Want Not

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.

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?

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.

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.

Sometimes I post a great deal and I get comments or emails that basically say, “This is too good to be true, and I’m too suspicious to try it.” I think a certain amount of skepticism is healthy, so I’m okay with that. And anyone who’s been hanging around here for a while knows that sometimes a deal really is too good to be true, and orders are canceled or freebies don’t show up or whatever.

But I just wanted to take a moment to ask if anyone else jumped on the Chase Rewards deal I posted about last month. I got my card, charged a co-payment at the doctor’s office, and yesterday my bill arrived. When I went online to pay it I created an account and redeemed my 200 points for a $250 check. It worked like a charm.

In summary: I like free money.

I’ve been told that the reason Want Not should win a Blogger’s Choice Award for Best Shopping Blog is because “anyone can write about cool stuff with no price limit.” The implication, I think, was that it’s harder to write about cool stuff within a budget. Or possibly that I’m fabulous. Or maybe it was just that I’m a cheapskate.

So if you would like to cast a vote that would be greatly appreciated, plus if you tell me that you did I’m bound to tell you how pretty you are.

My darlings, if you are so inclined, you can clicky clicky right here and vote for Want Not in the Blogger’s Choice Awards. I don’t know that the winner gets anything other than bragging rights, but it would warm my cheapskate little heart to see our humble bargain haven triumph over some of the “this is the latest thing, and only a gazillion dollars” type sites out there. What a lovely way to tell the world that more expensive isn’t always better.

It’s time once again to compare our kills and see who won at shopping. I suspect that I won, because of something that I just did, but we’ll just have to see.

This week I received my free Schick Intuition (took so long, I forgot it was coming) and a sample of some hand cream.

I also went ahead and bought everyone new pillows and pillow covers on O-Day (we were in dire need) and the last of them arrived today. I can’t wait to try them out!

My free photo canvas came a couple of days ago, too. My picture was a funny size and I figured they would crop it for me; instead, they made me a custom 8″ x 12″ canvas at no extra charge. That’s awesome customer service, and I will be happy to recommend them to others.

But the crown jewel in my frugal tiara came just this morning at my local Salvation Army thrift store. I dropped off a giant bagful of clothes, first. (This is my new rule; I’m only allowed to shop there if I drop off a bag of stuff. It keeps me from shopping there too much and helps me to declutter at home.) Inside, I browsed for under an hour. My superb deal? Not the $3 boutique pajamas or $2 designer dress for my daughter… not the $1 Old Navy sweater or $1 Gap jeans for my son… not even the $1 Express blazer for me. Nope. Check it out: A brand new, tags-on, 100% cashmere Margaret O’Leary sweater. For $2.99.

I totally win. But if you can top it, I shall bow down to your superb thriftiness.

I’m starting a new category, here. I think we’ll test this out and see how it goes; the idea is that—with my help, of course—you’re all becoming such savvy consumers, you’re going to be scoring awesome deals right and left. And what is better than a great deal? Being able to tell someone about your fabulous find!

(Someone other than, say, a nice woman at a cocktail party who admires your shoes and then you start squealing about how you found them at Goodwill and she recoils from you in horror and then says, “I have to go stand over there now” and runs away from you as quickly as possible. Not that that’s ever happened to me.)

So. Every now and again I’m going to suggest we have a Cheapness Lovefest and chat about our finds. Then we can all bask in the joy, together!

I’ll start. This week I went to our local kids’ consignment store to buy soccer gear for my son (which was also cheap, by the way), and my daughter discovered some martial arts sparring pads tucked away under the shinguards. She has been begging for sparring gear ever since she started Tae Kwon Do, but it’s expensive and I have always demurred. (Okay, she’s been in classes for about 8 months now, so my “maybe when I’m sure you’re going to stick with it” approach is losing efficacy, too.) Total cost for the helmet and handguards? $6. Total retail value (looked up online when I got home)? $48, without shipping. I’m feeling pretty pleased.

Your turn!