The Basketmaker’s Wife Must… Be Crazy For Rebates.

I’ve been moderately frugal most of my life. More so after I became self-employed in 2002. And marrying a fellow artist, I mean let’s face it, you will not get rich by both being artists working from home! But we would never trade the life we have. So, to keep the lifestyle we enjoy, we need to be smart when it comes to finances, especially the budget. But we also don’t want to be reminded that we’re “starving artists.” So we will splurge a little here and there when we do well certain months with our “supplies.”

To explain further, look at the image below.

This is the loot that I acquired today at Staples. Around 2:00 pm today,  I received a call from my frugal cohort and sister-in-law Michele who informed me that she was just at Staples and they were doing another one of their Rebate specials and sale. I put my computer to sleep, gave the dog a bone and hopped in my car! The total spent on all the items above? A mere $16.75!! Yes, under twenty dollars!

How did I do it? Here’s a quick synopsis:

First, the box of crayons, washable glue and cool hologram pencil boxes are for my two nephews. The box of crayons and glue were 1¢ each! Yes, 1 cent! And the pencil boxes were 50¢ each. These are the best finds — items I’ll give to others that cost me hardly anything.

The rest were supplies that Eric and I both use for our home offices:

The biggest savings was the HP Photo Paper box of 50. Eric and I both use photo paper for submittals and portfolio shots.  Regular price is $9.99 and there was an in-store sale of 50¢. However, there was also a Rebate of $8.99 with an item limit of four. So I bought four boxes of this paper for 50¢ each! At this price, anyone who lives nearby, if you need some photo paper, stop by and I’ll give you some!

Eric goes through a lot of spiral bound notebooks. I bought one for 20¢. I probably should’ve bought more but I did not see any quantity limits so I just stuck with the one.

Eric also loves little notebooks, especially spiral bound ones. He will put them in his pocket during workshops and write down numerous notes from students, pattern corrections, questions for me and any ideas that come into his head. So I found these spiral bound ones for 50¢ each. There was a limited quantity of four per person so of course, I bought four! I also bought two mini notebook/journals as well for $1. I will keep these for my office, since Eric prefers the spiral bound ones.

FREE alert! Scotch Super Glue single-use package of four. It’s regularly priced at $4.29 with an in-store sale of $1.30 off  and a $2.99 Rebate so this item was FREE! I like these single-use packages because it never fails, I’ll open up a new tube of Super Glue and wrap it in several layers of plastic and it still dries up by the next time I need it!

Two 8-Packs of Bic Pens for 2¢. Yes, that’s 16 pens for 2 cents! And four 5-Packs of Papermate Mechanical Pencils for 25¢ each. That’s $1.00 for 20 mechanical pencils! Because Eric goes through so many mechanical pencils during his workshops, I also purchased four boxes of 12 Mechanical Pencils (Staples brand) for $1.00/box. They are normally priced at $4.99 each! I’m really pumped about these pencils because I don’t need to hover over all the students seeing who borrowed one of Eric’s mechanical pencils. I also won’t give Eric a hard time when he starts a workshop with a box of twelve and leaves with only six pencils! I know nobody takes them intentionally. It’s so easy to forget! I’m always coming home with pens and pencils that I did not leave with!

FREE alert! Staples offered 2013 Desk Calendars for $4.99 with a same-price Rebate, meaning FREE. Maximum quantity was two so I bought one for Eric’s desk in his workshop and one for my desk up in my studio. This put a smile on Eric’s face. He doesn’t need to print out calendar pages next year.

We go through paper like lightening. Especially Eric since he never can figure out how to tell the printer to only print one page, the info he needs. He’s always printing out 5 or 6 pages and only needs one of them. I got two reams of multi-purpose printer paper for 50¢ a ream!

This house LOVES Sharpies. If Chance could use his paws, he’d love Sharpies too. So when I see them on sale, I get them. Especially 4-packs, regularly $2.29 for $1 each! I use a small dry-erase board for my weekly project list so I bought a 4-pack of dry erase markers for 50¢. Also scored a 5-pack of Strata pens for $2.00. They are normally $7.99 so that was a steal.

And finally, I bought two little mini storage boxes for 25¢ each. Eric has tons of little parts and I figured he could use these. I will probably go get more for his workshop storage. Now if you have been keeping track, you’re probably wondering how I got it down to $16.75 when the final total after all the rebates should be $21.75? I downloaded a $5 off coupon from Staples’ website!

There’s a whole bunch of other stuff on sale at Staples, especially back-to-school items, but we only buy what we need. So go online and check out the circular to see if there’s anything you need.

Now to give you a heads up if you decide to go to Staples before the sale is up in two days, be prepared for a whole bunch of receipts!

Now before you panic, Staples has an awesome Rebate Program. They duplicate ALL the receipts for each Rebate item you have purchased in case you want to mail them in. But you do not have to! You can simply go online and submit the rebates there! It is so easy! Took me a total of 2 minutes 45 seconds to enter in my rebates and confirm the check I will receive in the mail which will be $62.00!

Don’t forget to print out the final list of rebate items you submitted online. Staples will let you either select payment through Paypal or by Check. Of course, the frugal person I am, I select the good old-fashioned check-in-the-mail form. Paypal charges 3%. I can wait the 3-4 weeks for my reimbursement of savings. And if you decide to mail in the receipts, don’t forget — I repeat — do not forget to make copies of everything you send including the outside, addressed envelope you are mailing it in and I would also purchase delivery confirmation. As an experienced Rebater, you will thank me for letting you know this.

Now, if you are a semi-control freak like me who needs to verify every purchase made and match sale items to receipt, to the circular and to the rebate printout, then that will take some time. It probably took me about 30 minutes to go through everything, line-by-line. You could probably skip this step, but personally,  I feel much better when I verify that everything is in order and I did not purchase the wrong item.

So where’s my splurge? One is the $2 magnetic pad with mini pen that we are putting on the fridge to use as our shopping list. I know, a $2 item is a splurge? Yes, in our world, it is. Especially since it is going to simplify our life immensely.  The second splurge I will post in a few days. Hint: the store next to Staples is Hobby Lobby and it was beckoning me to come in.

comments