tell us your best frugal shopping stories (sale, items, old)

[Dayton Sux]

.99 cents managers special on chives at Kroger. I like to cook with herbs...unfortunatly store-bought herbs are expensive, so this was a real deal (chives and dill are my main fresh cooking herbs)

[kmbjbb]

I go to Goodwill and get stuff and rework them to fit the family. I get blankets and comforters and such and use them in quilts I am making.

[Sally_Sparrow]

Does dumpster shopping count?

We are moving and I had no luck getting free boxes on Craigslist so I headed to a nearby large shopping center/strip mall type place that has Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, Ross Dress for Less, etc. with the intention of looking in their dumpsters for boxes.

I found plenty of boxes (yay!) but I also found brand new merchandise including a hard shell wheeled suitcase with a tiny flaw, several linen finish "shoe box" style storage containers, a new aluminum step ladder with just the paint tray needing a screw, and a pair of leather hiking boots for my son.



I have the ultimate frugal shopping story though from my wedding in 2011.

I actually made money on my wedding dress purchase. Yes, I am bragging.

About nine months before our wedding, I went to a bridal chain store and tried on dresses, found one I loved, "cheap" in the bridal world but way more than I wanted to pay at $650 new. I made note of the size that fit me. It fit as-is, off the rack, saving me the $$ of alterations aside from having the skirt bustled.

I immediately looked on eBay for the dress but didn't find anything at first. I did a saved search in eBay so I'd get notifications when anything like that was listed. About a month later, there's "my dress", in my size. Wedding dresses generally don't sell well on eBay unless they are extremely high end. My dress was listed in a "lot"; the seller was selling the dress (never worn, tags still attached), the petticoat/slip, a strapless longline bra, a veil, and a fancy tiara/hair comb. All of it unworn and with tags, because she'd changed her mind before the wedding and bought a different dress and accessories.

I emailed the seller and tried to talk her into a Buy it Now price of $250 if she'd end the auction early but she would not.

I bid on and won the entire "lot" for $130 (with shipping). People are funny about "lots" when they don't want everything in the lot and it tends to hurt the overall total bids. A good thing for me as the buyer!

The bra, petticoat didn't fit me right. The veil and hair comb were not to my liking.
Sold the bra, veil, hair comb, and petticoat each separately on eBay -- for a total of $180

Of course I had to buy my own bra and I bought that new but I got use out of it beyond the wedding. Bought a slip/petticoat at a thrift store for $15, veil for $5, made my own hair accessory ($5 for materials).

After the wedding I sold the dress for $75.

[in_newengland]

One of my best was at a church rummage sale where there was a tiny potted plant for 50 cents. It didn't have a label but I knew what it was--it was a Japanese maple tree. If you went to a garden center one of these trees, a little bit larger would cost about $50 and a bigger one might be $100 or more. So I walked out with my "unknown" plant and in a few years I had a beautiful, expensive tree growing in my yard.

[pvande55]

Does this count? Bought a couple neckties today. The package was marked with suggested retail price of $49.95. Probably mostly sold at $25, so stores can advertise 50% off. But I got the ties for $5, clearance. That is 90% off, realistically 80%, but still good deal.

[poodlecamper]

ok.Thrift store, beautiful suit jacket, dry cleaned size 46L for $4.25

[lucknow]

I have discovered an interesting thing about buying used things that were originally very expensive. If the sellers had been given those items and had not purchased them themselves they often sell them for very little. I bought a gorgeous bedroom sweet not long ago that was very high quality and the dressers alone were $2000 a piece retail. I got the whole thing for $300. Another bedroom my wife was redoing needed a bed. She found a King Louis the 16th bed on line and we got that bed plus a brand new mattress that was on it for $125. The mattress alone was worth over $1000 and had been slept on by these people's grandson twice. We found some beds like it in antique stores for around $4000 a piece without a mattress.

In both of these cases the owners of these pieces had been given them and were happy to part with them for what I paid.

I find there are a few categories of things where this seems to work well. Furniture, tools, dishes and kitchenware. I got an entire set of beautiful English bone china for $100.

I sure love a bargoon! LOL

[carlitasway]

A Salvation Army near my house has 50% off all clothing and accessories every Weds. I find lots of brand names for a fraction of the cost! I'll be hitting it this coming up Weds when all the kids are back to school.

[Pitt Chick]

Got an $89.00 jacket at Chico's for $8.23.

[randomlikeme]

A 1986 volvo 240 that lasted me five years, $475 at a salvation army auto auction.