On our last road trip down to North Carolina my husband suggested stopping off at Best Buy to purchase a new blu-ray DVD player with Netflix streaming capabilities. I’m not a big fan of making unplanned purchases so I asked my husband if we shouldn’t wait to buy one. I reminded him that I had a Best Buy gift card somewhere at home that would be perfect for this purchase. He said, “nah, let’s just get it. We’ve been talking about getting one, we might as well just pick one up so we can watch movies over the weekend.”
In the back of my head I knew that I could find a better deal on Amazon. I knew that I could wait and use my gift card. I knew that a Best Buy coupon would pop up in our mailbox, since that seems to be a regular occurrence. Of course, I also knew that my husband really wanted to make this particular purchase at that particular moment in time, so into the store we went.
Of course once we got to the shelf of DVD players my husband said, “while we’re here we might as well pick up a player for home too.” Being the frugal fanatic that I am, I thought, really two, with no coupons, no gift cards and no rebates? But my husband gave me that look that said, “don’t make a big deal about this. We make good salaries and we don’t always need coupons and deals on every single purchase.”
So we walked up to the counter and bought two new DVD players. In total we paid nearly $400. I know we could have gotten a better deal, so a few days later my anal-retentive self went online and searched for the same model. I found the item on Amazon for $20 less plus free shipping. Of course, if you subtract taxes we would’ve saved $30 per DVD player, which is a decent amount of money.
My husband isn’t too concerned about this $60. In fact, after I pointed out how much we could have saved he said he didn’t regret the purchase. In fact, he was happy that we spent Saturday and Sunday night watching movies together.
While my husband can be very frugal, (he’s an eat-at-home rather than eat-out kind of guy), he certainly doesn’t want every purchase of our lives to be ruled by coupons, sales and rebates. Sometimes you just have to make a purchase. Sometimes you just have to live life and enjoy it. I must admit that we had a really amazing weekend together and I’m glad that we purchased those DVD players so we could snuggle in and enjoy movies together.
Once you've established the mindset of saving money where possible you're usually set. I believe it's okay to just not worry about how much things cost once in awhile. I tend to do this a lot while on vacation. I don't ever want to look back on an opportunity (even staying in and watching movies) and wonder what I could've missed out on.
My DH is the SAME way! Especially with the Redbox. He was sooo excited when I got codes for free movies! he didn't realize they were only a dollar, so he told his buddy at work that I had codes and got them for FREE! His buddy was like 'Uh, you know they are a dollar right?" DH was like 'Oh' LOL. So now, if we're at the store and he sees one, he wants to get a movie…and when I dont have the code handy, he's like 'It's only a dollar'. UGH, it's the PRINCIPAL of which I speak! It would be FREE with the code! MEN! lol
good for you – and good for your hubby. when you live a frugal life, you CAN occassionally make an 'off the cuff' purchase and settle in to enjoy yourself. I'm sure the cuddle session was worth the $60! š
xoxo-nklsmom
I hate spending too much money on something! I just stopped by Whole Foods (yes, I know they're expensive to begin with…) for a product just to find they charge a dollar more than the MSRP and two more than drugstore.com. I walked away.
Best Buy does have price matching (although not against any online retailer like Amazon), so if you see the exact make/model of the DVD players you bought lower somewhere else, you can get an adjustment/credit within the return/exchange period.
There seems to be a bit of a gender divide between Deal/Rebating and Coupon use and not.
My husband is similar. He doesn't mind cutting back or being modest… but seems to really get annoyed if I get too into couponing… not sure what it is. As long as I go to the grocery store alone though we get the best of both worlds.
I think you're all right. It's the principal of the thing… knowing you're spending money when you don't really need to.
But I also think you can't nickel and dime every moment of your life. Sometimes you just have to put down the coupons and spend a little.
It's also interesting that most wives seem to clip coupons and look for sales and that most husbands don't seem as interested. I'd love to see a gender study on looking for deals š
@spaghetti0625 – That story about the Redbox movies is hysterical!
There is a way of saving this money still. Not sure if it will work for you but might be worth thinking about:
1. Buy the same players at the cheaper price (or use coupon, gift voucher or rebate etc)
2. Return the newly received players to Best Buy and get your money back using your original receipt – they are the same item.
3.Voila!Saving!