I’m serious guys. I am not here to tell you that every membership, deal, and sale you see is really a good deal. Because it’s not. I have few feelings on this:
- Memberships: ONLY PAY FOR A MEMBERSHIP IF YOU ARE GOING TO USE IT! For real. We had a Sam’s Club membership one of those years when the amount of gift cards and products that they gave you for joining pretty much cancelled out the price of it. However, we probably only went twice that year and realized we wouldn’t use it enough to justify the membership fee. If you don’t know, try to keep track of how much you save vs. how much it cost (whether it’s a month or a year) and cancel if it isn’t bringing you value.
- Discount websites: I am pretty sure every website is either a “discount website” or wants to “compare discount websites” for you. Before you sign up or buy anything on one of these, check around for prices. Your local store or Amazon might have the same thing with no shipping charges or even a better price. Don’t be afraid to comparison shop on Google, they have a whole Google shopping platform.
- Sales: Kind of like discount websites, not everything is on “sale” all of the time. And please don’t believe it is. If I buy something that is on “sale”, I always know what the original price is or what comparable items are regularly priced. This helps me be more confident in knowing that the sale price really is a good deal. The Younkers-going-out-of-business-fiasco was an eye opener for a lot of people that realized someone was coming in and marking up the original prices just to “discount” them down to regular prices… and you guys, it worked. People just flocked to those “40% going out of business sale” signs. Do some research or scan items with the ShopSavvy app to compare prices and feel better about your purchases.