Tag Archives: medical

More bargain hunting

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

As I mentioned earlier, the local K-Mart is going outta business. They’ve been progressively marking things down more and more. I’ve been keeping an eye on the ‘health and beauty’ section since that’s where the first aid supplies hang out. Today everything there was marked to 30% off lowest price…AND..for today only there was an additional 10% off on the final price. That translates out to ..uhmm….carry the one….an effective 37% discount. Well, heck, that’s more than one third off. Wouldn’t you capitalize on that as well?

I’m kind of a snob, so what I was after was name-brand stuff. Mostly Johnson & Johnson bandages, gauze, pads, etc, etc. Those were top of the list. The stuff that remains there, while still attractive to my needs, is low priority stuff so I’m content to set back and wait for the final 50% off or whatever they wind up doing. If it’s still there, great…if not, I won’t care.

As I commented to the wife, as the discounts got more and more intense (20% became 25% became 30%, etc.) the crowd definitely became a little more…interesting. We’re in what could arguably be considered a slow economic collapse and people are jazzed about saving 35% on a SpiderMan t-shirt. Screw that…priorities, man….be less thrilled about that and more thrilled about finding essentials and other useful items that’ll help keep you in one piece as the uncertain future unfolds.

So, much like the animal kingdom, as one beast falls the scavengers come in and take what they can from it’s corpse. That’s the food chain, and not everyone enters at the top.

Today’s purchases will get tucked away in the uber-awesome Hardigg medchest where they will quietly sit…safe, secure, and unaware of the passage of time…until that day when they’re needed.

Now if I could just find a smokin’ deal on an EU3000………..

Why it pays to compare prices

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

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.