Most times Value Village is a spot most people associate with Halloween as the common thought is that they have nothing but older clothes  so guys can buy women’s dresses on the cheap to  dress up – or perhaps get that old “Friday the 13th” plaid jacket to go along with the mask and such. Anyhow, digressing a bit – my point is that Value Village – for me – offers a lot more than that.

Last night I spent a grand total of $43. That’s actually quite a bit, but let’s look at what I got…

• 4 sweaters
• 2 t-shirts
• 1 pair of pants
• 1 piano

Ha ha, yes, I thought you’d like that last one – I got a piano, mind you it’s a child piano – but both myself and Liz thought it would be a great prop for a childs’ photo shoot! So we bought it at the princely sum of $7.99.

I bought the 4 casual sweaters as I don’t have too many and I really liked them – unfortunately for me, as soon as I got home and washed them… well, let’s just say the wool J-Crew sweater.. well, shouldn’t go through the dryers. If there are any babies out there with dangly long arms and are looking for a nice wool sweater – let me know. Lesson learned.

A couple of $2.00 t-shirts and I was pretty happy with my total purchases! Of course, when I got home and put them through the wash along with my other clothes, I decided that I had to get rid of some t-shirts and things that I haven’t worn in awhile as well – so I did that. I figure if I haven’t worn it since the last time I went through all my clothes, chances are I’m not going to miss it no matter what I think of it.

So ya, good deals at Value Village last night, but really – every day they have good deals.. $7.99 for a pair of jeans? Yes, please.

The article breaks down the “getting the great deal” process into 3 factors:

1. Size of the purchase
2. Size of the discount
3. Recurring expenses

Obviously when you’re searching for a deal via coupons or something else, 50% off the latest $1.00 best natural acne treatment only adds up to $0.50 – however when you think of 10% off a purchase of say.. a car, well… now we’re talking some serious money.

I also very much agree with the ‘recurring expenses’ trap. In fact I had someone come to my door the other day looking to sell security systems. Due to the large amount of break-ins around the Stratford area lately, it was very coincidental that the salesman came at the time he did. In fact, the RCMP showed up as he was at my house just to make sure he was legit. He was, and a very nice person – but I couldn’t justify the $39.99 contract for 3 years just to get the installation for free. I would also have had to put the sign out on my lawn for the duration which I wasn’t a big fan of. In total it would have cost me around $44.58 per month for the system or $1604 over the life of the contract. To me that’s a pretty big purchase to be put on the spot to buy “right now”.

While I do enjoy clipping coupons to save money on items that I buy regularly, I can see how it would be very easy to go overboard with this habit and start buying things just because you have a coupon (a stupid thing to do).

If interested, pop on over to the WiseBread blog and read the article. Great site.

Not only are we heading to Montreal for a few days, but then we are heading to New York City for the weekend! Oh baby!! This is one of those trips that most people keep thinking they want to do, but never get around to it, and now is the time for this kid. Myself and Liz are going along with her sister and her sisters boyfriend, they are Habs fans, but we (read: “I”) don’t hold that against them.

Pic taken the last time we were there

I wanted to write about how we ended up getting the tickets and the hotel and such. First, we used Stubhub.com for the tickets.. unfortunately they were $140 a pop, but really.. can you see the getting cheaper for opening night? I don’t think so – and we were willing to pay that much for them. For those of you whom have never been to a Montreal Canadiens hockey game, it’s a must see.. the atmosphere is absolutely ELECTRIC! One of the highlights of the trip the last time we went to Montreal for certain.. if not THE highlight actually.

The next thing we needed to do was get a hotel room. I’ve used Priceline in the past with great success so we decided to try that again as well. Sure enough, after some research (using biddingfortravel.com) in order to find out what were the 4-star hotels and which were the 3.5 star, we went a ‘biddin.

We ended up getting the Omni Hotel Mont-Royal which is from what I’ve researched is a great hotel (#30 out of 165 on Tripadvisor) and we got it for the price of $100 a night. Perfect! Especially when we went on their website directly after and couldn’t find it any cheaper than $210 a night! Pretty slick sale price if you ask me!

