Finding Things in the Oddest Places

Nick and I have started our Christmas shopping.  I always have this dream that I will find the neatest, coolest gifts for everyone.  But it is hard to do when you start shopping after Thanksgiving.  By then all of the shelves have been cleared of the neat and unique and are instead filled with mass amounts of products, all the same. 

Don't get me wrong I buy those gifts too!  But it's always nice to find something that you think "hey that's neat!"  or "so and so would LOVE this!" 

Anyway, we went shopping last night for the kiddos at TJ Maxx.  Sometimes they have Thomas the Train stuff for super cheap and they always have characters that are hard to find/discontinued. 

Well last night I could have gone to just the toy section and then bolted but Nick and I looked around.  TJ Maxx isn't usually where I buy coffee but I spotted in their gourmet foods section a 40 oz. bag of Starbucks French Roast coffee.  Yum! 

I was a little skeptical thinking it must be expired or something but it wasn't...the date was still way beyond and the beans were still vacuum packed in their delicious little bag. 

Well the thing about this bag was, it was only $16.99!  And according to my old fashioned kind of math, that makes it only $6.80 per pound!  Which is a great deal for Starbucks!  So we bought it and then we went to the grocery store where I noticed that Starbucks there was $9.79 a pound. 

So I scored! 

So the moral of the story here is don't limit yourself to what you buy in certain stores.  Keep an open mind and your eyes wide open for bargains.  Evidently you never know what you'll stumble upon!