Dear1 Dear2

Yesterday was a public holiday (Hari Raya Haji) and long weekend so we decided to go shopping and bargain hunting for baby stuffs. We had a few goals in mind, namely baby cot and steam sterilizer. But before I get to the day’s chase, let’s take a look at the events leading up to the day.

Baby cot first. 2 weeks ago, we visited Metro at Causeway Point and saw this Shears Premium Wooden Cot going at $189 (usual $499 from Palmax website), comes with free mattress, an activity mat and a bean sprout pillow. At that time, we had not started looking at cots but we knew that the normal price of baby cots start at around $300. This cot was quite a pleasant surprise, and we both liked it for its price and no-frills design. It is not convertible to a child bed which suited our intentions as we did not want a convertible cot anyway. An older child can just sleep on a mattress on the floor; the cot will remain as a cot for younger siblings to use. But, we weren’t ready to commit just yet, we wanted to look around for more options.

After more browsing, we decided yes, the Shears cot is what we want. In the following weekend, we went to Orchard to check out the many storewide 20% discounts to see if there were any good buys. We chance upon the same baby cot going for $169 at OG with only free mattress. Hmm… Pay extra $20 for activity mat and bean sprout pillow? Bean sprout pillow itself is easily $10. Moreover, at Metro, we can earn linkpoints at 6% returns. So the final decision was to purchase the cot at Metro. We walked over to Metro Paragon only to discover that the cot wasn’t available at the Paragon branch. So no choice, we had to visit another Metro branch then.

Sterilizer. We first spotted the Pigeon Rapid Steam Sterilizer going at a discounted price of $95 (usual $125) at Kids Mall (IMM) a few weeks back. At that time, we also recalled seeing a packaged deal somewhere with the Rapid Steam Sterilizer, Starter kit, and 1 other item which we forgot, selling at $130 something. We decided to look around first to see which is a better package.

We were unable to find the 3-in-1 package anymore, so the promotion had probably ended. We decided to get the sterilizer at $95 at Metro to earn the additional linkpoints. But alas, Metro Paragon didn’t have it. So the decision was to visit Metro at Causeway Point to get both the cot and the sterilizer. Since Woodlands is rather far away for us to travel to after work on weekdays, we decided to go there during the long weekend instead. During the week itself, we passed by Kids Mall and Giant (both at IMM) and noticed that the sterilizer was selling at the usual $125. Was the promotion over? Did we missed it? Meanwhile, Tom & Stephanie (Westmall) was still selling it at $95. Hopefully, the promotion will still be ongoing at Metro.

So came the big day yesterday. We decided to visit Metro City Square Mall to buy our stuffs and also to check out the new shopping centre in town. But it was a disappointment. Metro there was pretty small and didn’t have either of the items we wanted. However, the kind staff at Metro offered to phone the Causeway Point branch to check on the availability of the sterilizer for us. Luckily, there was 1 last piece at Metro Causeway point. We quickly reserved it and would visit Causeway Point later that day to purchase the item. Heng ah.

Side track a bit, we visited Shen Kwong Trading at Bugis since we were already in the area to see what we can pick up. Shen Kwong Trading is a local distributor of baby clothes so we can get very good prices if we purchased from the shop directly. Its location was a bit hard to find as it is on the inner row of shops at block 269C opposite the Guan Yin Temple. Wandering aimlessly, we happened to spot this shop next to the public toilet with half closed doors. There was a stroller in front of it and a MTB just stepped out from inside. We peeped inside to see shelves and shelves and shelves of baby clothes and essentials linens. They were closing soon, hence the half closed doors. We quickly went in and picked out 6 baby shirts, 6 long bath towels, and 12 square face towels for just $21! Fantastically cheap! We’ll definitely be back to get more. From what we heard, they’re opened Mon-Sat, until 6pm.

Back to the chase, we drove all the way to Causeway Point to buy the Shears cot and Pigeon sterilizer which we had reserved earlier. It turned out that the discount on the sterilizer had already ended on 13 Nov and shops that still sell at the discounted price were clearing the stock from that promotional batch of sterilizers. We were lucky to still be able to get one on 27 Nov (2 weeks after promotion ended). Our total cost for these 2 items were $189 + $95 = $284. We purchased $280 worth of Metro vouchers and earned 2520 linkpoints, wow! That’s 2520 / 150 = $16.80 worth of linkpoints claimable at NTUC. Moreover, our purchase entitled us to redeem a free 2010 Sesame Street calendar and a Sesame Street umbrella. What a shopping trip, yeah!

So, what is the moral of the story? Yes, we made quite significant savings. But we’ve also stressed ourselves unnecessarily over the past 2 weeks trying to hunt down the best deals in town. We’ve also spent a fair amount of petrol travelling here and there, and also car park charges. Luckily, most of our trips were multi-purpose trips (such as attending weddings) such that we achieve multiple objectives per outing, thereby reducing our petrol/car park expenses per objective. The point here is that, we need to weigh the benefits of bargain hunting. If the savings is not significant, then it probably isn’t worth the effort making a dedicated trip there. So here are a few of our rules of thumb.

Bargain hunt only for big items that preferably gives savings of $20 or more. Also, string together multiple bargain items to buy on the same route to maximize the returns on travelling cost and time. Next, know the current prices of items well so that you know what is a good deal and what isn’t. And, Internet is your friend, check out the many websites that track promotions and discounts around Singapore and read discussion forums where users constantly update one another on sale events.

Lastly, contribute back to the community by sharing with others (through forums or blog posts) about great bargains and tips to stretch the dollar further. :D

-Dear1

Our loot from the Taime Warehouse Sale – The biggest buy is the Capella stroller at the back, still in box. :D

Taime Pte Ltd held a warehouse sale just a few days ago, 19-21 Nov 09. It was a Thursday to Saturday, and it was in Bedok. So the best time for us to visit the sale was on Saturday, and that’s exactly what we did.

