They did it again!

Once again HOM furniture provided me with $20 for free.  You can see my first opinion on this tactic here.

Once again, I was bubbling with delight at their misfortune for giving me $20 free dollars.  Perhaps they will stop doing this eventually?

So I took my $20 to my nearby HOM furniture and once again walked through the whole store looking for that perfect $20 item.  I finally decided on a vase that I liked. In fact, I was close to purchasing this vase the last time I was in with my first coupon. So this was great news.  However, as I was walking around I realized two things.

Number 1: I was going to run out of desirable $20 items soon. Then would I resist the urge to start purchasing more expensive things?

Number 2: They were training me!  Although I would never make another large purchase anywhere until I had paid off my first, I never realized the subversive tactics of giving me free money.  HOM is training me to go to HOM for both my large AND small purchases.  Perhaps I would get home and say, “well I would like this whole room to match and I know just the thing at HOM.”  Or better yet, I would say, “HOM was so nice to give me all that money for free, I would like to support their business with a purchase of a coffee table.”  Or even that I would post on my blog and help them with some free advertising!  I’d been HAD!

Well not entirely.  But I was a little shocked that I, someone who has strong no-shopping will power, would be subject to the pull of free money as a training mechanism to create customer loyalty.  And, you know, I think it might just work.  And that’s a shock I wasn’t prepared for.

Gift Certificate Success

As you may recall, I enjoy discussing gift certificates and what a good deal they are for the store. I wanted to share with you my recent success at cheating a store out of it’s expected monetary return.

Earlier this week I walked into Home Depot with my partner and we had a $100 gift certificate to spend.  We had been creating a list of items that we needed so we purchased nothing that was unplanned.  I kept a rough running total in my head as we went, so I expected to be $105-110 total.  We rang up at $99.59.  I was thrilled.  Probably inappropriately thrilled. It was a crowning achievement in my books.

My euphoria was lessened slightly when I asked if we could cash out the remaining 41 cents  of the gift certificate.  I was thinking even if it wasn’t standard policy (as it would be in CA) the checker might be kind. (It was only 41 cents for heaven sake)  I was mistaken.  The checker actually laughed at me for suggesting such a ridiculous statement.  I feel as though I’ve been abused for my beliefs in financial logic.  I threw out the card with its remaining 41 cents.  As a friend told me, “It rounds down to 0%.”

My second, and even more glorious achievement was at HOM Furniture.  They sent me a $20 off any single item coupon in the mail.  They did this (I’m sure) because I recently purchased a new bed and couch on an interest free loan deal for my new apartment.  They thought, “How could we go wrong with this customer? She is already in debt to us.”  Boy did I show them!  I found one of the 5 items in the store that cost less than $20.  An item so inexpensive they don’t even list it on their website. I found a lovely little clock for our newly decorated living room.  I placed my $19.99 clock to the desk to purchase.  It will cost $21.37.  I place my $20 off coupon on the counter- fully expecting the cashier to inform me I can’t use it on such an inexpensive item.  She punches the coupon into the computer and because I only get taxed on what I pay; I now owe exactly $0.00 for my new clock. Pull out the confetti!  Free money!  Living on a student salary isn’t so hard if money keeps falling from the sky!

Let’s talk about Money!

A Semi-Serious Parody, by Sam.

Did you meet your Holiday Budgets?  Did you have holiday budgets?  Did you know that the national average for personal debt went down 8% in November?  Well that’s what I heard.   But CNN thinks that bankruptcy fillings are up for this year.  But don’t worry about it too much, New York Times thinks that it’s your mom’s fault.  You are just following in her monetary footprints.

Did you know? When the economy is down everyone goes back to school.  It’s really a nice time to reflect- to learn new skills so you are better prepared for when the market starts hiring agian.  Besides what else will you do with your time?  But the college’s need money too and that’s making the students nervous.  I’m in school.  I’m nervous about it as well.  I think it’s good that there are a lot of smart people who are nervous about the finacial hardships.  Nervous people help make things happen.  I would be more worried if people weren’t nervous.  But, unlike some, I have confindence that the people who know more about this than I will find some solutions.  Lots of passionate people tend to create good solutions.  I wonder if anyone else feels the same…