Saturday, April 23, 2011

My Odd Soft Side

So this blog is taking a real odd turn after about a year of putzing around.  I promise to get back to posting about grocery store coupon savings eventually.  Maybe.  I'm not good at following through a lot of times. 

One thing about being cheap, for me that is, isn't so much that I don't want to spend money - I just want to make sure that I am getting the most value out of my dollar.  This was apparent 2 weeks ago. 

So here's a crazy thing that happened to me.  I'm a Yankees fan.  I live about 6 miles to the border of Boston.  So for the die hard Red Sox fans, I'm kind of like a Nazi.  Another quirk about me - I love radio contests.  Honestly, I've probably won about 2 dozen things off the radio in my 31 years of life.  No joke.  Well back in March, I won 2 tickets to a Red Sox opening day party.  Oh joy.  Since they were playing the Yankees though, I thought it would be great to go.  Unfortunately, when we found out the time - due to work, school, life, etc. - the husband and I couldn't make it.  Boo Hoo.

Well 3 days later, I got a call from the radio station.  Apparently they raffled off a $1,000 gift certificate to the store Roster (located at Natick Collection, Legacy Place & Faneuil Hall).  Who won?  Me.  They specialize in Boston area sports team apparel.  No Yankees t-shirts to be had there.  I'll be honest - I could not fathom spending $1,000 at a "non-necessity" store.  Overwhelmed doesn't even describe the feeling I felt. 




So we went off to Natick.  We hit up the Roster there where I picked up a t-shirt and hat.  Total:  $64.99.  The cashier informed me that another store in the mall was owned by them and my gift certificate could be used there too.  The store is All-Stars.  And I was excited to see that a 10% coupon printed on my receipt for All-Stars. 

So we went down to All-Stars.  I had this bright idea to make up a gift basket to donate to my son's school to be raffled off.  My budget for this was about $200.  Even in the grand scheme of things - even with $200 donated, I still have to spend $800 - which again is not really registering in my head because it's just a lot of money to spend on Red Sox crap - oh I mean stuff.

I got a bunch of items and the total was $208.  I had so much stuff and the kids were acting a fool that I was just trying to hurry up and I DIDN'T EVEN GIVE THE CASHIER THAT 10% COUPON!!!!  I remembered it when I got in the car (and I am not crazy enough to go back in and see if they would have honored it).  Now granted, I shouldn't care because it's not even my money - but it seriously bothered me for a few days.  I mean 10% would have been $20.80 - which would have been another hat or a kid's t-shirt for my gift basket!  I think this is my true "cheap" side coming out.  I'm trying to tell myself it's not really that I'm greedy and I WANT that extra $20 in this store (because heaven knows, it pains me every time I have to make a Red Sox purchase) - but the fact that I didn't maximize the value of that purchase really kills. 

So yeah.  Call me greedy. Call me cheap.  I don't care.  The fact that I forgot that coupon will linger in my mind for a little while longer because I can be a little psychotic like that. 

With another trip to the Dedham store a day later, I ended up spending $220.87 on a donation that will be raffled off at my son's school starting this week.  Here's the final product:



I'm not sure the details of how they are going to raffle it off - the school has it.  They can do whatever they want with it. They are selling tickets all this week and will be announcing a winner next Sunday at a softball tournament.  My personal goal is to hope the school raises $500 in ticket sales for it.  No reason then I hope to maximize the $220 spent on something good that the school could use.  I'm sure the principal will tell me what the final verdict - I just hope it's nothing pathetic like $30.  That would kind of suck. 

Speaking of "doing good stuff" - I'm going to be posting about a great Giveaway I'll be hosting here in a few days.  Pretty much - if you had a free $50 to "do good" with - what would you do?  So start brainstorming and more details will follow soon!  Woohoo!

2 comments:

Andrea said...

I would give the $50 to my local library. Since I use the library every week (and did donate to the cause with my own cash), it is still bothering me that my library was 'this close' to losing accreditation because they can not buy enough books to meet the state mandated requirements. Ugh!

Andrea said...

PS...good for you for thinking of creating the gift basket for your school...kudos!