Savvy Accessory Shopping

It's been many years since I purchased a brand new handbag for myself. At first, I searched thrift stores and estate sales and didn't find anything to my liking. Either the purses were too big, too small or too old fashioned.

There is a T.J. Maxx Store that recently opened in my area. I had purchased a few things over the summer months and applied for their TJX Rewards Plantinum MasterCard where rewards can be earned when I shop. The customer can earn 5 points per $1 spent at T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods, or earn 1 point per $1 spent everywhere else where MasterCard is accepted. For every 1,000 points earned the customer receives a $10 reward certificate.

Whenever I went shopping instead of paying in cash I used my TJX Rewards Plantinum MasterCard. Within a short period of time, I earned two $10 reward certificates. I also had an extra $20 check stashed away that I had received from doing online surveys. I went to the bank to cash my $20 check and added that money along with the two rewards certificates. So now I had $40 to spend on anything in the store.

The handbags were located in the front of the store, and didn't really want to spend a lot of time in shopping for one. Some I looked at were really out of my price range, especially those priced at $69.99 and higher. I removed a handbag from the top hook priced at $39.99, and that was the only one of it's kind.

All of the sudden, the alarm lock on the purse started beeping and then I got scared thinking that I would be be accused of attempting to steal the purse. I had to think fast then I took the purse to customer service and explained that I was only looking at it when the alarm went off. The sales clerk assured me that it happens quite often, then she took a key and shut off the alarm.

I picked up the purse, walked over to the display and was ready to hang it up and keep right on searching for one I was to buy. But a thought hit me, the purse was trying to tell me, BUY ME, BUY ME! The purse cost me a whopping $3.20 the price of the sales tax.

What a bargain!

By Marjorie from LEWISTON, NY