The local K-mart is going out of business. For the last couple weeks everything has been marked down further and further. I’ve been stopping by once a week to see if theres anything I need that has got a ‘must buy’ price. So, I go in there today and trot over to the first aid aisle. Can never have too much gauze, Neosporin, band aids and rolled gauze. I’m something of a snob, so I priced out the Johnson and Johnson stuff. Everything was 20% off the lowest marked price…okay, thats a fair discount but nothing to jump up and down about. I noted down the prices and figured I’d check and see what the other places in town were getting…so I could see if I was getting 20% off of an already good price or if I was getting 20% off of an overly expensive price. Headed over to Walgreen’s to compare prices and found that with the 20% discount from K-Mart the prices were pretty good….except that, as it turns out, this week Walgreens has buy-one-get-one-free on J&J first aid stuff….which essentially comes out to a 50% discount. So, even with the original price at Walgreens being slightly higher than K-Mart’s base price, it still comes out to a better deal going with the BOGO instead of K-Marts 20% off lowest price.

Which means that if I had given into my impulses and bought the stuff at K-Mart rather than check prices elsewhere, I’d've gotten less value for my scarce greenbacks.

Moral of the story: shop around, it pays.

Now….off to an ATM, and then to Walgreens to stock my lovely Hardigg Medical Chest.