Yes, this would seem to be an obvious statement. Of course everyone wants to buy things on sale, who wouldn’t? Well, sometimes we may lose sight of sales when they are constantly thrown in front of us. Every day we are deluged with flyers and brochures and magazines and TV commercials telling us to buy, buy, buy. After a while, a person can get numbed to this kind of harassment and they can tune it out of their thinking. As a result, we may miss something really good. Our favorite store may have something at fifty percent off that we could not afford at the regular price. On sale, we could buy the product and be happy with the purchase. One way to take advantage of sales is to get on your favorite store’s mailing list. You could have a few stores, but not so many that you feel pressured all the time. Then throw out any and all other flyers and advertisements that you see or that come in the mail, or on the internet, to you. Stick with your favorites because you have shopped there before, you know the merchandise, and you probably like the salespeople. In short, you feel comfortable with these stores. Already stress is going away. When you do receive notice from one of these stores that items are on sale, you are most probably interested and the sale items may be just right for you.
On sale day you have two choices. You can go in with the intent to buy whatever you need that is on sale. You buy the product, get your discount, and go home to enjoy it. Or, you can go in on sale day with an open mind to see what is on sale and to decide if you want to buy something. Many stores send out flyers about sale days with generic kinds of information. They may say something like, "store wide fifty percent off", or "up to seventy percent off on selected items". You are probably safe going to these places because they are on your list of favorite stores; they are not going to bait and switch you into buying something that you can’t afford. If they have decent salespeople you are safe with them because they will advise you properly as to what to buy. They can steer you to a better deal or they can explain why you should not buy something.
Buying on sale these days makes a lot of sense. With the economy in such bad shape, every penny counts. In addition, so many things in this society are tremendously overpriced. Sales provide a way to get items at prices that may be more in line with what they should cost. If you run across a sale that requires that you buy in bulk to get the discount, you can usually get better deals. Two for one sales are great; that’s a fifty percent discount. Buying a high ticket item, like a musical instrument or a big screen TV, can really save money because we don’t buy these items frequently. Many of these items will last a lifetime. Getting a deep discount on these expensive items not only represents a good deal, but it translates into a good investment. Finally, many places overinflate what is called the "list price". This is, supposedly, what the item is really worth. The tag usually indicates a "street price", meaning that this is what you can normally pay at any store, without a discount. Then there is the "sale price". This is the price that you can get the item with the special sale coupon, or flyer. So, the list price starts out at a thousand dollars, the street price may be six hundred, but today only, you can get it for three fifty. "Wow", we say, "that’s a great deal, I’m saving six hundred fifty dollars!" Probably not. Many times a store discounts something because the item is taking up space on their shelves and no one will buy it for any price. In order to move their merchandise, they will run sales to clear out the old stuff so they can bring in fresh items. But, hey, we don’t care what their motives are, we’re getting a great deal! Fun, isn’t it?