In my Super-Couponing 2 classes, I talk about the clothing cycles and best times to buy clothing at low prices. One of those cycles is taking place right now! The weeks prior to Labor Day, and post Labor-Day, are fantastic times to buy clothes. Let me show you some of the deals I’ve gotten this week…
Today, I went to Macy’s, where many items are 50% off the lowest clearance price. I had a long-standing moratorium on shopping at Macy’s after they took over Marshall Fields (yes, I was one of those holdouts!) but last year, they lured me in with their post-Labor Day sale, when they offered a coupon for $10 off a $25 purchase. Anytime you can combine clearance prices with a high-value coupon… you can usually do well! I enjoyed that sale very much last year, and guess what… it started today again, and that wonderful $10 off $25 coupon has run in the Chicago Tribune for the past 2 days.
I picked up bunches of pairs of shorts for my boys today, as well as a couple of shirts — and look at these prices! With 50% off the marked price, everything I bought rang up at $2.49. My 11 items totaled $27.39, and with my $10 coupon, I paid $17.39 — that works out to $1.58 for each item!
With these good sales, I also apply our stockpiling strategy for my kids’ clothes. $2 is really my price point — anytime clothes are at or under that mark, I’ll buy anything I like — even if it’s a few sizes larger than my young children currently wear. Especially with boys, it’s not like denim or cargo shorts, or t-shirts and polos are going out of style anytime soon :)
And over at Meijer, I found a bunch of cool, inexpensive shirts to go with all the shorts from Macy’s, as well as some swim trunks. And, at $2 each, I bought ten items and spent $20! Even my cashier was impressed… and said she planned to hit the clearance racks on her break too!
Happy post-Labor-Day shopping!
elvisgirl says
Hello Jill,
Thank you for the tip.. I ran out this morning around 9:00am as soon as I read the post.. I didn’t find much for my kids but what I found was a total of 25.49 less my coupon. I took 3 pairs of shorts and 4 nice polo shirts for $16 OOP – I’m thrill about it. this started my saturday morning with a great smile!
btw..they were more things for smaller toddler and for bigger kids like teenagers…I think it’s very worth it to go check it out. (and I saw a bunch of stuff for myself but I was there to shop for my kids so I didn’t get anything for me..but it’s a great sale!
stealfinder says
I went this morning and it was a colossal waste of time! I get the the register with 3 items: $19.99, $4.99, and $4.99. When she scanned the coupon, the register said that I had only spent $19.99 towards the Q and therefore didn’t qualify. The cashier insisted that it should have worked. Another clerk came over & said that maybe the 2 $4.99 shirts used to be EDV (excluded from the coupon). I asked her how I was supposed to know that. The rack that they came from was about 8 ft. from the register, so we could clearly see that there wasn’t a sign stating any of that. I asked to speak with a manager. They requested one to that register. After 7 minutes (an excrutiatingly long time) the manager calls & asks to speak to me over the phone. Now I get that it is a big store, buy she really couldn’t come down to talk to me? She explained that the items were “morning specials” and that they didn’t qualify. Again, no signs for this. I left my purchase there and went home!
This was the 1st time I’ve been to Macy’s in years and I guess it will be the last. Years ago I ordered a couch from them. I called after several weeks to check the status & they told me that they’d lost my order. I agreed to re-order (and wait another 4-6 weeks). Unfortunately in the waiting time, the price had gone up (several hundred dollars). They refused to give me the former price (even though I had the carbon copy of the original invoice showing the sale price)! Then they refused to give me the extra 10% off for opening a Macy’s card (I did it the day of the original purchase because it saved me some $ that day). When I was speaking with the woman about all of this I was perfectly calm and respectful, even though it became increasingly hard to do. She became profane with me and called me a (word that rhymes with) witch! I politely declined & bought a couch somewhere else.
Why did I bother going back today? It was another waste of time!
heybets30 says
We didn’t go through our Sat or Sun papers yet – does anyone know if the coupon is still valid? Or, was it for this past weekend only? Sounds like it was in maybe Fri/Sat papers? Or only Thu/Fri papers? I think we only get Tribs on Wed, Sat, Sun now.