There’s just something so satisfying about knowing that you’ve managed to save even a few pennies on the original price. I especially love it when I manage to time my visit to the supermarket perfectly so that I hit the reduced section just as they’re printing out those glorious yellow stickers. Time it well enough and I can pick up enough food to do the next few days for under a quid. Of course, that sometimes means ignoring the best before dates, but who hasn’t done that once in a while? As long as it looks and smells alright, then it’ll do for me.
That satisfaction is all the more magnified when it’s pounds that you’re saving rather than pennies. The old saying goes, “look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves” but in this day and age, a pound doesn’t go very fair, never mind a few loose pennies so to be able to look at something and see a good saving really does put a bit of a spring in your step for the rest of the day. 
I suppose there’s a certain psychology behind this and it’s probably something to do with the feeling that you’ve managed to cheat the system by finding things that you want or need at a discounted rate. Some believe that making such savings releases endorphins that are similar to those associated with the likes of narcotic use, an adrenaline rush or the pleasure you can feel in a job well done. It’s not something to be sniffed at because there isn’t much risk involved with popping into the shop to pick up something for dinner, except for the fact that you might end up with a very bizarre combination of foods. 
When bigger sales come around, there’s a certain excitement surrounding them. The Next sale is infamous for bringing people out in all weathers in their thousands to set up camp outside stores hours ahead of the crack of dawn opening time. 
I just don’t get it. It’s not something I’ve ever even considered doing, even when I was a nerdy teenager getting excited about the next Pokémon game being released. Granted, I’ve been sent in to pick up a midnight launch in the same way as Mum did for me when I was at the peak of my Harry Potter obsession, but those are special occasions that are quick ten minute in-and-out jobs. The Next sale normally rolls around twice a year and there never fails to be a queue snaking around the carpark of Erneside. 
However, I’ve noticed that things have changed considerably over the past number of years. It used to be that there were two main sale periods in the shopping calendar: The Boxing Day sale and the Summer sale. They were notable in that those were really the only two times in the year when families could go out and stock up on things that they needed for the next few months or plan ahead and have stocks ready for the next year. These were times when things were less affordable than they are now and it was harder to find a bargain on a regular basis. School shoes would be bought at Christmas to be put aside for September and summer clothing would be bought as the temperatures plummeted to be taken home to be hidden away in suitcases ready for the next family holiday in the sun. 
Nowadays we’re pretty much surrounded by constant sales. Don’t get me wrong, people still get excited about them and rightfully so, but they’re less about picking up what is necessary and more about what catches your eye on a whim. It’s a real problem for me because I’m a true sucker for a good sale. I don’t often buy things on impulse when they’re full price. When I’m looking online, I’ll leave things in my basket for weeks in the hope that they come down in price while I decide if I really want them or not. 
With the way things are now, I can spend a few weeks window shopping in a clothing store and make a mental list of what I want to get, safe in the knowledge that it’ll be in the sale in the near future. The majority of the time, this approach works and in fact did so only on Monday when I saw a cardigan reduced to half price that only appeared in the shop after Christmas. On the rare occasions it doesn’t work like that, then so be it: I wasn’t willing to pay full price for it anyway. 
It’s something I very much inherited from Mum who informs me that ‘sale’ was one of the more unusual words we kids recognised growing up. We were a boisterous lot and the messier an activity was, the better in our eyes. It was a trait encouraged in us but did mean that we ruined clothing beyond repair quite often.
Comparing how things have changed over the years does make me wonder if it’s indicative of the throwaway society we’re in now. In a survey for the British Heart Foundation, it was revealed that around half of the population rely on their mothers when it comes to sewing even the simplest of things. Of those polled, about a quarter said they didn’t know how to sew a button on properly and a fifth said that if they lost a button, they’d be more likely to buy something new rather than simply repairing it. 
I’m not going to claim that I’m some kind of seamstress extraordinaire, but I do make a fair attempt at fixing things when needs be and probably think things turn out much better than they do in reality. Mum’s sewing machine may scare me a little, but I can thread a needle to do simple repairs and anything that needs more than a basic running stitch can always be tackled with a glue gun or hemming web and a few tips from the internet. 
The allure of sales isn’t something that’s ever going away, no matter how often we find ourselves sucked in by the promises of something cheap only for it to lie unused in a cupboard for years to come. It’s too easy to forget that something isn’t a bargain if it wasn’t really needed or if you never actually use it. Just because you can buy it doesn’t mean that you should do. 
It’s much better to shop smart when it comes to the big sales and think of what you might need in the coming months, much like what would have been done years ago. If the suction is starting to go on the vacuum, now is probably a good time to begin keeping an eye out for a replacement so as you can get a good model at a decent price rather than buying the first one you can find when the machine finally feebly sucks up its last speck of dust. 
I know that I reach for the same style of clothing most mornings so if there’s something there to add to my circulation then it’s worth it for me, which is how I ended up coming home with two new checked shirts this week. Much better to get what I actually like and will wear rather than something totally out of my comfort range that lured me in because it looked good on the hanger.
When the time comes, you’ll see that bargain as having been truly priceless and that’s where the beauty of the humble shop sale truly lies.