I had 10 places on my list of places to go today and made it to 8.  I missed Bible Study and didn’t drop off my already late library books.  But I made it to Walgreens, CVS, the butcher, Shop n Shop (grocery store), Big Y (another grocery store), Target, Family Dollar and lunch with my dear hubbie.  I had this long list of stuff I needed so I scoured the ads and found everything we needed, but it just required some running.  Thankfully, everything was kind of centrally located so the gas expense of hitting up 8 different places wasn’t too bad.

You know what really burns me is fine print in advertising.  Today there was a sale on cat litter at one of the above listed places…a really good sale.  And it said that if I purchased cat littler I could earn a $5 gift card too.  Well, AFTER I was completely rung up at the cashier, I asked about the card and found out you have to buy TWO boxes of cat litter at one time in order to qualify for the $5 gift card.  Good grief, did they really have to put that in fine print?  I totally would have purchased 2 boxes.  The deal was good and who doesn’t like getting free money to spend.  So instead of the sign saying in big print that you can get $5 gift card if you buy this $11 35lb box of name brand cat litter, why couldn’t it have said earn a $5 gift card if you purchase 2 boxes for $22?  Easy peasy…but NO they have to put the detail in fine print.  GRRR!  I was too tired to return the box I had, go get 2 more boxes and go through the line again so the fine print won.

I’m working on a “price book” for myself.  I’m tracking the unit price of items we commonly purchase so that I can tell if a sale is actually good or if I’m just being suckered.  For example, today I purchased a big bottle of Pantene shampoo and a conditioner for $5.49 each and had a $3 coupon.  I’ll work out the cost per ounce so that from now on I can figure out if a Pantene sale is good or not using the price I got on it this time.  I’m just doing this with commonly purchased items for our household.  It will be interesting if I can eventually track sale cycles and know when to stock up on items.  I’m not overly anal-retentive or anything, I just sometimes really wonder if certain sales like “buy one get one” are legitimately a good deal or an advertising scam.