Confession of a Hoard-a-holic

Extreme couponer, sales hunter, stock-piler, hoarder... whatever you want to call me.  I BUY things when they are extremely cheap and hoard them for when I will later need them.  I don't really think of myself as an extreme couponer (not like on the tv show at least) as I do an extreme saver.  My most recent save was from Old Navy where I walked out of the store with a pair of jeans, 2 pairs of work pants, a dress, 2 pairs of lounge-y/yoga pants, a sweater, and a pair of work out pants for $22.  There was not one thing in that purchase that originally cost less than I what I spent on all of that TOTAL.  Do I need these clothes? Probably not. Mr. Ly may have at one point suggested that I like buying more clothing to avoid doing laundry, I can neither confirm or deny this.

But what it comes down to is this - I can not pass up a bargain.  If it's a good deal, I'll buy it. If it's an amazing deal, I will clear out the entire inventory. Whether I need it or not.  I starting hoarding items for my wedding a good year before we got engaged.



About a year and a half ago, I was at Old Navy and they had their summer flip flops on sale. Not their $1 flip flop day sale - BETTER.  Now, they don't usually clear out their standard flip-flops, but they do clearance the patterned/fancy ones at the end of the season (around October if anyone is going to try this).  The ones I found were blue and had love written all over them in different shades of blue.  Is it possible that a purchase I made a year before I got engaged determined the color scheme I would use for my wedding?  I can't honestly answer that, because I'm not sure, but all I know is my wedding is made up of shades of blue - which happen to sort of match the flip flops.  I ended up buying as many of these as I could find, in as many sizes as they had.  And they also had plain navy blue flip flops on sale too.  I bought out all of those too. I'm sure I had a coupon and some Gap cash, so I think when it came down to it, I spent less than $20 on them all and now I have about 50 pairs of flip flops in my attic - maybe more, for my winter wedding (read: not really flip flop weather!) Not to add to the crazy factor, I bought these when  Mr. Ly and I had only been dating for 6 months.  It was impulsive but it's not like they go bad. And even though I'm not really sure what I will do with them, I'm sure they will find a place in our wedding.

I only made one other large purchase before getting engaged.  Mr. Ly and I were on our way home from dinner with my parents, and I suggested we stop at Bath and Body Works.  I knew they were having a sale, and I wanted to check out what they had.  I love their mini hand sanitizers, and I was hoping to pick some up just to keep around the house.  They had a bunch that were on sale for like 75% off, and I can not not pass up a bargain like that add a 20% coupon off of total purchase, and you have an incredible deal. So, we started looking through the scents and themes they had available. Most of the clearance ones were either from their donut line or ice cream line, and they smelled a little too funny and didn't really fit with us. I would have bought some just to have. But then I found one from their pop-graphic line that I had to have, and I cleared them out of every single one they had in the store: 

Bath & Body Works

It's perfect.  Mr. Ly completely embraces his geekiness. He blogs for a website, think what weddingbee does for brides, this site does for geeks. And I love him for it.  These are perfect for our Out of Towners bags, and at 37 cents a piece, I was not going to miss out. I have at least 80 of these bottles in the attic currently awaiting their homes in our cute (and thrifty!) OOT bags! Luckily,  Mr. Ly was only weeks away from proposing at that point, so buying stuff for a wedding that wasn't in the works didn't freak him out too bad.  He knows and understands (as best he can) my bargain hoarding tendencies. 

Understanding aside, he is always impressed with my bargain hunting abilities - this past February,  Mr. Ly and I were at Target and my extreme bargain hunting eye spied their winter gloves on clearance.  They didn't have any blue ones, but we got some neutral colored ones. Mr. Ly literally had to drag me away because I wanted to clear out every single pair of gloves I could find. We have 30 sets of 2, so 60 gloves total, for our OOT bags, where were are expecting at most 25 rooms.  But a deal like this can not be passed up.  The sets of gloves were 60 cents, for 2 pairs!! We'll probably tie a cute ribbon around the sets, and put two in each bag.  Obviously these are much more weather friendly than our flip flops, but both will find their place in our wedding weekend. 

I'm hoping to keep the OOT bag cost under $5 a bag, including all the goodies and food that will be couponed at a later date.  Don't underestimate the value of a clearance item paired with a coupon, and don't be afraid to clear a shelf if it's for a good cause!

Who doesn't love a great deal when they find one?  Any other strategies for finding amazing deals that I missed?