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The local shopping experience

I recently learned a good lesson in the art of shopping locally. My youngest was in dire need of a new bike, so off I went to a nearby community in hopes of landing a sweet deal.

I recently learned a good lesson in the art of shopping locally.  My youngest was in dire need of a new bike, so off I went to a nearby community in hopes of landing a sweet deal.

I spent all day looking at every store for a bike, and was growing more and more frustrated to say the least.

My daughter was nearing a birthday, and was too old for one of those cutesie little girl bikes with the basket and the tassles, but I thought she was too little for the big girl mountain bike with all the gears and hand brakes.

Oddly enough and typically, she was right in between.

I could spend around a hundred dollars on the little girl bike, or go right up into the many hundreds of dollars for a bike that had better last her until she goes to college.

We looked and looked and test drove many, but couldn’t find one that was perfect, or within my price range.  Sad and defeated, we headed back home to Houston, when I remembered that we had a brand new sports store just opened up here – Country Wide Sports.

Skeptical and a little apprehensive, off we went.

We immediately found a beautiful, age and size appropriate bike, on sale nonetheless.

I snapped it up and bought it immediately.  It was a win-win situation — my daughter was happy, my bank account was happy, and I bought it locally.

Was it fate, I ask?

To show me that I should have saved gas money and looked here at home first?

I think it was just showing me a lesson to search in my own backyard before heading off to the classic bigger centre for a deal.

I think that we’re slowly getting there in the opening of new businesses in Houston, and I’ve said it a thousand times in the past how important it is to prevent leakage and improve our own local economy by continuing to shop locally.

I think it is even more important for me to listen to my own words once in a while.