So after renovating our basement (we’re finally almost done…) and mounting our 5 year old TV on the wall, we’ve noticed that our TV is kind of old.
OK, it’s not really all that old, but in technology years, that’s ancient. It was considered really high tech when we bought it (and crazy, stupid expensive!).
Sadly, it’s starting to show it’s age. There’s a line down the middle of the screen and some sort of weird fading at the bottom. It’s still watchable, but we’re realizing it’s time to start thinking about replacing it. To be honest, that kind of irks me. We paid entirely too much for that TV – right at a thousand bucks! Now we could get the same size TV in a better quality and for about half of what we paid back then. Ridiculous!
Which leads me to our crazy plan. We’re going to get one for “free”. Yep, you read that right. Free.
Sort of.
You all know that I’m one of those weird crazy coupon ladies. My couponing helped us save for a down payment on our house. Since then, I haven’t really had a purpose or a goal for my saving and because of that, I haven’t been as dedicated to it. When I noticed that our TV was starting to go, I knew I could do something to help us at least save money on a new one – then I thought bigger – why not try and earn a free one? Oh yeah. Aim high, Christina!
Here’s what I’m going to do:
Each week, Target has “Free Giftcard with Purchase” offers in their weekly ad. While I do cash in on those deals from time to time, I haven’t really considered them a big part of my savings plan – until now. I’m going to do my regular shopping and save those giftcards up until we can afford a new TV with them! I’m budgeting about $500 for a new TV, but I’d be really happy if I could get to $250.
Since coming up with my plan and talking to The Hubs about it (he was really enthusiastic about my plan – I love that man!) a few weeks ago, we’ve saved $30 worth of free gift cards. I know that they aren’t truly free. It’s basically just a rebate in store credit, but it is a way to save up and set aside that money without dipping in to savings or putting a new TV on a credit card.
We did establish a few guidelines for our plan.
1. We won’t buy things we don’t need, just to get a gift card. This isn’t some sort of opportunity to hoard items we have no use for. You won’t see me buying diapers just to cash in on a gift card deal. That’s crazy y’all!
2. We won’t stock up on things of which we have plenty. Yes, I stockpile. You might’ve seen those crazy people on TV with rooms full of shelves devoted to their stockpile. I am not that girl. (Side note: Did you see that one with the guy who had a thousand tubes of toothpaste? Yeah…wow.) We only stockpile what we know our space can hold within reason. I’m not adding shelving units and giving up the guest room just to store 100 toothbrushes and 600 boxes of cereal. When we have enough of something to last us until the next sale cycle, we don’t buy it again, even if there’s some awesome gift card deal attached to it.
3. There will be weeks (yep, plural) when we don’t “bank” any gift cards. This already happened actually. There are times when the Target offers don’t interest us, even if it’s something we use. I’ll skip the sale and offer. A few weeks ago (maybe last week even?) they had an offer for a $5 gift card with purchase of four Unilever products. The only thing I was kind of interested in was Q-tips, but I had just gotten a great deal on some at CVS. It would have taken too much effort and sacrificing our “rules” to try and make the gift card offer work for us so I skipped it. I’m OK with that. I might be into couponing, but I like to think I’m a more sensible than those people you see on TV.
4. It may take time, but we’ll be patient. Are we going to be able to do this overnight? Nope. It’s going to take months. We’re pretty sure our TV will last that long (if not longer), but if it doesn’t, we’ll address that when we come to it. We’re going to do our best to stick it out and make it happen. At the very least we’d like to have half of the cost of a new TV in gift cards. If we get there and our TV is still alive and well then we’ll keep on going.
So, what do you think of our crazy plan? Do you think we can do it? I’ll update you monthly with our progress. I hope that maybe I’ll make it by the end of the year…but if not, that’s OK too. 🙂 Wish us luck!