We took our OPC car out promptly at 3pm on Saturday and drove all the way to Bedok. We stopped by Baby Kingdom first to check out the prices to keep ourselves current with prices. We have been eyeing this particular stroller for some time now and had already more or less decided on the Capella S705 2009 model with the 5-point harness. Baby Kingdom quoted us $350 at best from the usual price of $369. After looking around a bit more, we left for Taime which is just a stone’s throw away across the PIE.

Wow. Taime warehouse sale was great! The major brands there were Capella, Chicco and Lucky Baby. There was at least a 20% discount for most items, 30% and 40% for some other. Some items were nett price which also featured substantial savings.

Our total bill at Taime, what a steal! We should have bought more…

We went directly to the Capella section and found the stroller going at 20% discount! That’s definitely the cheapest price in town, we bought it without a second thought. We also bought some other baby items that were on sale, including some foam play mats, a rubber cot sheet, nail clippers for baby, swaddleme, and a stroller clip fan. The final total price was less than $369, which made us felt as if we bought the Capella S705 at normal price and got everything else for free. Haha…

We left Taime warehouse and got lost in the private residential area. Hahaha… Luckily, we managed to find our way out after about 10 minutes of roaming. We went over to Blk 704 nearby to try out the Xiong-ge chicken rice that was featured on Buzzing Cashier 2. We went there before the last time we visited Baby Kingdom but the long queue turned us away. Luckily, this time there was no queue and we got our chicken rice immediately. Not bad, the chicken rice is quite tasty. But is it worth 1 hour queuing time, probably not.

Next, we set off to the United Square Baby Fair organised by Motherhood magazine. We arrived at 6.50pm, just before the start of the baby bottles giveaway event. We quickly joined the queue to get our free bottle, and also get our free sample copy of Motherhood magazine. The bottle was quite cute looking with 2 cute giraffes printed on it. But the quality of the material used to make the bottle was quite dubious looking that made us decided that we’ll not use it for baby but will instead put it in our display cabinet. Dear2 also didn’t like the idea that both the top and the bottom of the bottle can be unscrewed.

We shopped around United Square further and found this shop Mums & Babes that is having this bottle exchange program. Trade in any old baby bottle and get to buy a new 5oz Medela bottle for $6.90 (UP $10.90). We knew that the 3 5oz Medela bottle set costs $31.50 (before 15% off) at Baby Kingdom, which meant that each bottle would cost (31.50×0.85/3=) $8.925. $6.90 sounds good enough. Now, where can we find an old baby bottle to trade in at a time like this? Hmm… Oh wait, we did have a bottle in our possession. Hehehe… And so, we traded in our free gift bottle we collected just earlier and bought the Medela bottle at the discounted price. Yeah.

So that’s it for our eventful shopping Saturday. We’re glad that we’re finally buying all the baby stuffs (and all at fantastic offers too!) and getting ready for our baby’s arrival. Dear2 has been somewhat stressed lately about our ill-prepared-ness. I suppose Dear2’s mummy instinct is starting to kick in. Gee… Hope that this shopping spree of ours did calm Dear2 down a little.

Also, our car really did improve our lives and brought us much convenience. I couldn’t imagine us going to so many places if we didn’t have a car. Not to mention carrying so much shopping loot home. The stroller alone took up most of our boot space, can’t imagine us taking public transport with it. Dear2 is also having some hip pains which made long bus and MRT rides a difficult thing for her. Glad that we bought our car in time for Dear2’s pregnancy.

There’s still much more shopping to be done, hopefully we can get everything at good prices. Today, we’re going to Mothercare to get some toys at 15% discount, and going to OG to take a look at their 20% storewide sale, and going to visit Aussino 50% discount Baby Fair again, and probably drop by Metro to see if we can earn the 6% rebates worth of linkpoints. You see, we can use our Passion Card to earn 9 linkpoints for every $1 spent, and 150 linkpoints can be exchanged for $1 at NTUC for grocery shopping, so that’s 6%. :D

Hooray to year end festive shopping season!

-Dear1

Our loot from Aussino.

Aussino is having a Baby & Bath Fair now, with up to 50% off selected items!!

Dear1 and Dear2 are starting to buy baby essential stuff now, so Dear2 make it a point to get a copy of Thur and Fri’s Today during her lunch break, to spot any departmental store or warehouse weekend sale for that week.  But alas, the Fri’s Today was not there, either there was late delivery or that it was already all given out, so no choice, Dear2 had to make do with a MyPaper instead.  Flip flip flip, articles are not as nice, and there seems to be very few advertisements except for mostly furniture sales….  Hmm…. Oh, Aussino is having a Baby & Bath Fair with up to 50% discount, until 29 Nov.  Gotto let Dear1 know fast, haha!!

On the same evening, we headed into the Aussino branch at Westmall, and bought the following items, all at 50% off:

• Baby Comforter set (comes with fitted sheet, pillow case with fill, bolster case with fill, bumper, comforter), UP $79.90.  Free: Matching Bib, UP $5.90
• Cuddle Bath with Face Washer Set, UP $14.90
• 6 piece Baby Face Washer Set, UP $11.90
• 2 Deluxe Bath Towels, each UP $19.90

Total Damage: $73.25

Expensive!  But considering the number of items (2 bagfuls!), and that everything were at half price, it was a steal for mummy and daddy and baby, haha!

So, pop by your nearest Aussino branch now, and grab your baby and bath essentials while stocks last, haha!

- Dear2