All Over Albany

Shopping the sales in Saratoga

Oh, Saratoga, how we love shopping your cute little boutique stores. The unique finds, the beautiful high quality clothing. But we're on a budget -- and window shopping is such a tease.

What's that you say? Sales? A lot of them? Hmmm. We're intrigued.

Yep, AOA took a little Spa City shopping trip this week and found some really good deals.

Sure, this is the time of year when stores all over are marking down their winter merchandise to make room for spring. But, if you run with a crowd that won't notice you're wearing last season's dress, we even found some bargains on spring and summer clothes from ought-eight.
Like this $124 dress we found for $34 at Lifestyles (at the corner of Broadway and Caroline Street).

The sale rack at the back of this shop is always worth checking. Like any sale rack, it's hit or miss, but you can often find beautiful designer clothing for as much as 70% off. On a visit this week we were surprised to find everything in the back quarter of the store marked down between 20% and 70%.

Next we wandered down to The Shoppe at Broadway and Phila Street. The prices here are typically much more affordable than a lot of the B'way boutiques, but when they have a sale, it's particularly awesome. We've heard stories of an $150 dress slipping out the door for 18 bucks. This week there were five racks of clothes, some already marked down, that were being sold at 50% off the lowest price.

All of the sweaters (again, already marked down) were half off the lowest price. The original prices ran from around $100 to $130 and they were selling for around $40-$50.

Further north on Broadway at Violet's we found this coat that regularly goes for more than $300 marked down to $190.

We also found this cute jacket that usually sells for around $200 marked down to $50.

Violet's also had a small selection of dresses from this winter and last summer that were marked down considerably. This houndstooth dress usually goes for around $180, but we found it on sale for $88.

If you're looking for more casual clothes the happy looking long sleeve t-shirts at Just Plain Good are 30% off the usual $25 price. Other select merchandise was on sale for as much as 50% off.

And just in time for St. Patrick's day, Celtic Treasures is taking 20% off all of their Irish wool sweaters.

If you're thinking of heading to Toga to check out the bargains, here's a heads up -- we've noticed a lot of the stores are closing on Mondays and Tuesdays. All the stores mentioned here were open when we dropped in to take pictures on Tuesday. When we were scoping out the sales this weekend we saw others, but they weren't open when we showed up with our camera early this week. So there are more bargains to be had if you shop on the weekend.

Happy hunting!