$5 CapitaVoucher
$15 Great World City
$110 Robinsons/ John Little/ Marks & Spencer
$100 NS50
$60 Al-Futtaim Retail Asia (Robinsons/ Marks & Spencer/ Zara/ Royal Sporting House/ etc etc)
So I have something like $290 worth of vouchers... and of course, that's a good thing. I'm not complaining. All of these vouchers are free so it's like free money.
They all expire mid-2018 or later so... no real issue yet.
The thing about it is that I look at vouchers like cash. So when I go to Robinsons... I look at whatever item they have, and I think... I could get this from Qoo10 at 10%-20% cheaper. There's almost nothing in Robinsons that I can't find at a cheaper price. So I hardly can find an opportunity to use my Robinsons vouchers.
So I tend to go to Marks & Spencer to get stuff... My mentality is usually the same... many of the stuff at M&S are overpriced... after seeing those items in the UK, I am super turned off by the prices found in Singapore M&S. The thing which I'm looking at at M&S is probably the ravioli pasta, cos it costs around $10 and even at Cold Storage it's around that price as well... So I would likely buy that... Else I'll be using the vouchers during Christmas to buy gifts for my wife's colleagues or something. Just some biscuits or chocolates.
The other vouchers are pretty easy to use. Capitaland vouchers, NS50, Great World City vouchers aren't much of an issue, cos I could use them anywhere, like at Giant, or McDonalds or many other places.
But I have $170 sitting in Robinsons/ M&S vouchers which I'm pretty much struggling with.
*Ok, bound to have someone comment, "I help you spend lor, no problem one..."*
I'm not sure if this is just me... I look at vouchers good as cash, so I tend to appraise it similarly. If I can buy a shirt or bedsheet at a cheaper price, I will just go Qoo10 to buy it. I won't spend 20% more to just use up the voucher at Robinsons.
I know many people use vouchers like a free gift, so they don't value it like cash, they take it as free and they just find any opportunity to use it, so they just use it at any outlet without thinking about the opportunity cost. And that's fine... Cos even I think I'm just anal in this case.
But I'm just wondering if I'm alone with this thinking. The idea that vouchers are as good as cash and that someone else besides me also would look for a cheaper alternative online, instead of just using the vouchers.
Like my wife was looking at a dress at M&S for $70, and I said, "You already have a lot of dresses, you just bought from Taobao at $35 each. If you really like this one that's fine, but didn't you just get a stash of loot from Taobao recently?"
Ok I'm not complaining I have too many vouchers. Rather I'm just highlighting that I look at vouchers like cash and I'm not sure if I'm the only one doing this, cos it seems quite rare. I tend to get the impression many others just see vouchers are free gifts so "just use it".
Recently we paid $150 buying a wallet for my mother-in-law. After we swiped the card, we saw the "NS50 vouchers accepted" sign... -.-||| so upset, we could have easily used up the NS50 vouchers and saved the $150 cash. That's no issue cos NS50 vouchers are accepted almost everywhere anyway.
The only gripe I have about the NS50 vouchers is that all the good deals are already snapped up. During the early days of the NS50 vouchers, I heard people could exchange the vouchers for 10% more value. Like AMK Hub was exchanging $110 AMK Hub vouchers for $100 NS50 vouchers for the first 1000 people... I got my NS50 vouchers super late so once again missed out on all these promos.
But even for NS50 vouchers I'm starting to feel anal about it. Cos some places I can get +3% value. Like if I spend $100 worth of NS50 vouchers at Giant, I think they give me a $3 Giant voucher on top of it. So I can potentially get a 3% return using vouchers. So I'm now hunting for a good place to spend my NS50 vouchers for a better rate of return.
*Any recommendations???*
I think that it's likely just me who thinks like this, or at least very very little people would be so picky about using vouchers... especially since the vouchers are free. It would be very consoling if someone else comments to indicate that they view and use vouchers in the same way.
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