Another Can of Worms – 9/4/14

A lot of times you see a huge “SALE”
sign or a “Going Out of Business” sign and you think you might save a
lot of money buying it on sale.  There
are businesses that seem to always have a sale every day of the week because
they keep the same SALE sign up all year long. If that was the case they should
just mark their prices down to what the items should be sold at to begin
with.  Going out of Business sales do not
guarantee that you are getting a good price on what they are selling and you
still need to compare what others are selling the items for.

I needed some mower blades for the riding lawn
mower that we have at the cottage.  The
blades were ground down from sharpening and hitting stones and really needed
replacing.  I noticed the business that I
purchased the lawn mower from was going out of business and they were having a
sale so I thought it would be a good time to replace them.  I stopped in and they had what I needed on
sale at $20.99 per blade with 15 percent off and I needed two blades bringing
the total sale price to $35.68.  I
thought this was high so I went to another popular retail store here in Fond du
Lac and found the blades I needed were selling for their normal price of $24.99
per pair.  It would have cost me $10.69
more to purchase them at the Going Out of Business Sale than at most other
stores at their regular price.   Most of
what I seen on sale was higher priced than you could purchase the item at the
regular price somewhere else.

I learned a long time ago that it was important
to shop around and purchase a good quality product at the best price. This is
true for purchasing cars, cell phones, or lawn mower blades. The lowest price
is not always your best deal… it is the price over time. You need to look at
the total amount you will end up paying over the life of the product.  When it comes to buying things on sale, you
can save a lot if the sale is really a sale and the product is good.  The other thing you need to consider is where
to go if the product you purchased has problems and the store you purchased it
at is no longer in business.

The next time you notice people waving going out
of business signs or huge sale signs in the windows, you may want to compare
and shop around to see if what you are buying is truly a good deal.  If it is and you actually need the item then
you might want to take advantage of the sale and save yourself some money.