The only concerns we have are of course the driving when we get there (especially the nutty drivers in Montreal!!) We will definitely have a GPS like the TOMTOM ONE 130?S Automobile Portable Navigator to aid us when we’re there because I know even from the last time I was there trying to drive was pretty crazy.. it’s not exactly a city which is set up very well for drivers.

Now we’re on to trying to book everything for New York. We’re thinking that we’ll get something in New Jersey and just take the shuttle or subway or whatever they have built there to get into the Big Apple for the weekend – I’m really looking forward to it since the last time I was there was only for a day and it was pre-9/11 if that gives you an idea of the time frame.

As always, if anyone has any ideas or suggestions on travelling to NYC, please feel free to comment! I love hearing and reading the and they are more than welcome!

They are however, a business. And businesses need to make money – Future Shop is no exception. I found an article online however that gave 7 Lies You’ll Hear From Salesmen At Future Shop and I wanted to post them here to share cuz they are SOOOOO true!

1) “The Service Plan covers everything” In fact, it doesn’t cover most things. Don’t believe any salesman who says it covers physical damage, spills, cosmetic damage, etc. Also, after you have you machine replaced (after 3 repairs), the Service Plan stops working. The salesman will act like the replacement is a benefit, really it’s so Future Shop can wash their hands of your buggy hardware.

2) “I’m going to give you a discount”
More often than not my co-workers would lie about high priced items, claiming to take off hundreds of dollars on cables or warranties to trick uninformed shoppers. Always shop around and find out how much things are worth, and watch what the items scan in at instead of taking his word.

3) “This model is a Future Shop exclusive”
Danger Will Robinson. “Exclusives” are always a repackaged retail product, usually with a slight cosmetic change, but bumped up several hundred dollars. As my manager put it: “They move the speakers from the bottom to the sides, repaint it and we mark it up”. Salesmen make about triple commission on these models, so there’s strong incentive to push them.

4) “Setup will avoid hours of work”
This only applies to computers, but it’s good to know. Most salesmen try to push this on technophobes, saying that it’s a complicated procedure involving special tools. Really, they click through the Vista install, run regedit to stop some software and burn a backup disk. Oh, and it’s automated. Unless your time is worth about 30 dollars an hour do it yourself.

5) “You’re saving on x”
With some products there are legitimate discounts available for bundling, and managers have the authority to offer real discounts on unbundled product. However, avoid bundles like “Pay 350 dollars for setup and get free Office and Antivirus”. You end up saving about 20 dollars on Office and Antivirus, but you’re paying 80 dollars for useless setup still. If you’re going for a discount refuse to tack on anything you don’t want, and try to push the salesman. It’ll hurt his numbers to help you, but he won’t want to lose a big sale.

6) “You need Monster Cables/Setup/x to make this work well”
Monster Cables are a scam, so avoid them like the plague. They make the salesman about 25 dollars per cable, and leave you with very expensive copper. Similarly, some salesmen say computers won’t work well without setup, which less technically-inclined customers tend to believe. A vga cable is a vga cable – chances are no one is going to notice the difference.

7) “You have to buy x”
Legally, the store is obligated to sell you any available (nondisplay) product at the advertised price. Many stores “pre-setup” their laptops to avoid making customers wait for setup. Salesmen see this as an excuse to force the setup on you. Legally (at least in my store), if the customer didn’t want setup we had to give them the laptop at the sticker price, with setup. If the salesman is too pushy ask for a manager, who will know the rules a lot better.

Love that list.. and it’s so true! Share this with some people (like your parents) whom have the best intentions.. but sometimes are likely to get ripped off!

I would LOVE feedback on this issue as I’m sure lots of laptop users have had this debate and I’m sure lots of desktop users thought about it to. Here’s the scoop for my personal situation.

Well, I’m in need of more power due to the processing of photos and video which I’m doing – I realize that this would be a ‘pro’ for the desktop model but I’m wondering if portability would be a factor? Liz has a laptop which I use regularly as it sits in the kitchen for the most part and is a great little computer for pretty much everything.. the only problem I find is that it doesn’t have the power of my desktop – so therefore I never use it for any photo processing.

