|Insider Tips on How to Maximize Your Dollar

Hi.  My name is Suzanne and this is my blog.  I’ll be writing about one of my favorite subjects: saving money.  I have many years of experience in this area.  I thought I’d begin by relaying a little bit about me and my enthusiasm for the fine art of saving.

There’s not much I like to brag about, but I do love to brag about the savings on my purchases.  I love the hunt.  I love getting something of good quality for a fraction of the price.  I love the idea of looking like I spent beaucoup bucks on something.  I also love the thrill of seeing a tag with the original price followed by all the various markdowns (hopefully there are many!) slashed to an even better, more enticing price.

My all time winner in this category was a Carmen Marc Valvo dress I bought at Neiman Marcus Last Call which I ended up getting for 4.3% of the original price.  95.7% off!!  How this came about was that I decided to take the plunge and browse the clearance rack.  Now, this isn’t just any clearance rack…this is THE clearance rack; the one that you don’t see most people browsing because, well…it’s just too plain embarrassing.  I mean, we all know we’re already shopping in a Clearance store—but to shop the Clearance rack at a Clearance store?  If you’re still not convinced, Last Call has now labeled this clearance rack the “Chip and Dent” rack.  I think that says it all.  This rack usually contains clothing that is barely suited to still be for sale.  There are items missing buttons or with broken zippers, or part of the outfit is missing altogether.  And of course the sizes are either way too big, or something so small it could double as a handkerchief.  So it was, with mild trepidation that I wandered over to peruse said rack and found The Dress.  In my size.

The original price for this dress was $2,250.00.  That’s two thousand two hundred and fifty dollars in case you thought I had misplaced a zero somewhere.  From there it was marked down to $787.00 and then to $195.99 when it finally landed in the Chip and Dent Rack.  In addition to this new low, the clearance rack held a sign announcing an additional 25% off the lowest marked price.

As it turns out, I happened to be in the store on a special day wherein if you used your Neiman Marcus Credit Card, you then saved an additional 30% off your total purchases.  To clarify, I asked one of the sales ladies about it which she confirmed.  Apparently it was a pretty easy task to accomplish she informed me, in that all you had to do was turn over your driver’s license plus the last 4 digits of your Social Security card and wait about five minutes for approval.

Mine took about three.

Once my new credit card was approved, she rang the dress up and announced the bottom-line total: $97.75.  We both looked at each other and gasped.  The only words I could utter at that point were “Them’s Target prices!!”

[One word of caution must be entered here: the interest rate on a Neiman Marcus credit card is in the, let’s just put it this way “Empire State building region”, so my advice is to ONLY use it to get the extra discount and then pay it off immediately! As a matter of fact I double-checked with their Customer Service department and found out you can shop there, pay with your NM CC and immediately go to the Customer Service desk to pay off what you’ve just charged.  According to the person I spoke with, many people only use their NM CC as a “discount card” in just this fashion.]

If there are any like-minded shoppers out there (you know who you are) that has a similar price reduction story, share it with us on this blog!