My mom usually buys athletic socks for members of the family (everyone plays tennis). She like Kohls a lot and shops lots of sales.
I think I have a strange shopping philosophy (don't know if it saves me money or costs me money long term), but I am good at staying within budgets I set. I only go shopping if I have a need to buy something (which usually means replacing something or some sort of special event or requirement at school for my son). I don't look for sales (although I think some kind of sale seems to be on all the time as a marketing gimmick). I don't go for the here's a $10, $100 certificate you have to spend in the store in the next two weeks. JC Penney has started trying this too with little emails for $10 or $15, and I just put that into my junk email. With Kohl's cash I give it away to someone before I leave the store or before I leave the parking lot. I usually look for someone who appears to be a regular Kohls shopper, and to date people have been super appreciative. I've given up to $120 in Kohls cash away to strangers (my husband one time bought a bunch of shirts there, but overall was disappointed with the quality and has returned to Macy's instead when he does shirt replacement shopping trips -- reason, though, for the larger amount of Kohl's cash). The thing is that in my shopping trip I already got what I needed from there store and don't have anything else on my list. I'm just not into buying to be buying and prefer to shop as infrequently as possible. Do note too, I am not a frequent shopper at Kohls. I usually only go there maybe twice a year. My main things that I do buy from them are athletic socks (men's adidas brand for me for tennis -- but really and truly you only need so many and I don't want to stock up), Timex watches (usually I replace mine every three years or so - again I don't need an extra one around), a hallmark Christmas tree ornament if I have some kind of gift exchange (I don't want any of these for myself), and 14K gold earings. I own two pair of the same ones and only purchase another pair if I loose an earing. I don't want more than two pair. Losing an earing seems to happen to me once every three year or so (happened to me more frequently when I used to ski a lot and used stocking caps frequently). I'm really not a big fan of Kohls for things other than that. I also don't really enjoy shopping and do it as little as possible. // I much prefer the
Best Buy gift certificates that are good for a year and that you don't even have to print out to use. Or Walgreens reward points.
I may be a totally misguided "unfun" person, but my personal philosophy is that we all have too much stuff, only buy what you feel you need, and give stuff away to charity anytime you get something new to keep belongings to a reasonable level. Everyone I know has too much stuff and can buy whatever they need/want anytime, so I try to keep gift giving down too - just the thought more than the gift and normally when I do buy gifts I resort to overpriced fruit or experiences vs. things. Probably the only exception is my son. He does love a few little surprises for Christmas etc., but I like to keep those to a minimum too, as stuff like this very often can just sit around and goes to the Salvation Army a few years later. // I think this extra cash stuff really and truly is a marketing gimmick that is designed to get people to buy more things than they really need by getting them into the store and increases profits for the store. Sorry to be such a scrooge, but hey just thought I'd throw out a different opinion about things like Kohls cash.
It sounded like she knew the employee so I wondered if they would make it work for her.
