How I scored 2 pairs of genuine suede shoes for 35% of the retail price

A great big Thank you to everyone for your prayers & support. I appreciate every single one of you. I've said it before & I'll say it again. This is my FAVORITE part about our blogging community. It doesn't matter what any one of us are going through, there will always be an outpouring of support from everyone. I am so thankful that I have you ladies & gents (I don't want to exclude anyone, in case there are gents reading too 😊). I come from a large, close knit family, so it's been really hard not having them here to help me deal with the divorce. So I am truly thankful that I still have virtual friends to help pick me up when I'm down. I'm an extremely private person and rarely share with others when I'm hurting or going through a rough time - including my family. I know that they'll just worry about me, so I just get up every day, put a smile on my face and get on with life.

I'm sick of looking at houses & furniture every single day (I'm gonna need some help in the furniture department, but I'll ask about that later). So, let's switch things up for today. For those who have missed my crazy shopping posts, here's a more recent one. 

WHBM sent me a $40 semi annual reward. Just before that, I received a $20 reward (you now earn rewards for every $ you spend too) and I bought a shorts I don't need (can you believe I said that?...lol). Everything's so expensive, so the nicest thing that I could use my reward on, was a pair of embroidered denim shorts. 

Anyhoo, back to the $40 reward. I've had my eye on some suede pumps for a while (I'm a sucker for suede. Have always loved it, but it has to be genuine suede. I'm also very much a heels girl). When I saw the green pumps on sale for $90, I figured I can use my reward on it. So that's what I did. Used the reward and paid the rest OOP. I was super excited about these shoes, because I've never had green shoes before (you all know how much I love Blue - my favorite color) and they match my green WHBM velvet blazer perfectly. Besides, green/Spruce (Forest Green as I call it) is the 'in' color this season (I should write a post about how I shopped my spare closet for this season's colors).

What a huge disappointment those shoes turned out to be. When I pulled the shoes out of the box, I could already tell that they were used. The soles were dirty. There were scuffs all over the shoes (suede is very delicate and has to be handled carefully). There was even a long gray hair wrapped around the fringe. Yuck!!! I had to go sanitize my hands after touching that shoes, cause I'm a germaphobe (I just read in the reviews that the same thing happened to another customer). I contacted WHBM and they told me that I had to repurchase the shoes online and return the pair I've received. They would then do a price adjustment for the new pair ($40 reward discount, because I'll only receive $50 + tax credit for the return). So I went online to order the shoes and it was sold out in my size. I was not happy. So I messaged them again (this was at night) and awaited a response. I had to figure out a Plan B to use that reward before it expired. 

Then I had a light bulb moment. Earlier that day, I received a WHBM $50 off $150 or more full priced item Q. However, the Q was only valid a few days later. I asked CS if I purchased the black suede pumps ($150) if they would honor the coupon and apply my $40 reward to it. The next morning I received a response from a guy (I don't know why they let you deal with different CS reps. Makes no sense), who told me that they don't normally allow stacking (BS, cause their site says you can use more than one reward per order),but that they'll do it as a once off deal for me. He also told me that when customers return items, they forfeit their rewards. That guy picked the wrong woman to feed this BS to...lol 

I told him that WHBM is not doing me any favors, because they screwed up my order by sending me someone else's filthy shoes, when I paid for a brand new pair. I also asked him why WHBM would punish their customers (by having them forfeit rewards) for a mistake that the retailer is responsible for. I'm always a really nice person and I'm very polite when I contact a retailer about a mistake (even if the mistake is theirs), but please don't try to pull a fast one on me. I'm no pushover!

I then received a response from the first CS rep I dealt with and she told me that they'd gladly honor the deal on the black pumps. So I thanked her and just before I ordered the shoes, my gut told me to check their GC section. I know that they always offer $20 bonus card for every $100 gc from November onwards. Well it's October, but it doesn't hurt to check. Whoo hoo! They DID have bonus gcs available. So I purchased a $200 gc, then used it to pay for the black shoes. I'm posting links of the shoes, because I don't feel like taking pics

Black pumps

Green pumps

Back to CS to give my order number, so they could issue a $90 credit ($50 Q + $40 reward) for the shoes. She then told me that the green shoes was back in stock in my size and that they would honor the $49.99 price if I still wanted to purchase it. No frigging way!! They were going to honor my $40 reward twice?! Heck yeah, I'm buying those green shoes! Back to the gc section to order another $100 gc (the $41 balance wasn't enough to pay for the green shoes, so I figured I might as well just get a bonus gc instead of paying cash - I would have to pay $90 for the shoes, then get a price adjustment, so the gc made better sense). 

Back to CS once again. Got my 2 pairs ordered and received them. So here's how the deal worked

Green shoes $89.99 (less $40 reward) = $49.99

Black shoes $150.00 (less $50 Q less $40 reward) = $60.00

OOP $109.99 + tax

Plus I earned $60 in bonus gcs

Retail value : $320.00

I also received my $25 Birthday reward and there's an extra $5 reward that I have no clue what it's for. I've returned the first green pair and I'm still waiting on them to credit me. 

So you see. Sometimes we get stumbling blocks. I hate stumbling blocks, but I always try to deal with it with a good attitude. I've learned years ago that getting mad or upset about it, won't change anything. I've also learned that when things don't always turn out the way I want them to, it's because God has something better planned. I've had my eye on the black shoes since last winter. They've only gone on sale once, but I wasn't going to pay $100 for it. I wasn't even looking for new shoes, but I ended up with 2 pairs for a fraction of the price. Plus I have $90 bonus rewards to spend. Happy Dance! You all know I can do some serious shopping damage with $90 :)

I'll be the first to say that I DON'T need any more clothes. However, stores keep sending me Rewards and coupons, just because. Of course I take advantage of it. If someone handed you a $10 bill, would you ignore it or throw it away? Sometimes I use the rewards to buy an item and gift it to someone, just because. Other times I will purchase an item, resell it, then use to funds to bless someone. I'm all about paying it forward. We have been blessed with more than enough. So the best thing to do, is to bless someone else. I don't like to talk about my giving. I like to keep things like that private. I'm more of a 'behind the scenes' kinda person. I really don't like having the spotlight on me. I grew up with that and have never cared for it. However, I don't want people to assume that I'm just buying & buying for the sake of buying. There's lots of method to my madness. I do lots of things that don't make sense to anyone. Heck, sometimes it doesn't make sense to me either...lol. But I know that it's so that I can be a blessing to others. 

I still have a bunch of birthday rewards. They are still trickling in. I need to make a list of it, so that I don't forget to use it. 

Back to house & furniture hunting. I've been working on budgets. My brain kicks in at 4am, so I'm not getting enough sleep either. There's so much to deal with, so my brain's been working overtime. As if I don't need my beauty sleep. Oy vey. 

My next post will be about a few Dollar Tree finds. Definitely frugal finds :)

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!