Laptops generally however are more expensive than desktop computers – even if I was to get one on sale it would be more expensive I’m sure. That said they have the portability and with wireless networks getting so good, that’s a real benefit.

I’m stuck!! Everywhere I look they have sales on for laptops such as buy.com’s Lenovo on for $449 and then Dell has a sale on as well which got me thinking about a desktop (found the 2 day deal here). If you have any insights or recommendations – I’m welcome to it all!

My role is going to be part of the Marketing & Public Relations Committee which is going to be dealing with social media (ironic eh?) and obviously public relations. I really hope that my involvement can make a significant impact and I am really excited about the challenge.

Today Liz and I are going to go shopping for some groceries (yes, for next month!) and we’re going to head to Shoppers Drug Mart for their 20X the points event they have every so often. You have to purchase $50 worth of product, but I’m thinking with all their grocery items, plus everything else they have, that won’t take much at all. I wouldn’t really care about the sale – but I have almost enough for $75 worth of free stuff so I’d like to max that out and then cash in!

Speaking of sales, I also purchased a shirt at American Eagle this week online as they had a 15% off and free shipping event! I found the deal here at Red Flag Deals and I’m really excited for it to arrive. I know last time I purchased from them it took something stupid like 3 weeks for it to get here, so hopefully that won’t be the case this time. Another great sale which I think I’m going to have to look into is this one with a package of 100 4×6” photo paper on for $9.95. With all the photos I took last weekend at the wedding – I’m sure going to need a lot more than 100 if I were to print them all out!

I’ll be writing a lot more in the coming week so be prepared! Ha, have a great Saturday everyone!

How did I do that? Easy.. with Air Miles.

Currently (until May 27th) they have a special when you buy 5 cans of Hunts Tomato Sauce, you get 25 Air Miles.  The 156ml cans of Hunts Tomato Paste go for $0.59 a piece, so in order to buy 5 – it costs $2.95.

If you’re an Air Miles collector, you already know that 140 Air Miles will get you a $20 gift certificate at Sobeys…. soooo..

I bought 30 cans of Hunts Tomato Sauce  - total cost = $17.70. Total Air Miles = 150… thanks for the free Tomato Paste!

150 Air Miles - $17.70 - (got some milk in there too )

]]> http://www.lencurrie.com/2010/05/get-30-cans-of-tomato-paste-for-free-in-fact-you-make-money/feed/ http://www.lencurrie.com/2010/04/heading-to-the-movies-2-00-off-your-entry-by-texting/ http://www.lencurrie.com/2010/04/heading-to-the-movies-2-00-off-your-entry-by-texting/#comments Mon, 19 Apr 2010 19:29:39 +0000 lencurrie http://www.lencurrie.com/2010/04/heading-to-the-movies-2-00-off-your-entry-by-texting/ Apologies as I’ve been pretty quiet lately – truth be told I’ve been extremely busy and also most evenings been busy watching the NHL playoffs.. no better time of year I don’t think.. love it! Anyhow a few days left on this deal which I hadn’t noticed before:

OFFER AVAILABLE APRIL 12 – APRIL 22, 2010

Text SAVE to EMPIRE (367473) to get your mobile coupon for $2 off a General Admission Ticket! Standard text and data rates apply.

$99

London drugs has the iRobot Roomba 400 on for just $99 (CAD $115.44 after shipping). You can view the deal here if you wanted to go buy one.

I’m hoping that this will do my front room and kitchen, but truthfully I’d be just as happy if it did just the front room and hallway – expect more of a review when I receive it and start using it.

This is also a GREAT gift idea at this price point Boy, are my beagles ever going to hate me for this one.

Oh, I should also mention that they also have an entry-level Roomba with three bonus filters (a $20 value) at the awesome price of $75. It’s got multi-surface cleaning and an edge-cleaning side brush.

Old Navy will give you 30% off your entire purchase if you wear something red, or that says ‘Canada’ or has a maple leaf. Only available this weekend, from January 29-31.

That’s a pretty good deal considering the best Old Navy Weekly coupons are normally 20-25% off and $50 off $100 (which are difficult to get).