May 7, 2008 | Bragging on a deal

I’m putting it in “Bragging on a deal” because it feels like bragging, but several of you asked me to let you know about this, so here I am letting you know.

Remember that time I went to New York City? Well, the segment I taped with NBC is supposed to air this morning on the Today Show. I was told “during the 10:00 hour, probably around 10:10.”

I’m a little nervous. Will the magic of editing render me eloquent and beautiful? Or twitchy and bizarre? Tune in to find out! The funny part is that I’m volunteering at school today, so I won’t even be home to watch it; I’m taping it to watch later on, when my husband can sit with me and hold my hand and tell me that I did fine, regardless of what fool thing comes flying out of my mouth on national television.

Edited to add: The clip is available here. Six hours of taping, 10 seconds of screen time, edited to make us all look like vapid ninnies. I am taking small comfort in the fact that Kathie Lee whasthername didn’t even know how to pronounce the NBC correspondent’s name.

February 21, 2008 | Everyday Wisdom, Bragging on a deal

[But first: What happened with posting this week? Haven’t things seemed a little… well… thin? Why yes, thanks for noticing and not complaining. Sorry about the last few days being a bit light—it’s been one of those chicken-with-my-head-cut-off kinds of weeks, and I hope to return us to our regular programming next week.]

This past weekend I got a few hours to myself with nothing pressing to attend to, so I went over to TJ Maxx hoping to find a bargain. I started out looking for a purse (which is a story in and of itself, for another time), but by sheer luck came across an amazing dress. It was gorgeous. It was the only one left, and it happened to be my size. Original price (as evidenced by the manufacturer’s price tag): $265. TJ Maxx price: $29.99.

I tried it on, and the security tag was attached in such a way that I couldn’t tell if the dress lay properly. But for $29.99 I was willing to risk it. I bought it, brought it home, and immediately went and tried it on again to see if it fit better now that the tag was out. And… it didn’t.

For a minute I considered keeping it, anyway. What a steal! Maybe it was close enough! But there’s no amount of money (or savings) that make an ill-fitting garment a good deal, so back to the store it goes. Alas.

January 31, 2008 | Product Talk, Bragging on a deal

Today I’d like to tell you all about my recent adventures in buying eyeglasses. I know! You’re on the edge of your seat with anticipation!

Once upon a time I wrote this little piece and basically begged you to consider glasses one of those must-have, must-pay-for sorts of items. “Do not go cheap!” I told you. “You get what you pay for!” I insisted.

Due to various factors, I decided to challenge my own notion that this was the gospel truth. I had read many sources extolling the virtues of Zenni Optical, where glasses start at just $8 for a complete pair. What did I have to lose, really? I would consider it an experiment. And so that’s what I did. (more…)

January 14, 2008 | Bragging on a deal

It’s been a while since I asked folks to offer up the deals they scored recently. Whether it’s something you got through a tip here—in which case, yay, and also, feel free to compliment me—or something great you scored on your own, let’s bask in the glory of the almighty bargain together.

I have two goodies from last week to share (and not much else, because I have cut way back on my shopping this month): I used the coupon linked here to get a new house plant for $.40 from Lowe’s (here my husband interrupts to point out that technically, he bought the plant, and then I counter with the declaration that not only did I get a cheap plant, I didn’t even have to step foot in Lowe’s to do it!); and a quick trip to Target to check out the toy clearance yielded this hydrogen car kit for just $19 (and Santa doesn’t have to shop for my son next year).

You?

December 12, 2007 | Retail gone wrong, Bragging on a deal

I have to share this because it’s too funny to keep to myself.

So you know how a few days ago one of the gazillion Amazon deals I shared was deeply discounted cookie sheets on the 4-for-3 deal?

If you know me, you know I likes me some cookies. You may or may not also know that I’ve been baking on some cookie sheets that were a wedding gift… from my first wedding. (Let’s do the math: Hello, 14-year-old cookie sheets!) So I went ahead and picked up 4 new cookie sheets for a grand total of $18.

The first funny thing is that I didn’t pay much attention to the sheet size, and each sheet is easily the size of two of my old sheets. So I now have enough cookie sheets to bake for the entire eastern seaboard.

