Snowier Shopping

Is anyone else getting tired of winter?  Except for a little warming trend over the weekend it's been below zero here for days.  Last night while watching the news reports of more school delays and closings for today I wrote this little ode--

An Ode For Febru-weary

Just day after day of two-hour delays
Or school cancellations--what's best, who can say?
Across TV screens those blue notices pan,
As teachers and parents make alternate plans.
Three weeks since the ground hog doled out his bad news
Those 'Frozen' jokes now are all tired and used.
Even the plow trucks have nowhere to go;
We've run out of room for their piles of snow.
Sledding and snow angels kind of wear thin
When frostbite is threatening any bare skin.
We keep breaking records, but can it be done?
'Cause now making history's not any fun.
I hope some warm weather is soon on the way
So crocuses bloom by Memorial Day.

--K. Schriefer

I haven't even felt like going shopping.  Today, though, I was motivated to get out by two things.  First of all, I'd committed to take a friend to an appointment, and, second, I saw a post on Facebook about a potential deal on socks at a local discount store.  

After my friend's appointment I drove to said discount store--Gabes--and made a beeline for the socks.  Unfortunately, they were all marked $3.00 and not $1.00 for a six pack.  A store worker even checked them with her price 'gun' to make sure.  

I strolled over to the children's department where I've been watching some 4-packs of Fruit of the Loom boys' T-shirts that have been marked $3.00 for two weeks.  Guess what?  Today they were all marked down to $1.00, so I started scooping packages into my cart.  I ended up with a tipsy tower of them and even filled the rack underneath.  

I struggled to the check-out, stopping frequently to pick up the packages that kept sliding out of the cart.  I ended up with 127 packages--508 T-shirts--and after using my $5.00 coupon I paid less than .25 for each of them.

I stowed them in the back of my minivan

...and since I had to take the shopping cart back into the store anyway I decided to check out the rest of the store.  Imagine my delight when I found another treasure in the men's department.

These 3-packs of Hanes black T-shirts in men's sizes small and medium were $1.00 per package also. This time I stacked the packages more strategically to save room in the shopping cart and I was able to get all 73 packages in without a problem.  More than 200 more T-shirts made for a great haul.

Next I tried Hobby Lobby where the Valentine's items were priced at 80% off, but I didn't find anything there that I thought was shoe box worthy.  (Maybe I was just spoiled by all those .25 T-shirts.)

I visited two K-Mart locations hoping to find some small stuffed animals, but no luck there.  I did, however, find they had some boxes of Valentines at 90% off that had pencils.  I ended up with 39 boxes that each had 14 pencils for .39 per box.  Even adding in the tax it worked out to .03 per pencil for 576 pencils.

I made one more stop at the Walgreens near my house where I found their Valentine's Day items at 90% off and picked up a fairly good haul of novelty items for .10 or .20 each.  Here's a picture of a sampling of them.  

I hate to admit it, but bargain shopping for shoe boxes is the thing I most love to do...so, today was super fun for me.  And getting clothing items to bless more than 700 children was an added bonus, too.

Now...to get back to working on our Operation Christmas Child team's 2015 ministry plan...