I LOVE Old Navy, so naturally I love Stuff and Save sales. I began going to the sales when I was in college; the early alert, typically in the form of a canvas bag the size of most reusable shopping bags today, would come folded up and stapled to a flyer or tucked within an envelope via USPS to all Old Navy Card holders. To my recollection, the sales only used to happen bi-annually, but I think they’re having them about four times each year now. I haven’t been keeping track officially, but I remember it being a rare occurrence and now they seem to happen almost back-to-back (I’m not complaining).
I never buy anything full-priced, and my true specialty is shopping out of season. So today, after the girls’ play-therapy session, we headed to Old Navy to see what wonders we could find.
The Stuff and Save bag was the best I’ve seen yet, and not only because it’s purple (my favorite color). It wasn’t snail-mailed out this time, my alerts were an email and a flyer, but not mailing the bags was a good business decision as the bags are so thick and sturdy it would have been extremely pricey to send them through the mail. It’s going to make the perfect farmer’s market bag! The old theory was that whatever you could stuff into the bag was what you saved money on; nowadays you just get a free bag for shopping and save 40% on whatever you buy.
I could use some maternity clothes, but that wasn’t a priority, and I never even made it to look in that section. Still, somehow, we spent over two hours in the store. About 45 minutes of that time was spent standing in the check-out line, but I’ll get to that.
Terra needed a larger size of clothing for next summer. I find it so funny, to have two daughters who are only 21 months apart and born in bordering seasons (Amara near the beginning of summer, and Terra near the beginning of spring), but twice now we have come to find that Amara’s old clothing is not suitable for Terra. It’s not that I’m picky about what Terra wears, but Amara’s growth has been in spurts and she has never needed certain sizes. Terra has grown steadily through each size of clothing, but she rocketed right past several shoe sizes. I don’t get it.
I got Terra tops and tights (she managed to get chocolate on the Cinderella shirt before we bought it).
The girls both got bubble skirts and shorts for next summer.
New jeans and gray pants for Amara
Amara really needed more pants. She is growing so fast right now! Six months ago I went to extremes looking for feasible jeans and pants for her. I was determined to spend $8 or less on each pair. I’m not opposed to shopping at goodwill and thrift shops, but I was having a hard time finding her decent pants for cheap at those places too, and it was too soon for yard sales. After several weeks of finding one pair of pants here and one pair there I’d comprised a six-pair stash of 5T jeans and pants for less than $40. I was so proud of myself! Now she is almost too tall for all of them.
I got Amara a new bubble shirt and a sweater dress too.
Amara really likes to “dress like Mama” in yoga clothing. I wish the adult-sized clothing was this cheap!
I’m not the most fashion savvy person, but I don’t understand why a perfectly decent, thick, and Christmas-colored cardigan would be in the clearance section. I didn’t ask, I just bought it. So now we’re going to base our Christmas pictures off of Terra’s adorable red cardigan.
Terra’s Christmas cardigan
Did I mention that everything we purchased was from the clearance section? Oh yes, I don’t even look at the other things, except to note what I’ll be excited to see go on clearance!
A few snacks and a few trips to the dressing room, I thought we’d done a great job! Then came the check-out lanes. There is a gift to picking the right check-out lane and I do NOT have it.
We stood there for twenty minutes while two of the four customers in front of us purchased their items.
Things seemed to be going well. I allowed the girls to go up to the large windows and look out until they started arguing loudly about which one of them should be the leader as they walked back and forth between the store’s entrances.
Twenty minutes later we were still behind the third of four customers who’d started in front of us.
Terra loves dresses, and the yellow romper was adorable on her!
Not only had she purchased at least $600 worth of clothing, but there was something wrong with her transaction and we were stuck there waiting for the staff to figure it out. It was far too late to switch lanes, so I had to think quick and find a way to keep the girls entertained.
We wound up playing charades, and a yoga game. Our yoga game is pretty awesome; I use the poses that they know (lion, downward dog, happy baby, volcano, cat, cobra, etc) to tell a story. While I’m telling the story the girls have to do the pose that I mention. Today the story was about a man walking his dog up a mountain that he didn’t know was volcanic. The man and dog had to be as brave as lions to save a trapped cat. It was fun, and the girls got to use their energy in a positive way.
What was more fun? Having my total purchase (combined with my belated birthday coupon, emailed to me by Old Navy) come to $60! I know it’s not pennies, but it’s pretty cheap. If you know of better deals, please tell me!
Sustainably Single Parenting 