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Health & Fitness

Budget Mondays 10/21/2013

Monday – 10/21/2013

It’s Monday – a painful day for most people, yours truly included. Sometimes it is made even more painful as we remember just how much money we ended up spending over the weekend.

Budget

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It’s one word that can make people cringe, angry and sad all at the same time, a rare occurrence indeed. There are plenty of reasons for this – people are told at work that their budgets are being cut, their ideas cannot be funded because they are not in the budget, and in our personal life, our budgets don’t usually quite match up to our desires.

Everyone likes a deal, saving money, and/or being able to stretch their dollars further. Whether this means investing in a low-cost index fund, setting up drips, or taking advantage of coupons, the concept is same. You work hard for your money and you would like it to get you as much as it possibly can. Entire industries have sprung up around this desire of people to get a good deal; the outlet store and entire outlet malls are an extension of this consumer desire. Firms like Target, and more notably, Wal-Mart, have based their entire business model around delivering deals to their customers.

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Online firms have been quick to catch up — GroupOn, Living Social, RetailMeNot, Coupons, and FatWallet are amongst the most popular online coupon sites. Gone are the days of coupon clipping at the dining room table. Apps and online-only shopping has made using coupons “cool,” in addition to being practical.

There has been an interesting development in the discount/coupon business, however, and that is the entry of high-end retailers in this arena. Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom are just two of the most recent entrants into the discount arena, and Coach now derives 60% of its retail sales from it outlet operations.

Whether this bodes well for these firms’ brand value, earnings, and market position is a separate conversation, but this does mean that are more deals to be had for you and me — budget friendly indeed!

Happy Reading!

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