Guest post: the perfect black coat

Today’s guest post comes from Dot, who shares a great bargain-hunting story and a tip we can all use!

This winter, with the two new, complimentary trends of wool peacoats and cold weather, I made up my mind to buy a wool coat. I’m one of those few fortunate people who knows exactly what she wants and what looks good, and I had a very specific vision in mind of what I wanted my coat to be.

It had to be black; it had to hit at or above the knee; it had to have wide lapels; it had to have an empire waist seam; it had to have shaping darts; it had to be single-breasted, not double-breasted; and so forth.

I saved my money and searched. A few times I almost bought something that was very close to perfect.

Eventually, however, after looking at probably hundreds of coats online and off, I found my perfect coat. It was as if the makers had pulled it out of my dreams. Luckily for me, the coat was on sale for $106 US dollars, down from $300 something, and the only available size was my size… in black.

But it gets better; I happened to have a $50 off giftcard to that very store left over from my birthday! Altogether, including shipping, my beautiful, quality coat cost me less that $75. It seemed to be fate.

I was lucky that time. I knew what I wanted and I set out to get it. Eventually, I found the perfect coat and everything had a happy ending.

However, I have had experiences, and my friends have too, where we DO end up buying second best before we find the perfect item. This is unfortunate for someone on a budget, because you either have to pass up your dream item because you don’t have enough money, or you buy it anyway and have to get rid of the first (used) one.

With that in mind, I propose this rule: If you know what you want, don’t buy what you don’t.

If you’d like to write a guest post for The Bargain Queen, find out how here.