Sumo was kind enough to point me to this article on what days to spend your money.
I think it’s a good read if you have a shaker of salt handy. Different stores have different rules, and if you do most of your shopping online (which I do, and I suspect most of my readers do), the day of the week is irrelevant.
Also, certain stores do markdowns in very regimented ways. You’re always best off shopping Target on the day they’re marking down the department you plan to shop in; but that day varies, you know?
I’m curious to hear others’ feedback on the article. Helpful or complete bunk?
Well… lots of restuarants around Florida seem to have dinner for kids free on Tuesdays, so if the food is also fresh, that’s good for everyone!
Interesting. I didn’t know that it made a difference when to shop for books.
I’m willing to buy some of the info in that article, like the parts about buying cars and booking flights, since I just don’t do those things often enough to have my own theories. But the rest of it… eh. I already knew to never, ever go out for sushi on Sunday. But as someone who considers herself to be a savvy bargain shopper, I’m somewhat insulted by the author’s need to suggest that I might consider combining the grocery store’s sale items with coupons from the paper. Besides, he’s wrong about the grocery store sales always starting on Wednesday. The store where I shop the most often, Giant (part of the Foodhold chain, like Stop N Shop) starts their sales on Friday. It’s not unusual for me to plan more than one grocery trip for the week, hitting Safeway early in the week for their sales, and then Giant on Friday when their sale starts.
Perhaps the most important day-of-the-week shopping tip I use is to always make sure that if I want to shop at Ross, to go on Tuesdays with my mother. She’s got a “senior saver” card from Ross that gives a 10% discount on the whole order every Tuesday. 10% matters, even on a $10 purse. I’d be interested to know if other stores have that kind of weekly discount.
Summer…Kohl’s also offers senior discounts of 10%, but not weekly. They offer quite a few senior discount days in Dec., but they also offer one whenever they have a sale. Check their ad for the date. It’s not valid online.
I’m all about saving money, but if I need something on a certain day (i.e. groceries) but not on another, it isn’t worth it to save a few pennies to have it sitting around. I grocery shop on either Thursday or Friday mornings so that we have fresh food over the weekend when I’m more likely to be happy to cook. By Wednesday, I’m bored of cooking or busy and it’s the freezer to the rescue anyway. And I REFUSE to go do my weekly shopping on Sunday. People are mean at the grocery on Sunday around here for some reason.
Bottom line: If you need it or can plan to need it on the day they suggest that if might be cheaper, great. Otherwise you are spending money on something you don’t need and that doesn’t save you a penny.
Back in the day (pre-kids) when I used to have a chance to take a leisurely stroll around the mall (ha!), I did find it was true that lots of mall-type retailers (Gap, Banana Republic, I’m sure some others) marked down on Thursdays.
Of course now the chances that I’ll ever darken a mall store’s door on a Thursday evening are so low it hardly seems worth it to let that piece of information take up space in my brain …