Watching those ads!

Well, kids, it seems that my luck is still holding out. I recently bought a Memorex 10.2-inch portable DVD player to show off the slide-show videos I am now doing with my clients' still photos. The slide shows are burned to a DVD and when played on a wide-screen HDTV are very impressive. I found it to be difficult to carry around a huge, expensive flat screen TV to meetings, plus a DVD player, so I opted for the smaller portable, battery-powered unit to carry around. The color and clarity of the screen, plus the competitive price made this the best unit for me. I found it at Target for around $179. I got it home and it played nicely, but I noticed something wrong. Any vibration on the surface it was sitting on, or movement of the unit itself would cause the video to stop and the machine to say "loading DVD" on the screen! I found that the switch that tells the machine the lid is closed was too sensitive and was on the edge of saying it was open all the time. I took it back to Target immediately. The woman behind the counter at "returns" was happy to either refund the money or give me an exchange. One secret is to always take the refund. Exchanging the unit means that the time limit on returns stays with the original receipt which may cut off days you can still return the unit to Target. Getting a refund resets that clock if you rebuy the same unit. I opted for the refund. I then went into the store and bought another. (This is another reason to use credit cards, as the refund is really easy.) I'm glad I did get the same one. A week later, I was perusing the Sunday Times ads, and lo and behold, there was the same DVD player on one of the pages of the Target ad insert for around $159. I took the receipt back to Target along with the ad, and they adjusted my cost on the unit. I saved over $21, if you include the tax.
Moral to the story: keep your eyes on the ads to see if you can get a post discount!