Kole_Locke:
It's not sad! It's smart shopping, for sure. Especially if you know what to look for :yes:

kwahoo:
Indeed! I watch this show called King of Pawn or...something, I'm not sure what it's called but it's about this famous pawn store. People bring in stuff all the time that their neighbor was going to throw away or what they got at a garage sale, to find out it's worth thousands of dollars! This one girl brought in an old jeweled brooch her grandmother had, which she wanted to sell for a couple hundred dollars. They had it looked at, and found out it was real jewels by a hugely famous designed, worth $25,000 dollars! :XD

Vickicat:
I've found some good furniture items at the stores, but it is a little difficult to find ones in decent condition that don't smell like cat pee :gonk:

HappyStarr:
Sounds like my mother and me. We shop for each other sometimes; then end up stealing each other's clothes later :XD

jellysundae:
That's a really good deal :o I think the best deal I ever got was a pair of jeans. They are a high end brand, that I ended up getting for three dollars.

Kaylesha Blackheart:
My aunt wanted to teach me to crochet, but I just don't have the patience for it :XD

siaasgn:
Congrats on the baby! :) I would think bargain shopping would be beneficial for soon-to-be-mothers. At Savers they have a maternity rack, with pretty decent clothing for extra cheap since it won't fit that long anyway, until your belly gets bigger! I look for deals on food, like buying in bulk for less on a sale. It depends on the food item, if I can use a generic brand or not. Like with cereal, I can't really eat generic brands as it makes me sick. But Mac&Cheese can be generic. I should eat more organic and healthy :XD

I really lucked out and got a ton of hand-me-down clothes from my sister-in-law who just had twins in March - so I'm saving a lot on maternity clothes and baby clothes :yes:

We have a Costco membership and buy bulk stuff there - like pasta, grapefruit juice, frozen pierogies, frozen veggie burgers, and stuff like that. Milk & eggs we buy from the local farmers market and I bake my own bread (which saves a lot because my husband likes the fancy $6/7 a loaf bread - which I can't justify buying). We also joined a CSA - which is a community supported agriculture share - so we paid something like $550 for 28 weeks of fresh veggies and fruit - and there are a lot of veggies and fruit coming in so that saves a lot of money on groceries.

It's hard to balance my eco-hippy ways with not spending a lot of money - because stuff gets expensive fast :gonk:

If I didn't hunt for bargains, I probably wouldn't have any clothes right now. We barely manage to cover our basic needs sometimes, so it's important to check prices. As it so happens, I really love places like Goodwill and Salvation Army. They have a lot of older clothes and stuff that just looks so much better than the new crap I see in other stores all the time... so it helps.

Originally Posted by siaasgn

I really lucked out and got a ton of hand-me-down clothes from my sister-in-law who just had twins in March - so I'm saving a lot on maternity clothes and baby clothes :yes:

We have a Costco membership and buy bulk stuff there - like pasta, grapefruit juice, frozen pierogies, frozen veggie burgers, and stuff like that. Milk & eggs we buy from the local farmers market and I bake my own bread (which saves a lot because my husband likes the fancy $6/7 a loaf bread - which I can't justify buying). We also joined a CSA - which is a community supported agriculture share - so we paid something like $550 for 28 weeks of fresh veggies and fruit - and there are a lot of veggies and fruit coming in so that saves a lot of money on groceries.

It's hard to balance my eco-hippy ways with not spending a lot of money - because stuff gets expensive fast :gonk:

Well that's good at least. ^_^ We have a Festival Foods and Aldi's membership thing. We can get up to 40% off on certain things, which I don't remember at the moment. Home baked bread is the best. I like to make my own bagels :drool:

Originally Posted by Glitter Golgotha

If I didn't hunt for bargains, I probably wouldn't have any clothes right now. We barely manage to cover our basic needs sometimes, so it's important to check prices. As it so happens, I really love places like Goodwill and Salvation Army. They have a lot of older clothes and stuff that just looks so much better than the new crap I see in other stores all the time... so it helps.

