Shopping

Shopping with young children is never enjoyable. At the very best it is bearable, and other times you want to run out of the store in tears.

Wednesday was not my best shopping day. After swimming we ran over to Ross. I found a few new fall shirts for the girls and some outfits for a baby shower this week. When we went up to check out there were two huge lines that snaked a fair distance back into the store. Up until this time the girls had been pretty good, mostly because I had made them both ride in the cart. After waiting for five minutes to see if they'd open another register I decided there was no way this could end happily for me, so we pushed the cart to the front of the store (so they could see they were losing business) and left. Seriously, it could have taken us 30-45 minutes to check out. At that point C was out of the cart because there wasn't enough room for her in the basket with the merchandise, and she was ready to run.

I decided to hit the Wendy's drive thru to get them a little something to eat before we went to the next store, but upon seeing how long the line was I decided to find some place else. As we drove past all the cars in line, C exclaimed "This is crazy, mom. I mean this is just insane! Look at all those cars!" What five year old uses the word insane? At any rate, we had a good laugh and much better luck at the McDonalds drive thru across the street.

Finally we went to Kohls to look at a rice cooker, and now to also find a baby shower gift. Naturally, we had to make an urgent trip to the restroom - which was quite nice by the way. I hate disgusting public restrooms! I specifically asked M if she needed to go too, but she didn't. Afterwards we went back to the opposite side of the store to look at baby stuff. Three minutes after I started browsing, M announced that she desperately had to go to the bathroom. We tromp back over, get in the stall, and she doesn't have to go any more, so I tell her we won't be leaving the stall until she goes because otherwise we could play the back and forth game a few more times. Finally we finish in the bathroom, but by now the girls are clearly done and are no longer making any attempts at being on their best behavior, or even their passable behavior so we head straight to the check out line. As I'm swiping my credit card, I see that the rice cooker rang up four dollars more than the sale price. The cashier has to call the department, wait on hold while the girls are trying acrobatics around the store entrance, and then she confirms that the price I had seen was correct, but she couldn't do anything about it so I'd have to go back to the service desk located right next to the bathrooms. If it had just been me, I'd have been a little irritated, but no big deal. However, since I was losing the battle with two little ones and I can't leave the store yet due to no fault of my own, I was fuming mad. Not being a confrontational gal, I didn't say anything, but I'm pretty sure they could tell I was not pleased.

This is why I love shopping online so much. I can do it at midnight and take all the time in the world. There is no crying involved (on my part, or anyone else's). If I know exactly what I'm looking for then I'll usually buy it online. That's why I was so excited to get a shopping tip from one of my co-worker friends. I realize that I'm often the last person in the world to learn these kinds of tricks, but just in case I'm not, I thought I'd pass it on. You can do a search for specific store coupons online. On Monday night I did a little shopping. For my first purchase, I found a promotion code for 15% off, and my second purchase (different store) I got 20% off. The site I used was retailmenot. I found other sites too, but with this one you can vote whether the code worked for you or not, so you can have a pretty good idea based on feedback whether it's going to be a good code. My friend will also buy codes or coupons on Ebay if she's planning a big purchase. Paying 99 cents to save $40 is certainly worth it, and she says she hasn't had any problem with purchased coupons. She's even gotten printable ones that she's used in brick and mortar stores. I can't vouch for that personally, but I'm pretty excited that I saved about $17 on Monday without spending a dime.