Friday, June 04, 2010

It's Only 99 Cents!

My confession for today is something that I kind of have under control now. It used to be a little overboard, but now I've reeled it in somewhat. I've always been a shopaholic, ever since I had babysitting money to spend. Although I liked to shop, I always shopped sales and bargains. I wasn't a "designer" girl. I liked getting more bang for my buck, so I always shopped at discount stores and places like Pic N Save (now Big Lots).

Then the beautiful era of the dollar stores emerged and it was joyful! When the first dollar stores came out, they had cutesy resin statue things, generic food, utensils, party supplies, etc. and they weren't that much fun. They wised up and started carrying name brand closeouts, fresh produce, refrigerated and frozen foods and STUFF! They had make up, toys, accessories, books and other goodies that were name brand but were closed out in one way or another. My hubby sells close out food and he says sometimes when they change the packaging or size or have a contest, they have to get rid of the old and make room for the new. That's when 99 only, The Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Big Lots, etc. get the deals and resell.

Some examples of the amazing things gotten for .99 organic mixed green salad 2lbs, Littlest Pet Shop play sets, Harry Potter 20 questions game, first 3 series of Friends DVDs, Fiber one yogurt, Sara Lee bread and bagels and the list goes on. My hubby even got 2 leather jackets for Christmas gifts for .99 each! I get very excited when I come home with a treasure. My hubby works right next to a 99 only and sometimes we are on the same wavelength and buy the same things. Now we call each other first before we shop.

It's great that I'm getting all these deals, but going and scouting every other day and picking up goodies at .99 a pop sure adds up. I also have an issue with getting two of everything when I find good stuff. Yes, I am getting a bargain, but at the end of the month, I've spent a good chunk of change, .99 at a time. My hubby is always warning me that I am nickel and dimeing the bank account, so I am trying not to visit as often as I used to.

While looking for the 99 only logo, I came across this interesting blog entry from last year about having 99 Only sponsor your wedding. I would've liked to see photos from the weddings and see how it turned out.

I always joke that if I ever win the lottery, I will still be shopping at dollar stores, just buying more stuff! There used to be a stigma attached to shopping at dollar and close out stores, but now they are so mainstream, you can see all walks of life shopping and saving. I'm sure I'll continue shopping frugally as long as these stores are around and getting excited when I find special things. I'll proudly wear my crown as the Queen of the 99 Store!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love your confession blogs! I've been following you in my blog.

We had a new dollar store open by us! It's amazing! I've picked up so many Disney books for the girls, and did all my party decorating shopping there. But you have better deals than I've seen.

I didn't know Big Lots was Pic N' Save. I've done well there as well. My favorite scrapbook set that's normally $20 a set is $5 there right now. And until you mentioned it, I didn't notice that the packaging is different...well I did, but I didn't think about that being why it was cheaper.

Hunnybee said...

Thank you. What's your blog? Went to 99 today and got some goodies. 100 calorie cheese packs and Tollhouse mini bake cookies!