I’m kind of known to my friends as the girl who never pays full price for big-ticket items. Cars, cruises, hotels, jewelry. I’m not going cheap imitation — what I get is the same as what others get; I just don’t pay nearly as much. Some of it is luck in timing (thank you, Universe!), another part is knowing where to look and how to purchase. In the jewelry department, I’ve just received Item #2 of my Top 2 Best Purchases, Ever. You can see both #1 and #2 in this photo:

Here’s how I did it:

Item #1: The diamond chevron wedding band.
This is, of course, #1 in chronology, but it’s up in the air whether it’s better than #2. Mr. W had spent a small fortune on the engagement ring (also pictured), so I was determined not to create another giant expense on the wedding band. It was hard finding a band that worked well up against a 3-sided engagement ring anyway, so I only perused here and there, thinking if I didn’t see anything I liked, I’d just have the elaborate engagement ring double as a wedding band. A couple of friends with uniquely-shaped engagement rings had done just that.
On a drive to Vegas to visit Mr. W’s parents, we decided to make a stop at an outlet mall to stretch our legs and have lunch. We wandered by Ultra Diamonds, a retail chain jewelry store that I’m fairly familiar with, just to browse. This white gold and diamond chevron ring was deeply discounted on clearance. The price was still well into the hundreds, but I asked to see it anyway, having explained the hard-to-fit problem to the store clerk. I put the engagement ring and diamond band together, and the two matched up like they were meant to be a set. The dip in the band was at the exact right place, had the exact right width, and the little bead-set round diamonds were even of a similar color, size, shape, and setting as the diamonds on the sides of my ring (you can’t see the sides of the engagement ring in this photo, but you can see it here.).
The store clerk (I think he was the manager at that branch) told me they were doing a promotion where if we sign up to be on their emailing list, we would receive a coupon code for $50 off any purchase. He suggested Mr. W sign up, too, so that we would get $100 in discounts. I asked if this store stacked discounts, and he said they did. So we put the ring on hold, signed up, and left for Vegas in order to give the coupons time to be sent. Meanwhile, I had another reason for waiting. Ultra Diamonds was a “platinum partner” of my primary credit card, which means that my cashback bonus from the card can be redeemed for a giftcard to this retailer for double its original value. I used $100 of my cashback bonus for a giftcard to Ultra Diamonds, which gave me a $200 e-giftcard. With the other $100 in the email promo coupon, we stopped by the outlet again on our drive home from Vegas at the end of our visit and not only did I get my diamond chevron band for free, but they gave me something like $7 in change back. Basically, it was like, “Here, take our jewelry, and some extra cash, too.” Better than free.

Item #2: The Solar Seiko watch.
On Sunday, my ESQ watch started doing the tick-once-every-few-seconds thing, indicating it was running out of battery. The last watch battery I’d purchased less than 2 years ago had cost a little more because it had a 3-year warranty. The problem was that I couldn’t remember what store I’d purchased the battery from, and I couldn’t find the receipt, so I wouldn’t be able to get a free battery replacement. I could just get the battery replaced at another place, but with Murphy’s Law I’d probably find the receipt right after I did that, so I would’ve voided the warranty for nothing. I started browsing for new watches online. The crystal of that ESQ watch has a big deep scratch on it, anyway. I may be in the market for another watch.
In my surprisingly difficult hunt for a simple, clean-looking ladies’ watch in silvertone (i.e., steel with no yellow gold) with a date function, I discovered Seiko’s “Solar” line. The Solar watches run on any light source, even fluorescent. The light penetrates the watch’s face and is converted to energy for a self-recharging battery that runs the watch, and it does that so efficiently that a fully charged watch will run for 6-12 months (depending on model) without another encounter with a light source. If the watch happens to die from lack of charge because, say, you left it in a closed drawer for a few years, it needs only to be exposed to sunlight, incandescent light, or fluorescent light for minutes before it jumps to life again. 1-2 minutes in sunlight equals an hour of charge if the watch needs charging; 3 hours in sunlight will fully charge the watch. My Kindle won’t even finish charging in 3 hours. Anyway, it’s very green (as in environmentally friendly) and the never-needing-a-battery-change perk appealed to me. I think houses should be powered by Seiko solar cells. As a huge bonus, I found the line to have attractive ladies’ watches with calendar dates! The only downer is that the watches with calendars are priced between $200 and $500. Kind of hard to justify spending hundreds on a new watch when a battery replacement on my current watch with another 3-year warranty costs under $25.
I went to bed to sleep on it after looking into this watch line on Monday night. Tuesday, the image of a beautiful Seiko Solar watch was “suggested” to me thanks to sophisticated web search engines remembering what I’d looked for previously. This watch had a calendar but was way dressier than my usual taste in everyday-wear watches. It also cost $425, thanks to the 24 diamonds around its bezel. I thought I’d check out my go-to discount watch site, BlueDial, for this model anyway, just for kicks. And saw that this model was on sale for $163. Wow! I’d prefer to keep it under $120, but $163 wouldn’t break me. I decided to “think about it,” and then something else caught my eye. One of the check-out options was to pay through Amazon. I do tons of shopping on Amazon and had linked two credit cards’ cashback rewards to Amazon so that my purchases there would be made strictly from cashback bonuses, i.e., free for me. If I could pay for this watch through Amazon, that must mean that BlueDial is an affiliated seller of Amazon’s, which means I could buy through Amazon and apply my cashback toward its purchase. I logged into Amazon and did a search for this watch. There it was, only 1 left through BlueDial. I threw my remaining cashback bonus at this purchase, and ended up paying…$21 and some change out-of-pocket for a $425 watch. Score!
As a bonus, this watch arrived in 2 days and I got it on Thursday. I brought it with me to work on Friday to show my favorite Family Law judge, who is a collector of high-end watches. I’d told him the story of this watch on Thursday and he’d asked me to bring the watch in after I received it, so I did. He was very impressed (although this watch is small beans compared to the $4000 Omega Speedmaster Moon Watch he’s currently on the prowl for), and said that this watch was a better deal than my better-than-free wedding band. He recommended a trustworthy local jeweler/watch repair shop to me and Mr. W and I went there at lunch to get 4 links removed from my new watch so that I could wear it. (While I was there, I also had the jeweler re-rhodium-plate my engagement ring, and they inspected and cleaned both rings for free.) The watch face is bigger than any other watch I’d owned, but that’s the current style. And my left hand is now WAY more blinged out than I’d ever thought it would be. Less than the price of a battery change.

The jeweler, a really nice guy named Raul, was very impressed with my jewelry. The engagement ring caught his eye right away when I came in, and when Mr. W told him about the heart facet in the diamond, he immediately took out his jeweler’s loupe and checked it out. He was delighted, saying he’d never seen anything like that before. Doing the inspection of the band, he noted that the diamonds are very good, as well as consistent in shape, color and quality. I told him the story of the acquisition of #1 and he was wide-eyed and more impressed. When Mr. W told him how I got an amazing deal on the watch (which is a line the shop carries, altho they didn’t have that specific model and he was very admiring of it), he guessed, “What did you pay? Let me guess, $300?” When I told him the out-of-pocket amount I paid of $21, he froze in amazement and said, “How did you do THAT? I couldn’t even do that when I liquidated!” referring to when he was manager of a top-of-the-line fine jewelry chain that has since ceased to exist after a court-ordered liquidation. Hee hee!

BTW, I’d found the watch battery receipt and had gotten my other watch’s battery replaced for free. Now I have 2 working watches, which is good, because I probably don’t want to wear my diamond watch all the time for casual or athletic encounters, even tho it’s waterproof up to 100 meters.