FashBlog.com

By Christina VanGinkel

Ok, I do not really know if this qualifies as the sale of the year, but it sure has been the best sale for clothing I have come across this year so far. Needing to pick up a hooded sweatshirt jacket for my youngest son that also zipped up and would fit over his latest cast extending over his hand and wrist, the two of us stopped by our local JC Penney.

We found a nice jacket, exactly what he needed, on sale for forty percent off. A good deal, but I have come across better. He had grown another inch in the past few weeks, so we decided while we were up town, we would also take a look in the jean department to see what sales they had going there. Again, we found several styles at forty percent off, and he picked out a pair he liked, tried them on, and I figured at this time we would be heading to the checkout quad at the front of the store as soon as we returned the jeans he had tried on but decided against back to their respective racks and tables.

Instead of going down the main aisle to reach the pants department, we cut across the back of the department that housed the fitting rooms because I thought I had spied a clearance rack tucked in an out of the way corner as we had first walked to the fitting room. Sure enough, it was. Not only one rack, but several racks sporting deeply discounted t-shirts.

My son had previously asked me if we could pick up a couple shirts, but I had bargained and said we would come back for a couple next pay day. When I saw the price on the shirts though, $6.99, I told him to go ahead and pick one out. They were Southpole Logo appliqued tees marked down anywhere from $16.99 to $24.99. He chose one when I noticed the sign actually read that the prices were fifty percent off the lowest marked down price. This would make each shirt only $3.50! A sales person was nearby pricing another rack of items so I asked her to clarify the price. She responded that the price would be half of what was marked, but better yet, she said her next rack was that very one and every thing was going even lower. She proceeded to mark the shirts down to $4.99, meaning that each would ring up at $2.50!

Many of the sizes were too large, as often happens when you come across a seemingly good deal, but in the end, my son picked out six shirts, and I also found two more, one for my oldest son, and one for my son in law. I would have liked to pick them up each a couple more, but my older son takes a small and my son in law takes the same size as my fourteen year old, a medium. We found a total of one small on the rack, and a duplicate medium of one that he picked out for his self.

In the end, my total for the day, including the pair of jeans and hooded zipped sweatshirt which were each forty percent off, and all of the deeply discounted t-shirts came to just under seventy dollars with a total savings of over two hundred dollars. This included an additional savings of fifteen percent off everything except for the Levi jeans, which I had received for completing an online survey from JC Penney, and had printed right from my home computer.

My daughter, upon hearing what I had purchased and having her own fifteen percent off coupon for completing a similar survey for a purchase she had made the previous month, decided to go see what bargains she could uncover. She not only found several t-shirts even priced less than those I had found (she picked up several that were 86 cents a piece!), she also uncovered a pair of jeans on clearance for $5.00. Add in several toddler sized t-shirts, complete with attached matching toy for a unbelievable $1.49, and her total actually beat mine, with her spending a grand total of less than fifty dollars and a savings of nearly $250.00

There are bargains to be found when it comes to clothing. Checking sales and clearance racks can pay off big Keep this in mind the next time you are clothes shopping and be sure to check racks that are not in the heavy trafficked areas as you just might find the best sale of the year yourself!