Consumerism at it's Finest

Many of you have probably seen this article about Black Friday and Thanksgiving shopping. I agree with it whole-heartedly and have never been a Black Friday, crazy deal-seeking shopper. I can think of a myriad of places I would rather be than at Walmart on Thanksgiving night. I have never been overly concerned about finding the best deals on things, so hitting up huge sales with masses of people has never really been my thing. I love shopping. I don't love huge crowds and digging through sale racks.  This is why I have to laugh when I think about what happened to me and my mother-in-law on Saturday:

Since my in-laws were in town, and it is almost Christmas, we decided to get some shopping done for my kids so they wouldn't have to ship everything here. We went to Carter's to get Hayley some clothes because I had a couple of coupons. When we got there, an incredibly nice and friendly sales-person approached us and started chatting with us. She told us that their big 50% off sale was starting on Monday, and I could still use my 20% off coupon on top of that, AND they were still giving $10 for every $50 spent. Well. You can't beat that, right? But my mother-in-law was only in town until Sunday so that wasn't going to work. The sales-person told us that she would put stuff on hold until Monday if we wanted her to, and there were some 60% off sales racks in the store that were going to be changed to 50% off on Monday so we should look at those while we were there (this lady was goooood at her job). So, of course we find all sorts of cute things for Hayley, and my mother-in-law decided to get her shopping done for one of my nieces also. We headed up to the register and put the things for Hayley on hold for me to come back and purchase at 50% off on Monday. Sales lady rang up the rest of our items and we were just a few dollars away from getting our $10 so we headed back to find more stuff. We went back to the register, and at this point we were just a few dollars away from getting ANOTHER $10 so we headed back to find MORE stuff. By the time we were done, she had spent a good amount more than she was planning on spending when we walked into the store and all the grandkids had some new clothes. As we left, we looked at each other and just started laughing.

Oh wait, it gets better.

We then headed to the grocery store to get some Blue Bell ice cream (because you can't come to Texas and not eat Blue Bell). We walked to the refrigerated section and, yay! it was on sale! So, of course, we got two and headed to check out. When we got there, the checker informed us that, in order to get the sale price, we had to spend $10 on other merchandise. You've got to be kidding me. So we walked around the grocery store and put a bunch of crap in the cart. Some things we needed and some we didn't--all for the sake of getting Blue Bell for $2 off!

As we were walking back to the car, I looked at my mother-in-law and said, "What in the heck just happened to us?" That, my friends, was consumerism at it's finest.

OH, we have a coupon! But we have to spend $40 to use it!
WAIT, now we are only $5 away from getting $10 for a future purchase! We can't get that close and not do it!
Buy more to get more! You can't afford NOT to!

I'm just glad Weston wasn't with us on this little shopping excursion. He would have been in the corner with this thumb in his mouth, rocking back and forth by the time we were done.