Books, Bags, & Turkey Bacon

I spend money on books without thinking twice.  And supplies in my classroom, they're stocked and nearly overflowing the cabinets.  I will go out of my way to buy my all natural, uncured Turkey Bacon at Meijer, and when it comes to Thirty-One bags I have no willpower.

So when my black, knee-high boots broke last winter, you would think that I'd be willing to fork over the dough to get a new pair. Yet, that would be wrong.  I see my clothing as the one place to find the best deal.  I go straight to the discount racks when I walk into Kohls, and I surf through all of the Sale items on the Maurices' website.  I'm okay with wearing last season's style, if I can get it for half the cost.  Clothing and shoes are the area where I scrimp and save the most.  Today was solid proof of this truth.

I drove my family to a discount store to get my son, Cole more pants.  He seems determined to wear through every knee in the pant universe.  His two remaining pairs run through the wash several times a week.  Once inside the store he finds three pairs of athletic pants, and heads in to the dressing room.  He came back out with zero.  A big disappointment, and a true fail in my mission to do less laundry this week.

Then, we turn to shoes.  Of course, many shoes jump off the shelf that he'd love to have.  The shoes enter my cart only because they pass the "deals" test at 50% off!  Regrettably, I leave that store without pants, but with a smiling eleven year old holding his new pair of gym shoes.

Our next stop - a discount shoe store to solve the knee-high black boot problem from last winter.  Whenever I went to make a boot purchase that passed my "deals" test, either size or comfort detoured me.  For this reason, I have nearly worn through my brown boots.  My daughter's boot situation is similar to my own, which makes me incredibly nervous.  Boots for her plus boots for me equals lots of money that I can't spend on books or turkey bacon.

But today, the heavens smiled down to lead us to the discount rack.  Boots of all colors and sizes at 50% or 75% off!  I did a happy dance, and began digging for the boots I desperately needed.  My daughter pulled down box after box.  We took over the boot section until we each found a pair of brown boots and a pair of black boots.

When the cashier rang through our items, he grinned and said, "That's pretty good! One pair rang up at $10!"

My daughter and I skipped to the van with a sense of pride...four pairs of boots for the price of one!  That's a lot of money saved for buying books, supplies, Thirty-One bags, and, of course, turkey bacon!!!