My best (dish) buy of the season -- so far!

Now some of my family and friends really do find bargains while shopping on Black Friday or Cyber Monday, but I scored what I say is one of my best buys of the year on what I'll call a Savvy Saturday a few weeks back. I spotted these mugs and dessert plates in a Martha Stewart display at Macy's and absolutely fell in love. The pattern is called Holiday Vintage Paper, and it looks exactly like the Christmas wrapping paper I remember when I was a little girl! Oh, how I wanted these dishes, but the set of four mugs was $70 and the set of four plates was $54. So, $124 for frivolous new Christmas dishes? Nah. Besides, the display said they weren't on sale, unlike another Martha pattern that was nearby.

Not one to give up easily, I went online when I got home that night and guess what? The dishes were half off! Hooray! (Don't you just love how the mugs even come with matching ceramic spoons?)

But half off isn't nearly good enough. Macy's had a special sale online that weekend, and I got another 15 percent off. Hooray again! (Don't you just love this vintage style Santa? Love-love-love this guy!)

But that's not all! I sometimes take surveys online and earn "rewards points" that I typically use to get my magazine subscriptions for free. Well, I've gotten bored with all the magazines and decided to use rewards points to get two (free to me) $25 Macy's e-gift cards. That, my friends, is how I got $124 worth of new dishes down to the final price of (drum roll, please), $2.68. So when everyone else is standing in line hearing "Ho! Ho! Ho!", I'm sitting home thinking, "Ha! Ha! Ha!" Now ... tea and cookies, anyone? I'm ready!