The Cost of Being a Cheapskate

I think I've advertised my frugalness here on more than a few occasions.  My family and friends have the burden of hearing me complain about outrageous prices or my disdain of the price games stores like to play with certain products.  Yesterday both my mother and Bryan got to hear about my displeasure with how Target is running their back to school sales this year.  For the past five years I've been used to getting my crayons, colored pencils, glue sticks, Elmer's school glue, and pencil cases at sale prices that remained the same for at least a month to six weeks.  This year Target is not playing nice and I'm not happy.

Two weeks ago I got Roseart glue sticks (2 pack) for 20 cents.  Then out of nowhere they jacked the price up to 79 cents a pack.  They did, however start selling the Elmer's glue sticks for 25 cents per two pack.  That's two less glue sticks per dollar.  When you buy glue sticks as teacher bribes to help out your child's classroom teacher, you want to get as many glue sticks as you can per dollar.

Then there's the issue of the pencil boxes.  Two weeks ago I picked up my nice little made in the USA Sterlite pencil case for Ellie at Target for 50 cents.  This price is typical of back to school sales of the past. On Sunday, my local Target still had the boxes for the same price, but they didn't have the color assortment I wanted.  Yesterday when I was at another Target I found the colors I wanted but not the price.  They had jacked the pencil boxes up to 79 cents (High way robbery if you ask me!).  Target, knowing that I needed these little boxes for various household storage needs knew I had no choice.  Capitulate to the absurd price or go home empty handed.  I begrudgingly paid an extra 29 cents per pencil box (I brought three in case you were wondering.).

I may have been beaten by Target's game, but I wasn't above griping about it to my mom and husband (and now you by extension of this blog post).  Bryan just sighs and hopes I'll stop sweating the small stuff (It's what I do.  I typically go with the flow over the big stuff.).  My mom on the other hand will happily rise to the occasion with me, or humor me at the very least.  I called her on my way home from Target to gripe about the prices of pencil boxes (I need a hobby or something, don't I?).  Given my total abhorrence of Wal-Mart, I asked my mom, who doesn't mind Wal-Mart, if she could scout out their pencil box prices.  She decided at 7:30AM to call me and tell me she was sitting in their parking lot.  Yes, so the cost of my cheapness is the loss of sleep, but I'm getting pencil boxes for 60 cents each.  Take that Target!  Oh and my mom was also able to find me a plastic index card box.  I wanted one of them for the cards I made for Madeline with the Baltimore Catechism questions that she's memorizing.

If you're not a cheapskate and you're considering becoming one, be forewarned that it can be a lot of work sometimes.