The second funny thing is that Amazon sent each sheet in a separate box. This is one of the things that drive me insane about Amazon, all the boxes. But recall what I said above—the sheets are really large. And boxes are huge (easily large enough for 8 sheets apiece). So I opened the door for my kids this afternoon and there was a stack of boxes there taller than they are. And the kids got very excited, and were crushed to discover the tower of boxes was… really only four cookie sheets.

December 11, 2007 | Bragging on a deal

Something folks often ask me is whether I routinely go to the sorts of “bargain extremes” which I post about here in my everyday life. And the answer, of course, is yes. (It’s a sickness. And I’m okay with that.)

Last night I bought myself a pair of shoes. Remember the Piperlime deal where any purchase got a $20 gift code? I’d bought a $10 gift card. And last night I used my $30 towards a $60 pair of shoes that was marked down to $46. Pretty good, right?

… except then, I pricematched those shoes to the listing at Amazon, where they’re currently only $32. After pricematch, I spent around $3 for them yesterday. Even factoring in my original $10, I still got my $60 shoes for $13. Now, this took time and Piperlime’s pricematching system has nothing on the ease of using Zappos, but I’m willing to do that for the savings, because I am ill. Heh.

And speaking of my illness, I thought now would be a good time to thank you all again for giving Want Not a second-place finish in the Blogger’s Choice Awards for 2007, and mention that voting for 2008 is now open, so if you are so moved, maybe we can lock up first place this time. In our fabulous, cheap shoes, natch.

November 15, 2007 | Bragging on a deal

Hey, I just wanted to let everyone know that thanks to your support, Want Not took second place for Best Shopping Blog in the 2007 Blogger’s Choice Awards. The margin between first and second place was quite slim, and I’m thrilled with the results.

This blog exists because of you, the readers. I love writing it, and I love that people enjoy it enough to come on back and leave comments and shop through me and vote for me in geeky little contests. Without you, there would be no Want Not. So thank you for everything, my pretties. You make it all worthwhile.

October 22, 2007 | Bragging on a deal

Last night as we sat out on our deck eating dinner, I was admiring our new tiki lamps and thinking that it’d been a while since I reported back on various items to let you know what I think.

First and foremost: Getting these solar tiki lamps for $30 was a great deal. My husband installed them all around our deck and they look great. I’m sad that they’re made of plastic, because the lights themselves are really cool (not only do they really look like flickering flames, they’re LEDs so theoretically they’ll last forever). I don’t know how the plastic is going to hold up to the sun and heat here, but right now I’m really pleased with them. Hopefully the price will dip again.

I finally got my free pearls from Overstock this weekend. They’re nice, especially since they were free. I know a lot of you received broken strands (and please do contact customer service if that happened to you), but mine are fine.

I’ve got my Dale & Thomas $20 gift card here on my desk… not sure yet what I’ll spend it on. Teacher gifts, most likely.

And last but not least: After picking up this ice cream maker for some insanely low price a while back (my trusty ice cream maker was cracked in my move, grrrr), I finally used it to make strawberry sorbet a few days ago. The fact that the base turns while the paddle stays stationary freaked me out at first, but the results were delicious.

What was your best score lately?

October 19, 2007 | Bragging on a deal

The voting for the Blogger’s Choice Awards—or, as I like to call them, the Interminable Voting Period Awards—finally closes tonight at midnight. I know, you’re thinking, didn’t you tell us about this months ago? And indeed I did. But this is the last time I’ll bring it up. If you haven’t cast a vote for Want Not for Best Shopping Blog and would like to, you have about twelve hours left to do so.

And did I mention how pretty you look today? Because you are positively stunning.

May 30, 2007 | Bragging on a deal

So, I guess this Bloggers Choice Awards thing is going on a bit longer than I’d thought. I thought maybe they’d leave the voting open for, say, a month. But it appears that they’re going to leave it open for approximately forever.

And in the meantime, some blog about expensive purses is creeping up and threatening to knock Want Not out of the lead. Can we let that happen? I don’t think we can. I mean, let’s consider this.

They have: Purses.

We have: Dr. Pepper beef jerky, shoes shoes and more shoes, toys, books, clothes, general budget advice, free coffee, free ice cream, free dog food, free panties, free movies, Roombas, Scoobas, Dysons, people getting pregnant by Palm Pilots, cheap Pepsi, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

I think the choice is obvious. Please go vote.