Saturday, April 12, 2014

Branson Finds

Hey Y'all!  I had such a great time shopping with my mom today that I had to come home and blog about it.  I haven't blogged about clothes lately because I've been trying to save my money for our upcoming vacation, but today my mom and I took a day trip up to Branson, MO and I found some good deals.

I always check out any coupons before I head up to Branson because they have an outlet mall (Tanger Outlet) and there are always coupons to use.  If you join the Tanger email list, they will send you coupons all the time and keep you up-to-date with sales and events.  I recently received an email with 2 coupons- one was for 20% off a single item, and the other was for 20% off your entire purchase!  Now, of course it was select stores and there were restrictions, but they came in handy for me.

I used the 20% off my entire purchase at Harry and David- if you haven't been to one, I highly recommend it!  They have yummy gourmet treats (truffles, popcorn, jellys, jams, dips, candy, chips...I could go on and on) and can be a little pricey, but you get what you pay for.  I don't think I've ever had anything from there that I didn't like.  I didn't spend much but I saved $2.58 using my coupon.  I would tell you what I got but it's a present so I can't. :)

I then used my 20% off one item at a kitchen store to purchase a potato cutter that my husband and I have been wanting since we keep making so many perfect french fries. :)  I saved $4 on it- awesome!

I tried to use the coupon again at the Gap Outlet to get my husband a shirt but a restriction Gap had was that it couldn't be used on clearance items- oh well.  The shirt was only $7.99 a deal anyways if you ask me.

I have said before that I always shop the clearance sections first, and I'm getting to the point that I almost don't even look at the other sections of the store.  Doing this helped me to find a couple cute clearance items at Belk, TJ Maxx, and New York and Company Outlet.

I think my best (and favorite) find of the day was the very last place we stopped in- a thrift store on the way out of town.  I ended up finding 2 pairs of Lucky Brand jeans- like new- honest-to-goodness don't look or feel like they've been worn for only $4 each!  I have a hard time finding jeans the right length because I'm so short and these were the perfect length and fit like a glove!  It was meant to be! :)

Actually, I got them just a bit cheaper than that because as I was checking out I had $11 worth of stuff (my mom was getting some capris) and the girl was nice enough to let me do the '$10 grab bag.'  What this thrift store does is amazing, you can fill a bag with clothes and it's $10.  Done deal.  No questions.  As much as you can fit in a bag apparently.  I had seen the signs but didn't know the program worked for everything.  So, that was awesome and saved me $1.  I kind of wished I would have looked around a little harder. :)  Now, did I need two pairs of jeans...not really, but at $4, I couldn't help myself!  Plus, you can always use a good pair of jeans, right?

Another awesome deal I found was, well it was actually last night, was this cute dress at, of all places, Dollar General.  It was originally $15 but was on sale for $10!  It is super cute (the colors don't show up right- it is a gorgeous mix of teal and purple- two of my favorites) and I had been thinking I wanted a cute Maxi dress to wear on our vacation.  This is perfect and the price was even better! They had a cute black and white one too, but it was a different brand and didn't fit right.

I'm so excited about my finds today.  I couldn't wait to share.  Now that I have a few new pieces I can hopefully wait until our vacation to buy anything else.  We'll see how that goes. :)

Oh, and here's a bonus for you.  There was a 20 foot tall Optimus Prime Transformer at the Ripley's Believe It or Not.  A nice man that worked there told us that they had to pour something like 2 feet of concrete into the ground below it just to hold it up.  It's also bolted to the building.  Also, it's made entirely of car parts!  It's only been there for about 2 weeks so I'm sure this summer it will be a must see for anyone in Branson.  

Here's hoping y'all find your own amazing items and even more amazing prices.