Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Bargain Shopping Bummer

I pride myself on my bargain shopping abilities. But they say pride goes before a fall, and that was certainly the case today as I totally blew it. I visited the famous 1/2 of 1/2 store today for the second time. I was finding all kinds of deals in the children's section. They had these jeans from The Children's Place that were in perfect condition and only cost $4. I looked them over so carefully, searching for flaws, but could find none! So I bought two pairs for Ava and one for Nate. I was feeling so smug about my purchase for a few hours until I examined Ava's jeans before placing them in her drawer. Turns out the snap closure is totally broken. All three of the jeans have broken snaps, and all three are broken in different, and very difficult to fix ways. I did fix one pair- but listen to how tricky this was. I had to remove the worthless top snap (worthless because there was no bottom snap to snap it to) that was fixed to a fake buttonhole. It was fake because it was sealed closed. So after removing the snap, I had to cut open the buttonhole to make it operational. Then, I had to find the perfect size and style of button to sew onto the other part of the jeans. And this is all pretty worthless anyway because even though they will close now, Ava can't work a button like that. That's only 1 out of 3 I've been able to fix. So instead of finding a great deal, I threw $12 down the drain. And the worst part is trying to live down the fact that I did not check the most likely place for a pair of jeans to be flawed- the snap or zipper. Sheesh. And I call myself a bargain shopper.

3 comments:

Brooke said...

I went there after your previous blog about the store. I found a few cute things and tried them on. I immediately knew 3 of them wouldn't work after trying them on, but I was so excited about a cute Ann Taylor dress. I tried it on a second time to really evaluate the dress. I was ready to make my purchase. I tried to unzip the side and the zipper broke. I couldn't get it off! After about 15 minutes of struggling, I got out of it. I was very close to having the gay guy come in and help me. I hope to try the store again, but I'm really scared of buying something that will fall apart on me.

Unknown said...

Live and learn, I guess!

Anonymous said...

Becky,

We have been pinching pennies more around my house too! I have found some great deals at this auction site http://www.bidtopia.com. Their rating system has been great and I found some deals %50 to %80 off retail. Good luck!