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Last year I learned an important lesson. Even though more than two months were left in the summer, one cannot find very many kids sandals available at Target in late June.  I had purchased a pair of sandals for Erik in the early spring last year, thinking he would wear them all summer long.  Of course, his feet grew faster than expected.  Silly me to think I could just walk into a store in the middle of the summer and purchase another inexpensive pair.  Luckily, my box of garage sale purchases for future summers saved me.  I had a pair of sandals I thought I would be saving for this summer that fit (with a bit of room to spare) for the remainder of summer 2008.

Moving along toward summer 2009, I was not going to make the same mistake again.  Last year’s sandals fit Erik, but just barely.  Early garage-sale adventures had not yielded any results.  So, I ventured out to Target last week in search of boy sandals.   And I only found two pairs his size.  In mid-may.  Now, to Target’s credit, the sandals were on sale last week, so many of my fellow Twin Cities parents were probably also out buying sandals.  And I could have gone to check at other Target stores as well…but who wants to do that with three kids in tow?

Of the two pairs in his size remaining at the Richfield Super Target, one was in a cushy, dressy leathery style.  I took one look at those, pictured Erik ruining the leather and padded soles in a mud puddle, and knew I couldn’t buy them.  The other style were Spiderman sandals, which also came with a $2 premium added to their price for those nice licensed pictures.  So, I paid my $15 on sale for a pair of kids sandals, knowing that I might pay a lot more than that if I had to go to a real shoe store or department store to buy them in the middle of the summer.

But, I also made the smart decision to not remove the tags immediately.  Since Erik’s old sandals still fit and Target has a 90-day return policy, I decided to keep my eyes pealed for a better bargain.  I didn’t have to wait long.  The very next day I hit the jackpot with a garage sale being held by the mom of preschool-age twin boys.  I found another pair of  Spiderman sandals for a fraction of the price:

And, as an added bonus, I found a few other nice pairs of shoes at bargain pricing:

(I did get a pair of cushy sandals at the garage sale, pictured above…for 75 cents we can save them for nice occasions!) The only thing that would have made us happier (well, Erik really), would have been a pair of “Train! Train! Train!” sandals, as Erik would put it.