On Bargains, Rip-Offs, and Freebies!

You may ask why I was in the check out line of my grocery store holding 8 bags of pre-popped popcorn. Now granted, it was low fat (skinny) popcorn, but more importantly, it was on sale.

When I go to movies, I must have popcorn. But why spend $16 on a tub of popcorn, when I can bring a whole skinny bag (about 250 calories for a large bag) for less than 3 bucks? Money and calories saved. WIN!!

I am not cheap. I am not a schnorrer, as my son calls me when I sneak things into movies. He does not know Yiddish as well as I do, and sneaking popcorn into movies is not being a schnorrer, it is being sneaky. (Is there a Yiddish word for sneaky? If so, let me know. I thought I had a large Yiddish vocabulary but not for that kind of sneakiness.)

I like sales, bargains, freebies. I dislike Highway robbery. Which is what the popcorn and drink prices at movies are to me. ( I sneak in a water bottle too but don’t tell anyone)

There’s a tendency for me to go a bit crazy for a freebie. Did I really need that 3000th tote bag that I got absolutely free for filling out a credit card application? Come to think of it, I probably have as many credit cards as tote bags because I have done this so much.

I purchase cosmetics on the freebie give-away promotion times. I have tons of cute little makeup bags and items of makeup I will never use in a drawer.

Conferences are the best for freebies. You go from table to table, booth to booth, collecting all the worthless promo items the vendors are giving out. Do I really need a purse sized first aid kit, another key chain, (I probably have about 3000 of them as well) or another plastic water bottle?

IMPORTANT NOTE HERE: Attention all vendors. My husband has recently gone on a health kick and claims all these plastic goods contain harmful BPA’s. Do NOT give out freebies that are harmful, because even if I collect them in my many free tote bags, my husband will make sure they go right into the trash and your logo item will have been given away for naught.

I have drawers full of little tiny freebie items like manicure sets, keychains, flashlights, kazoos, laser pointers, flash drives. I mentioned my hoarding problem before, right? Well at least they are tucked away and no one can see them.

More importantly, will most of them ever get used? Heck no. But again, THEY WERE FREE.

Some vendors are just plain smart. They give out chocolate. That never goes to waste. Sure the logo is gone and forgotten, wrapper in the trash and chocolate long ago in my stomach, but I do appreciate their practicality.

I still have a basket of stuff (tucked away in my closet) given out at Bar Mitzvah parties and weddings. Instead of a logo on them, there is the name of the Bar or Bat Mitzvah child. Again, they are there because they were free. It would be a shame to throw away something free, right?

As my readers can see, I have a bit of a problem with “things.” It stems from my deprived childhood. My next blog will be in this same vein, and will be on my silly toy collection (With PHOTOS!) so don’t miss that one.

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  • Arlene, you need an intervention!! Ha ha!! I used to be the same way, until this past Summer, when we rented a 625 square ft. apartment to be near our daughter and could only have minimal belongings. I loved it!! It was so easy to keep clean and find my stuff! When I got back to Arizona, I started cleaning out my drawers and closets and took several carloads to the Goodwill. I also started following ‘Becoming Minimalist” on Facebook and get lots of encouragement to pare down and clean out!
    I’m with you on the vendor giveaways – no more water bottles or bags – make it food!!

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