Comparison Shopping

Over dinner last night, Mona told me how I had a knack for finding great finds. Earlier, she went to a store, combed the racks and didn't find anything she liked. A few minutes later, I went to the same store, combed the same racks, found a dress, showed it to her, and she LOVED it so much, she bought it immediately.

My "knack" must've been developed from all that traveling I did alone. Whenever I'm in a new country, I like to grab a map and just go to every nook and cranny until I find something interesting. Oftentimes, that "something interesting" would be a row of shops.

The good thing about finding these "hidden treasures" is you get to compare prices and realize how other stores just jack up the prices to kingdom come. More than a dozen times, I've found stuff in malls that I've seen in flea markets. They were the exact same thing - the main difference being the price.

For example, I found (and blogged about) this pair of shoes that I got in a department store last December:



Last month, I found the exact same shoes in 2 different branded shoe stores. And they cost 3 times as much as the price I paid for them. Imagine, with the price the branded shoe stores ask for, you can buy 3 of the same pair!

A cropped gray jacket was for sale in a high-end-ish store for almost P10,000, and I found the same cropped gray jacket for P800. And this dress is about $225.00 on line, and less than $25.00 if you know where to look.



But finding these nice and inexpensive clothes isn't just about finding a nice thing to buy. It's also about finding ways to get the most of your money, and save while enjoying nice things. And that's what we need to find, especially during times like these.