How to save 40% at the Lego Store

Greetings ninjas! Christmas is coming up very soon and I thought I should talk strategy. It might seem odd to discuss Christmas in October, but there are several important deals right now, that might it vital to discuss this early.  What follows if a short guide in how to maximize your money during the Christmas season.

Double Points: 

I mentioned earlier how you can start to rack up coupons during double points months.  The Lego store offers a VIP card that gives you a 5 dollar coupon for every 100 dollars you spend.  During double points months, you get a 5 dollar coupon for every 50 dollars you spend. That might not sound like a high amount, but Legos can add up quickly. One of my favorites is the Temple of Arijitzu. It costs 200 dollars. If I bought that during the double points months that give me 20 dollars of coupons!! Double points ends this month on the 14^th!

Add ons:

On top of that, if you are going to spend that kind of money, you should shop during the special holiday promotions.  Last year I got a great Elf Workshop when I bought 99 dollars or more of products.  This year they have an adorable red train.  Again, if you have multiple kids, or even one kid that wants a mid priced set, you can easily reach 100 dollars.  If you are spending that money anyway you can time it so you also get a great Christmas themed item.  This item is only available from the 13^th of October to the 13^th of November.  So you’ll want to shop on the 13^th or 14^th of October so you get double points and the holiday train!!  

Investment Items:

Maybe you don’t have any big ticket items on your list. You can still buy advent calendars in October and resell them around Thanksgiving. (Don't tell the Lego store employees you plan on doing that. They don't like it.) Most people don’t realize until its too late that advent calendars sell out by late October so there is a good market for these. The Star Wars version is particularly popular.  Last year me and my daughter got a great Darth Vader with red trim and a red cape, as well as an R2D2 dressed like a Christmas tree. These are great for your kids, but they also make great investment items.  Last year right around Thanksgiving (right before the advent month starts) they were selling for about 10-20 dollars higher than their sticker price. (Last year's LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar 75056 is selling for almost double its original price).  So you can purchase a calendar in October, get the free holiday train set , and double vip points for the purchase, and then turn around a month later and recoup all of your money and even make a little profit.  To a lesser extant you can do this with the minifigures as well. These are highly specialized figures that come in blind bags and cost 4 dollars each. If you need to reach 100 dollars to get the promo you can buy a few of these and open them to see what they are, and then resell them. If you're ambitious might also like to keep them for a home made advent calendar.  On top of that, they are Halloween themed. So if you decide to keep them you get some cool monster themed Legos you can pull out every year.

Adding it up:

In short, you can easily get the holiday promotion and rack up coupons without spending that much money.  The Star Wars Advent Calendar is 40 dollars, your families Christmas presents are another 40 dollars, and you get 5 minifigures for 20 dollars which gets you up to 100 dollars, plus tax that would be about 107 dollars.

But if you sell back the advent calendar for a small profit (about 50 dollars would be a safe assumption) and two of the minifigures you don’t want (at cost) you’ll get around 58 dollars back. You will also get 10 dollars in coupons for purchasing during a double points period.  And you’ll get a train set worth 15 dollars. If you don’t sell the train set that means you got 67 dollars (115 for the total worth of your products, minus the 48 dollars at cost of the products you sold back) of Lego products for only spending about 39 dollars!!!! (107 dollars spent minus the 58 you sold them for and 10 dollars of coupons)  That is close to 40% off!!!!! 

Plus, you’ll be getting money into your account right around the start of December which is always nice for buying some more presents or those lousy fundraisers your kids have. I don’t know if you’re like me, but getting extra money into account feels like new money, even if you’re just getting back what you just spent.  So it’s a nice psychological boost when you need it. 

You’ll have to do a little bit of work.  Though making a trip to the store, selling on ebay, and dropping off a package aren’t terribly difficult actions.  And if you’re reading this blog you likely have the motivation to save money and see the effort as very worth it.  You can get some Christmas presents, a nice Christmas Lego you can use year after year, some Halloween Legos you can use year after year, you get some coupons for more Legos, and you can help somebody out who is panicking about an advent calendar at the start of December. And you can do all of this for 40% off at a total cost of 39 dollars and some time spent!  Ninja level achieved!  As always, make sure to follow me on facebook for the most current updates.  For example, there is a free giveaway at Toys R Us this Saturday.