Taxachusetts

Everybody loves to make fun of us Massholes and call our state Taxachusetts and we who live here just hang our heads and admit that it sux like a dyson. (That means it never loses sux-tion.) But this past weekend, the lovely state began its second annual sales tax holiday - ie, no sales tax for two days. (Some restrictions may apply, see Massachusetts for details.)

Great for back to school shopping, large purchases under $2500 that you've been itching to save 5% on, and of course, home reno nuts. Mike and I didn't have HUGE plans for this weekend - after all, a HUGE shopping trip means dealing with HUGE crowds, HUGE lines, HUGE traffic jams... all for relatively little savings consitering that we weren't buying anything close to the $2500 limit.

But there was one thing that came to mind as soon as I heard the reminder radio ads a couple weeks prior. One thing that we needed to complete the mind-numbing finish work on the house. What was it? That saw that cuts the moulding! And that's the technical girlie term for it. (Cut me some slack, I can't keep track of all the saws in the world - jig saw, band saw, chainsaw, hacksaw, sawz-all...)

So we hit the depot late Saturday night to avoid the crowds - in addition to the tax holiday, the depot had a bunch of in-store specials, which was awesome. We picked out the saw right away - on sale for $99. Then, as we walked the store I spotted the kitchen faucet I wanted on sale for $128! I almost didn't buy it, but Mike wanted me to and then I saw that it came with a free soap dispenser. That kicked it. Unfortunately that was the end and over my budget.

The luckiest part of the shopping trip came as we went to the self checkout. The faucet came up $115 - I guess it was on sale even more than I thought! Then, the kicker, the saw came up $77. Now I knew that had to be an error - it had already been marked down over $50! Well, we paid for it and left and laughed to ourselves at the bargain of it all.

We had a similar experience when we bought our insulation. The R30 - thickest, most expensive of the insulation - not to mention a huge package of it in a longer width - rang up at $10 a package instead of $40 a package!!! We were buying four packages of it at the time, so we really really saved on that one.

Of course, Mike didn't want to install the faucet on Saturday night and then he was gone fishing all Sunday... I'll have to wait I guess on that one. And he hasn't even opened his saw yet! I can't wait to get this house trimmed up either! Of course, I need to buy some trim first. Another day I suppose...