This doesn’t count yard sales, stuff from friends, etc. What is the best deal you ever got at an actual store? For me it would be the 1 cent DVD of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” that I got at Best Buy. I actually bought like all five or six copies they had and sold them to friends for the cost of postage.
A few years ago a local store for some time had, clearly by accident, the 23 oz size of Reese’s Peanut Butter cups in the system for $1.59 or thereabouts. Their loss was my dentist’s gain.
$3.60 for a duster sweater that was originally priced at $60. The store was going out of business.
A few Christmases ago I was looking for interlocking foam-rubber playmats. My wife planned to use them to block knitting projects, and knitting stores were asking for national-debt prices for them. Those ones from Knitpicks were $20 for 9 square feet of mats–but then I found that Toys ‘R’ Us was selling 5 pads of 4 square feet apiece for the same $20.
So I go into Toys ‘R’ Us and ask for the playmats. Eventually we found them for sale…but it wasn’t 5 pads of 4 square feet. No, they wanted to sell me a huge box of 25 pads of 4 square feet…100 in all. I asked the employee how much they were, and he shrugged. “I guess $20.” I went to the cash register with the box, and sure enough, it was $20.
I went from paying $20 for 9 square feet of mats to $20 for 100 square feet of mats. Even tygre’s biggest shawls only take up 1/4 of the mats.
The 1988 Japanese CD of The Phantom of the Opera for $75. Only 1,000 pressed, totally deleted, never to come back.
Goes for around $400 - $500 on eBay.
Back when plasma TVs were crazy-expensive, I’d done my research and decided on what model (50-inch) to get. A local TV/stereo/appliances chain had it on a Black Friday special for $1999, and the 42-inch version was on sale for $1199.
Sears had the same TV, but for $2199. I decided to buy from Sears, then have them do the price match +10% of the difference, so I’d get it for $1979 or so.
When I went there, it was manic, so I waited in line to get to the register. The apparently seasonal-help cashier looked at my receipt, looked at the newspaper ad, started to text the first chapter of War and Peace on the cash register, then got to the point where a manager’s assistance was needed. Pick up the phone and page… When the manager arrived, the other cashier at that counter also needed them. Cashier said I was doing a price match. Manager bangs out something on the register and evaporates.
A receipt prints out and the cashier tells me that the refund will be credited to my card in a couple of days. I try not to make eye contact with the dozen people who’d stacked up in line to check out while I had a register tied up waiting for the manager. Out in the parking lot, I look at the receipt. :eek:
I ran a bit of math in my head and came to the conclusion that they price matched my 50" TV to the advertised 42" model, so I ultimately bought it for about 75% off.
Years ago I found fairly large packages of pepperoni for about 14 cents each. It was real, that’s what the supermarket was selling them for.
I once paid $29.95 for a box of floppy disks that came with a $30 rebate.
A queen sized air mattress with built in pump for $13. Don’t know if it was an error (the shelf sticker read $37) or what, but I went back and got another for a spare, and the cashier snapped up the third one for herself!
That reminds me, I once bought a clearance copy of Netscape for $15 with a $20 rebate.
Target had these great little space-heaters on clearance a few months back, when it was still cold enough in Chicago to need them. Two-packs of these heaters were normally $30 but they had them marked down to $8 and change (for TWO heaters!). I picked up several of them.
I know I mentioned this in another thread once, but what the hell, I never pass up a chance to brag…
Back around 1990, when stores were unloading their LP stocks, I picked up a lot of cool titles for $1 each, but the real jackpot was when I found a store selling LPs for 15 cents apiece. They had a lot of old (like mid-70s) funk and soul, still in shrinkwrap. I picked them over carefully, bought about 150 of them, then went down the road a few miles to a used-LP store and sold them for about $200.
Got a “little black dress” off the clearance rack at Kohl’s, and it fit perfectly, was marked 85% off original price, so 9 bucks. Took it to the register and it rang up as $3. The cashier just shrugged. Oh my.
I so miss the original Filene’s Basement in downtown Boston. I used to get the most amazing deals there. Three that immediately spring to mind are a Hype bag that I got for $23, a Tahari suit for $17, and a Via Spiga coat for $60. All were current season, and when I went to the websites I usually shop at just to see the going prices, they were $220, $180, and $580(!), respectively. 
Did Filene’s Basement and websites ever coexist?
Filene’s Basement closed in 2007. I know it seems as though it’s been forever.
Sob
I like thrift stores, and it’s easy to find decent bargains there if you’re discerning. The two Riedel Sommelier Bordeaux stems for $2.50 each made me ecstatic when I saw them. The clerk thought they were decorative, and indeed they are.
Finding Egon Muller Scharzhofberger Kabinett 1990 for $4 two years ago was happy-making too. It was delicious.
Really? I could swear that it was more like 1992.
I think 1992 may have been when the brand was sold, but the Filene’s Basement stores that are in malls are no different than TJ Maxx or Marshalls, whereas the Downtown Crossing store kept all the old markdown policies and got some much higher end merchandise.
I’m not kidding that I cried when they closed.
I still sometimes cry when I think about it.
Sob
Last summer, while vacationing in Yellowknife, we popped into the Salvation Army store across the street from our hotel so my wife could grab a couple books to read on the drive home. As we were headed to the cash register, I spotted a brand new Rawlings Gold Glove edition 12.5" outfielder’s mitt priced at $12.99. I snapped it up, then checked online later to see what the actual price was – it was retailing for around $120. Sweet!
A lovely Jones New York silk suit - beige, light pinstripe, buttery soft in feel - at Macy’s during a huge sale. It was originally over $400, and I got it for around $80 with tax.