers one of these guarantees, look for the same item in sales ads for other stores. (this is for items you have already purchased). Again call the store and ask for the percentage off that the guarantee offers.

The reason I am saying call the store is because store managers are notorious for saying no, when faced with a customer asking for cash off merchandise already purchased, but calling usually nets a 'yes'.

There are also swappers online that will swap things like books, dvds and CDs. You can save a lot of cash using services such as these.

Don't forget to check out the local consignor shops and places charity organizations for clothing. You can get some really good deals on clothing in these places, while helping the charity help the community.

Savings on groceries is also possible by shopping at local flea markets and road side stands for your fresh vegetables and fruits. You are assured of the freshness (usually picked the same day or the day before), and are helping a local farmer as well.

[moneysense]

Another possible way to save on school clothes, etc is to swap with friends. I know when my youngest daughter was in the first grade, she went through a growth spurt that was unbelievable.

I would buy her new outfits that she only wore a couple of times before they had to be replaced because of her getting taller by leaps and bounds.

These clothes were like new, so I passed them on to a friend that had a little girl a tad younger than my daughter.

Thank you for posting about the retailers, everyone will need all the help they can get.

[dimetime]

There is some truely great ideas here. I dont have children to worry about, but that swapping books,cd's and stuff is great. I wonder if they also swap house hold stuff for different items? I only ask this is because when we moved into this house, our friend went shopping in her Dads garage ( which looks like a store) and gave us a bunch of stuff. It is all in great condition but most of which I just have no use for. She wont even take it back. I was just thinking when I read this that if I could swap it out for items I have a use for that would really be great.