Just when I thought I couldn't love shopping more!

As an avid shopper, I am always on the hunter for a sale or great bargain. I never pay full price for anything, and use coupons as much as possible.

But today I wanted to share a neat little trick I've been using for the last few months that makes shopping even more fun that usual! It's quite simple.

I buy sometimes without trying on or even knowing for sure if I need/want an item. Then a week or two will go by, it's still in the bag, and I realize I should return it. Here's where my trick comes in. When I go to return it, I simply ask for a store credit. No cash back, no putting it back on my credit card, just a store credit. My thought when I started doing that was that I already paid for this item, allotted for the money in my budget, so why not keep that money in my shopping 'cart'?

I then leave the store with credit in hand, and put it in my drawer with the pile of others. Next time I decide to go out shopping, even if I don't have any extra money to do so, I simply go through my stack of cards and see where I can shop. In reality I've pre-paid for a shopping trip!

Of course this won't always work in your favor, especially those times when you impulse buy a bigger ticket item that you did spend your food shopping money on. Then I say by all means, get your cash back! But in those other small purchase trips, enjoy knowing you have that rainy day credit ready to be spent :)

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