I know, it's only June but for me we're nearing the second most exciting event of the shopping year - the Christmas Lay-by Toy Sales!!!!
As the junk mail comes rolling in and people are starting to see the word Christmas, I'm seeing a lot of head shaking and hearing comments such as 'can you BELIEVE this??', 'It's SO commercialised', 'Blah blah blahbeddy blah....'
I LOVE IT!!! I know it is unbelievably commercialised but I don't care. I am secretly waiting for my junk mail, making lists from each catalogue with the price of each item and plotting the most effective shopping route to purchase my goodies. This may seem frivolous but I find that as I am shopping from a list I tend to spend a lot less than I would do if I were just browsing. Laybying is also really handy because I have 6 months to pay the bill, the warranty does not start until the day of collection and if I think my child has outgrown the product by the time I collect it, I can return it.
Living with a hord-free hubby, I have seen many of the toys that I bought last year leave the house as soon as the children stopped playing with them. Unfortunately it does not take long for a 2 and 3 yr old to stop playing with their toys and although I do rotate these toys, at this age they just grow out of them so quickly. This year I have decided to really limit my shopping list to things like bikes, duplo and some leapster products for their age group. Last year in the spirit of Christmas, I insisted that my husband participate but as he chose a drum kit, I won't make that mistake again.
So how does it work? The bigger chains will generally have extended opening hours where the sale starts on the given day at 00.01hrs; basically the sale starts at midnight. After writing the list of toys to purchase, the serious shopper would benefit from a quick scouting mission prior to the sale to find the location of the items within the store (It can get very busy - best to know exactly where you are heading).
Last year, despite not once getting up at 6.30 and going for the walk i had been promising myself, I was up and out of the house at 4.30am - which I still thought was really restrained, taking into account that the sales had been running for 4 1/2 hrs by then! This year we also have the option of internet laybying which sounds convenient but could it possibly replace the thrill of shopping in-store? I'm not completely skeptical about internet relationships but I'm not ready to take the risk.
This year I will be arriving before midnight. One piece of advice from some shoppers even more finatical than myself would be to arrive early and fill your trolley so you are ready to purchase by midnight. I have also heard that some shops will allow you to layby for Christmas a little earlier than midnight, however I couldn't tell you whether that would apply to your local store; you may need to investigate further.
So now all that is left to do is wait.... and wait ... and wait... You see?? This is really is like Christmas!!
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