**Have you noticed the escalating price of bacon lately? I hit a rather decent sales/coupons double out of the ballpark about 5 months ago so I haven't really checked in on the current going price for that porky goodness since early last Spring.
Since our supply is almost gone, I started last week to take note of the market price for bacon.
And let me say for the record....that shits gone way up!! Regular retail here for $5 to $6 a PACKAGE!
Great Googley Moogley!!
I paid $1.00 a package the last time I stocked up and it was an amazing $2.00 straight sale price without a coupon then.
I might have to start trolling the local animal shelters for abandoned pot bellied pigs to bring home and fatten up.....ok, not really but I *did* consider that for a few moments. ;-)
**I took SonyaAnn's ADVICE and cashed out my credit card Rewards for Christmas gift cards the other day. I have 8 gift cards winging their way to me in time for Holiday giving. I have to dig out my gift stash and figure what more I still have to acquire/make. I'll probably do that next week or this weekend. I want to have everything in process or done by Thanksgiving so I only have to darken a stores door for food between Black Friday and New Year's Day.
Not to freak anyone out or anything but there are only 70 Shopping Days left Until Christmas......
**This is a photo of part of our high school's Marching Band taken 3 weeks ago.
The kid in the center playing the flute is my son.
I do think it's time for a haircut.....
**Have you noticed that Outlet Malls are no longer the place to get a deal?
Ok....maybe sometimes they are.....but over the past few years outlet malls have really become just another excuse to throw up a shopping mall somewhere and sell regularly priced stuff. I am old enough to remember when an outlet 'store' meant it was located in the geographic area of it's manufacturing mill and carried overruns, imperfects, seconds, etc. and you could buy them at a deep discount off of the regularly priced perfects that got shipped to the regular stores. My mom and I use to take trips to Lightfoot VA to snag deals at the Williamsburg Pottery Factory when I was growing up. Good times.....
Somewhere about 1978 though they began renting out space there(after they over expanded and the economy tanked a bit)directly to the manufacturers they had previously bought outlet bound stuff from and resold. Other real outlet stores followed suite. That's when it all went downhill for the deals in my humble opinion. The manufacturers began stocking/running their own outlets. Seeing how successful this model was, developers began building outlet malls so you could go to one place and get deals from many different brands without traveling far. And they located them in touristy areas to generate more revenue. Then they started offering regular mall bound merchandise or lines created just to sell in the outlets, which raised all the prices and just bastardized the whole original concept and made outlet stores/malls mostly crap in my opinion.
The point was illustrated clearly this past week on our trip to Ocean City. We stopped in Rehobeth Delaware at the Tanger Outlets to do some clothes/shoe shopping. While Hubs got some deals on shoes at Rack Room shoes and I picked up a pair of Chuck Taylors for Daughter for less than full retail, no deals were to be found at the supposed Under Armor outlet store.
#2 son wanted a basic black shirt to wear under his Marching Band uniform so we went looking. Everything in that store was full retail price, unless you wanted some boys sized shirts(that were STILL $20!) or some hideously ugly pieces I wouldn't buy at a thrift store for a fraction of the price they were charging.
**I mentioned awhile back about a relative who was having a financial crisis, and that I was helping them with a plan to get them "out of the weeds", as they say in golf.....not that I play golf or anything....
I am so happy to hear that they got through September and have taken the budgeting info. and embraced it, tweeking it and making it their own. Hopefully, they should be able to get through the next few years until their situation is scheduled to improve.
**One of the Deal Blogs(sorry, can't remember which one)had something posted Sunday about a 10-10-10 sale on 6pm, the dotcom shoe/clothing store. Big clearance sale where everything was $10!
Luckily we have some oddball sized feet in this house, so I was able to find 9 pairs of shoes we could use...woohoo!
I am not a big fan of buying shoes online since you can't try them on, but I figured for $10 I'd take some calculated risks on styles/sizes and if some don't fit right, I can pass brand new shoes along for Christmas to friends, other family members, the local Christmas charity program or make a thrift store donation.
#2 son is a skateboarder. He goes through shoes quickly. He lusts after expensive skaterboarding branded shoes. I found one of these brands in this clearance sale for $10 a pr. Reg. retail of $65 a pr. I bought 5 pairs(in 3 sizes) for less than what 1 pair would cost me at the mall store(not that I'd every buy them there for full retail). lolol
The downside.....now my bedroom closet looks like the storeroom in a shoe warehouse.
Anybody seen my shoe horn?
Sluggy
My random replies are:
ReplyDeleteI never buy bacon if it's not on sale or at Aldi, but I have noticed pork loin prices have gone up just a little here.
My Christmas list is so small, I'm not worried even if I do have to shop between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. I only have to shop for Kat and her teacher. Maybe my daughter and SIL, if we decide to exchange gifts. Now that Shane's in a foreman's role most of the time, we don't even have to get a "boss gift".
Leave the boy and his hair alone. ;)
I have never found good bargains at outlet malls. I think they bore me more than regular malls.
Good for your relatives. I wish some of mine would embrace a budget.
That last pic reminds me of my parents shoe store when I was growing up. Good times. I love the smell of leather and glue in the morning.
I am with you on the outlet stores. My mom dressed us at Sears Outlet. We LOVED that store. Later on we found other outlets and managed to get deals, but not so much anymore.
ReplyDeleteYeah on the shoe deal!
I hear you on the Outlet Mall thing... and many others. There is only one store I look to for true mark-downs, and that's "Vanity Fair" in the Geneva outlets near Waterloo, NY.
ReplyDeleteI can always count on a super-discounted rack of things (tee shirts, sometimes oxfords) for two bucks -- and that's where I stock up on t's and sweats.
But the higher end outlet stores just seem to put out a lower end of their over-priced products (at a lower level of quality too).
I'm starting to think we are long lost twins. I've been thinking so many of the same thoughts as you. Bacon for $6.00????? What the heck is up with that. How about butter?? $4.00 a pound? Are they crazy? Don't even get me started on milk. Extortion. I too feel like outlet malls are a joke lately. I do better at Macy's or Kohl's with a coupon. See, our brains are on the same frequency. We even both have band kids. Go figure.
ReplyDelete