Never tried the Salvation Army. Mainly because I don't know where one is :XD But we do go to the food market sometimes. Well, my dad's side of the family does. He has a house full there. It's him, my stepmother, and her three kids, then me sometimes, and another girl that stays because she was kicked out of her last house. So we can't afford even cheap foods. So they go to the food market and get bulk foods for nothing because she's on WIC.

We get food stamps; I don't know where we'd be without them. >_O

So do we. It's a good thing. We wouldn't be able to eat without it :sweat:

I'm envious of the things that Sia does. The farmer's market thing seems a whole lot stronger in the US and Canada than it is here. Farmer's markets here are really expensive so hopeless if you're trying to budget, and they're only once a month or something.

I should get my finger out and get back into bread baking, it is so much cheaper, but I've yet to perfect a method so my bread is rarely that awesome.

It does seem to be a whole lot easier to budget if you live in a more populated area though, as there's so many more places to check out.

I clip coupons, thrift shop, you know, the whole nine yards.


In fact, i own a consignment shop, which is a resale shop. People bring there clothing and knick- knacks to me and we sell them. they get 40% of what we sell it for and we get 60% and its all profit cause it didn't cost us anything to sell it.. =)))

jellysundae: I have a really good no knead slow rise recipe I can give to you if you're interested in giving it a try.

You just mix together the flour, salt, yeast, and water and let it sit for 12-18 hours, then you dump it out and make it kinda loaf like for the 2nd rise (2 hours), and then you bake it in a cast iron or enamel pot. It gets a really nice crust and a chewy texture.

I go to Ross, but I'm not sure if that counts. xD It's a store that takes left-over merchandise from other stores and sells them much cheaper than the original price. I love going there. Not only do they have a large selection of clothes, but they also have shelves of various items.

Originally Posted by Hybrid

I go to Ross, but I'm not sure if that counts. xD It's a store that takes left-over merchandise from other stores and sells them much cheaper than the original price. I love going there. Not only do they have a large selection of clothes, but they also have shelves of various items.

That kind of sounds like Target. Target takes clothes from brand name stores that were overstocked or out of season. I say it counts. :XD

Do they really? I'll have to go there, then. Especially since I don't think I've ever been in that store. xD

Originally Posted by siaasgn

jellysundae: I have a really good no knead slow rise recipe I can give to you if you're interested in giving it a try.

You just mix together the flour, salt, yeast, and water and let it sit for 12-18 hours, then you dump it out and make it kinda loaf like for the 2nd rise (2 hours), and then you bake it in a cast iron or enamel pot. It gets a really nice crust and a chewy texture.

Yes please siaasgn:! I've looked at those no knead things before but I've only found ones where you need to keep the dough in the fridge in a huge bucket for weeks, and other stuff that I just don't have the space for in my normal-sized UK fridge xD

Well, I don't bargain hunt for clothes, mostly because it's hard finding clothes I like in my size anyways. xD Being bigger than average makes it hard to shop sometimes.

However, I do look for cheap deals when I buy just about anything else: books, music, movies, foodstuffs, etc. I love coupons and sales. ^^ Luckily, I'm also not generally an impulse buyer, so I don't tend to spend all my money at once.

I try to bargain hunt. I was at Delia's in the mall yesterday and they had this GORGEOUS lovely sweater for 50$ original price, but I got it for 15$ on sale. :) SO HAPPY!!

I actually bargain hunt when I am shopping for groceries believe it or not. If say there is food that is not selling all that great or it will be going bad in about a week or so, or like a cereal box that has a big dent in it. What my grocery store does is break out these giantic pink stickers that reduce the price to 50%, sure you might have a big dent in a box, but other than that it's fine. Also I do my grocery shopping weekly so it's alright if the food goes bad in a couple of days or so, because I eat it right away.