When Sales and Coupons Align

I am doing another swap on Crochetville and was out shopping for it over the long weekend. Swaps present unique shopping challenges. When I shop for craft items for myself, I can wait until I get the right combination of sale or coupons to get the price I want. The time limits of swaps create a challenge of getting the items I want for my swap partner at the best price I can find in the time allotted. With this challenge, I often find I have coupons for items that are sale items, thus making the coupons useless, or a previous sale has often cleaned out the items I wanted to use my coupons for leaving me with limited options. Sometimes I think the companies do plan for this when they issue their best coupons. They place certain items off limits or have them, as sale items for a price that is higher than a coupon would have made it if used. When I have time to shop, this is not an issue because I can usually find the deal and wait until I get it before purchasing. The challenge with a deadline is to find the deal in a short time allotted for the swap.

This week was different. I must have been out of their shopping cycle because I managed to get sales on some of the lower end items I needed and was able to use my 50% coupons for the higher priced items on my list, which at one point brought me to getting two items for the price of one. This means more items for my swap partner. My husband picked up one item on my list that was the last one on the shelf. I have heard that it can be challenging to find at this store so I was thrilled when he told me he found it as they have the best non-sale price for the item.

I also got lucky finding Lily Sugar & Cream brown cotton yarn at AC Moore. I had planned to order it online because I have never been able to find brown locally. Sure enough, I checked at Joann’s and Michaels while we were out and they had no brown. I am hoping because I cleaned out their supply that AC Moore will order more due to demand.

Even online, I hit sales at Knitting Warehouse and was able to use online coupons at Joann’s. It does not often happen this way, so it is important to celebrate when it does.