Boxing Day Bargains

I am a happy chappy, I've done it all this year. Christmas Eve carols, Christmas Day lunch, and now Boxing Day shopping! And it doesn't end there... we've still got New Year's celebrations to come, yay!

And so the Christmas Season Saga continues...

I wake up on Boxing Day morning excited to hit the stores. My December allowance has barely been spent because I have been too busy with Christmas shopping and card writing. There is no better day to spend it ~ a day when all the stores are having sales, a day when my $$ is going to go further than any other day!

So I arrive at Knox with an agenda in mind ~ I am ready to hit the stores in search for a denim skirt. I've been looking for one for over a year now. Something about going shopping with my husband James makes me less likely to wander through clothes racks aimlessly looking for any random item of clothing that I might like, so of course we find a denim skirt (chosen by him out of the selection I've tried on) in the first store that we visit, which happens to also be one of my favourite clothing stores.

I go on to purchase two other tops... not long after purchasing these three items, I re-evaluate my position, only to realize that not a single one was a sale item! Such is the hype of Boxing Day shopping. Lots of stuff may be on sale, but there also appears to be an underlying ploy to get aspiring sale-hunters into the stores ~ because once there, these shoppers will madly buy other goods that they see too without realizing they aren't even on sale!

This means that I have to find proof that a good bargain can be picked up. Where do I head for such proof? To Australia's Biggest Stocktake Sale, of course! So James and I head to Myer to check out their wares and see if their sale really is as big as they claim it to be. Are all the stories I've heard over the years about fantastic bargains and $1 fridges true? Is there really a good reason to line up 7 hours prior to opening time in order to get a prime entry spot into the store and grab the best deals?

The lines at Myer are so long, both at the registers and the changing rooms. But I decide to brave the changing room line in the women's wear section... for a total of about 10 minutes. Every woman in line has 4 to 6 items to try on, and in the space of 10 minutes two women have entered the change rooms. There are still 6 more ahead of me. Based on my calculations, that means an additional 30 minutes of waiting (not including the line for the register) so I give up, return my items to their racks and leave.

Not ready to be defeated, I head out of Myer in search of a store containing a bargain worth the crowds of Boxing Day. I find it at BnT! This is, of course, another of my favourite stores. The lines for changing rooms and registers are equally as long as the lines in Myer, mainly due to my impeccable timing ~ whilst waiting in the long line for the changing rooms there are only two people waiting for the register, and by the time I am ready to line up at the register it is the longest line I have seen in the entire 1 1/2 hours I have been in BnT. But it is worth the wait. Myer was boasting 30% of marked items, and in BnT I have received a discount of just over 50% on my purchase, a fi-nominal deal for items which in my (and James!) opinion are prettier than Myer's wares.

And of course, finally, I stop in briefly at another favourite, Diva. About half their already well-priced goods are 50% off including a gorgeous pink necklace that I've had my eyes on for months. I have a gift voucher with which to purchase said necklace, and so don't even spend any money on it - double bonus!

All in all, my nomination for Best Boxing Day Sale Store goes to BnT. Valleygirl and TEMT didn't fare so well ~ they had no sales in addition to their usual any-other-time-of-year sales ~ but their prices are always so reasonable anyway that I have no complaints and they still remain on my list of favourite shopping stores. As for Myer and David Jones, well if you can bear with the lone lines I've overheard plenty of conversations that commend their stocktake sales greatly ~ maybe when I'm a little more grown up and buying for my household, these department stores will hold greater value for me.