Thursday, June 11, 2009

Healthy Competition

If you are doing a lot of DIY and you haven’t signed up for both Home Depot and Lowe’s Web sites, the bottom line is that you should.

Once you do that, you will start receiving regular “dollars off” coupons. Lowe’s is definitely the most generous of the two. Not only do they send their offers out more often (at least every other month, and sometimes every month) they give you more off and more options to use it. Case in point:

Last week, we received a Lowe’s offer with two cards. One gives you $10 off of $50, the other, $25 off of $250. When we get these, we always use the $10 one. And last time, we even used the $25 one because we’d bought the bathroom tile and the new microwave. We were going to buy these items anyway, so why not claim a free $35 in the process, right?

We’ll no doubt use them both again as the mother wants to buy crown molding for the hall in the basement landing and for the downstairs family room. (I’m hoping there’s going to be a molding sale soon. C’mon Lowe’s, work with me.) We also still need to buy beadboard and chair rail for my bedroom.

Yesterday, a coupon arrived from Home Depot. It offers $15 off a $125 purchase. See, not as generous as the competition. Even so, I may still use it. I’ve got backerboard, adhesive, and grout to buy for the kitchen tile and adhesive and grout for the bathroom tile and I’m not sure which of the two has the best price for what I need. It’s nice to have them competing against each other to get my DIY dollar.

Assuming that I use all three offers from both stores, that’s $50 – off things I have to buy anyway. Here’s another way the Web sites let you save: they’ll email you an offer for a percentage off an online purchase. This saved me $145 off the refrigerator! But it doesn’t always have to be a delivered item. I think I saved $12 last year by ordering bricks and mortar and picking it up in-store. Again, that was stuff I was buying anyway. It’s like getting to pick out your own merchandise to have on sale!

So do yourself a favor and sign up now.

4 comments:

Salem Kitchen & Bath Studio said...

Also, you can use the Lowe's coupons at Home Depot as they accept competitor coupons. You may want to check with the local store but sometimes you can only find it at Blue or Orange.

Karen Anne said...

Our locally owned hardware store sold to True Value, but kept the same employees. If you get a True Value customer card (the store has a signup flyer) they mail out $5 off $20 purchase coupons about once a month. I have ones thru the next three months in my pocketbook's coupon pocket.

Unknown said...

I too love the challenge of a DIY project and satisfaction that comes with completing one. But OH the frustrations! Perhaps fortunately for suppliers, my creative nature tends to spiral my home repair projects out of control and the costs can go through the roof, so to speak. I can relate to your post in that my latest home project was to finally put up crown molding. I found this website really helpful and the staff was wonderful in working my way through the endless possibilities of the molding world! Happy home repairing!

NV said...

Salem -- Yes, that's a great point. I've done that before, too!

KarenAnne -- I've used those before,too. Sometimes our local store puts those coupons in their flyers. I love the additional savings tips!

E -- It's always good to have anothe kindred spirit on board. It IS a frustrating journey sometimes, but boy, when you FINISH something ... how sweet it is! :-)