Posts Tagged ‘Fort Worth shopping’

Yesterday, today and tomorrow is the annual Sales Tax Holiday. There will be no sales tax (of 8.25%) on the following items:

• Clothing and footwear under $100
• Backpacks under $100 for elementary and secondary students
• Schools supplies including paper, binders, crayons, lunch boxes, etc.
• Includes layaway items

I was not able to put off shopping for all the kids until this weekend. I already bought (with a little help from my friend, my mother) all the school supplies, and all the clothes. All that remains is the annual Famous Footwear trip. This Famous Footwear trip alone can be almost as much as the rest of the clothes and supplies.

What do we buy? Nikes, Sketchers, Aasics, Adidas, Converses, maybe a pair of Pumas or New Balances, plus a pair or two of work shoes for the adults. How much do we hope to save? Well, it’s buy one get one for half price, resulting in an overall reduction of 20% or so (because they take the half off the cheaper pair.) Then we’ve got a 20% off coupon, now we’re at 40% Then the sales tax for another 8.25% reduction. Overall if we do it just right,  it will work out to a reduction of almost half the price of the shoes.

I’m not convinced, I must admit to you, that the shoes haven’t been marked up 2-300% to prepare for my clever bargaining. Since when did it cost $80 to put together a pair of mid-range Nikes in a third-world country where workers make just fifty cents a day? Nevertheless, we live in this society, so the annual family “shoe binge” is inevitable. My kids are Americans, they need their athletic shoes. The choices they make will tell everyone, the first day of school, who they are, even if there are five other kids in their grade with the exact same shoes.

Our local Famous Footwear store is in the mile-long strip mall with OfficeDepot, PetCo, HomeDepot and TJMax just north of the intersection of the 820 and Hulen Blvd. If you go there this afternoon you might see us. We’ll be the family with the 6 foot tall son who claims he needs a pair of $100 shoes because there are no other shoes in the store that are “right.” He is like a Gila Monster — once he gets ahold of his prey he will let go. His parents can either buy the shoes or leave him in the store forever.

For a detailed description of the sales tax holiday rules, see Window on Texas Government, 2009 Sales Tax Holiday.

The North Central Texas Farmers’ Market will be in the Dee J. Kelly Alumni & Visitors’ Center parking lot from 10:00 am – 3:00 pm this Friday, July 24, 2009.  Vendors will have locally-grown fruits and vegetables for purchase.  Come support this group of local farmers and ensure that they will keep coming to TCU!

I have to admit the truth — I’ve gone from hating going grocery shopping, to looking for opportunities to go. The reason? Free ice cream every time you stop by City Market on Alton Drive in Bluebonnet Hills.

I was over there yesterday, then I decided, accidentally on purpose, that  I had to go again this morning. I stepped out of the car at the store, and a mark of spilled chocolate ice cream was by my foot. Evidently, someone else had stopped by and gotten a cone. As I walked up to the store, I noticed it has become increasingly busy of late. And everyone coming out had either a chocolate or vanilla soft serve ice cream in hand.

You have to understand, this store was, up until recently, practically abandoned, the kind of place that you worry is going to shut down. But this spring, after a redesign, things began to pick up.

Old fashioned service was provided, in terms of getting things out of your cart, and bagging them, and taking them to your car. You could find someone to help you in the aisles, and they seemed to want to help you, not as if you were bothering them. And then there was the ice cream. If, like me, you hate grocery shopping, you could galvanize yourself or the experience by promising yourself a free ice cream at the end of the trip.

Yesterday, I went at 5:30, there were four registers open and a line. This was getting crazy. And every customer, from the old ladies to the plumber to the college students, was getting ice cream.

“They’ve got me,” my husband, Dean told me last weekend, admitting that he goes there instead of Albertson’s now. Albertson’s doesn’t have the ice cream. Apparently they’ve got a lot of people lately. You might want to stop by yourself. And you can relax, because, after all is said and done, you’re getting free ice cream.