Keep A Sharp Eye Out For Deals

Last night my wife, daughter and I headed out to Costco to buy a queen size bed for the lake house. We didn’t do any comparison shopping to find the best deal on the bed because we previously needed a queen size bed (for the house) and found Costco to have the best price for the quality mattress they are selling. When we got there I headed to the back of the warehouse and looked for the mattresses in the “normal” spot. They used to be back towards the back, off to one side, but I noticed they weren’t there. As I looked around further for them, I realized that they were stacked in the middle of the store in a MUCH larger quantity than they normally had in stock. I would guess they had 10 times more queen size mattresses than normal.

About that time a Costco worker walked by. I stopped him and asked him if he knew whether there would be a coupon coming out shortly. I thought maybe that would explain the unusually large number of mattresses there. I didn’t want to buy a new mattress, only to have it go on sale a month later. He informed me that he didn’t think so and that they always had that many mattresses in stock. Okay. Since I KNEW they didn’t normally stock that quantity, I opted to smile and say thanks and continued on my way. I wasn’t done yet. The fact that he was so clearly not “in the know” told me to hit the customer service counter on the way out.

We pulled the mattresses up to the cashier and paid. As we headed out the door, I asked my wife to go over to the customer service counter and ask for a coupon book. Costco puts out a coupon book every now and then and I wanted to be sure that if there was a coupon for the bed, that we knew about it so that we could come back and get a refund for the difference. I’ve seen the bed in there before so I knew it wasn’t terribly unlikely that it might be in there again. Sure enough, there was a $100 off coupon for the mattress that starts next Monday. SCORE!

We clipped the coupon and stapled it to the receipt and have placed it in the kitchen where we can’t miss it. On the way home from work next week, I’ll run by there and get the difference refunded. Like I said, it’s always a good idea to keep your eye out for potential savings. $100 is $100. I’m happy to keep it in my wallet.