Hm, you actually CAN change a man!
August 12, 2007
It’s not that BoyDucky was averse to a bargain before, but he was never what I’d call a bargain-hunter. I’d gently chastise him each time we went shopping and he encouraged me to buy something I liked just because it was 10-15% off because it wasn’t regular price.
Early on in our relationship, we took a few trips to Macy’s where I introduced him to the fine art of combining clearance sales and coupons for a respectable discount of 89% or more off the original prices. His dress trousers, originally $110 came out to $15. While duly impressed, he stubbornly persisted in calling jeans at $50 a “good price” and 25% off a “good deal.” Our shopping equilibrium has become a reversal of roles: he shops sales and shares the really *good* deals with me, but until we’re married and I control the pursestrings, I won’t ask about the deals he doesn’t share. Sometimes, it’s just better not to know. My frugal soul shivers at the upheavals to come when our shopping styles collide.
In the meantime, though, it turns out that my poorly disguised sighs and barely repressed admonitions of what a REAL sale looks like actually did sink in. Our trip to Banana Republic yielded a (yes, another) black dress, it fits far better than that $10 bargain dress from my cousin, discounted to $50 and a nice emerald green top for $30. It must have been the color of the top that initially seduced me, but without telling him, I decided that I’d just return the top later on. The dress, in a Petite Small, wasn’t available online nor had I ever seen it in the stores in my area so the 40% discount just had to do. I’ve already lost two dresses and a suit, all in my size, waiting for a discount that never came, so it was time to pony up the gift card. Didn’t you know? I also like to hoard gift cards in case of shopping. That also makes the spending hurt less. š
His comment to me later? “I liked that dress a lot, it looks good on you. But I don’t know about that top.”
“Why? What’s wrong with it?”
“Well, it’s not the color, it looks nice, but. I guess it’s just not as good a discount as I’m used to seeing you get. It was only $10 off.”
Hallalujah! Either my philosophy about paying far less than retail has finally become his, or my chickens have come home to roost. Or, my roosters. Whichever is more agriculturally correct š
Honey, it’s like water on stone in my opinion. If the water is constant enough and persistent, the stone will eventually cave in.. š
Husband has since learned to like more ethnic foods (he actually LIKED the Thai red curry I ate the other way!) and he’s slowly coming around to using coupons and shopping for bargains…although sometimes his brain goes: I WANT that $70 shirt, instead of saying: I want it… but would I actually wear it, every day, sitting in a hotel room waiting for FB to come home? š
Oh well..came out of his fun money š
That’s great that he is coming around. Your teaching and persistence is paying off.
~Fab & ToBB~ I guess the surprise was that we’d sort of fallen into detente mode: I wasn’t actively working on him anymore.
He’s too cute, he says I’m a good influence on him.