help me to understand...

homeway7677

There are still many things I just don’t know. One of them is that having female friends around helps me save money.

Seriously. It didn’t cross my mind until two weeks ago when I went shopping with a few female pals.

Two of them offered to bargain for a sports pullover that I had my eyes on :They managed to cut the price by 100 yuan.

I doubt that I would have been able to get such a deal in the same amount of time it took them-30seconds to be exact. I kept count .

Another female friend’s spring festival holiday trip to Hong Kong is the ultimate example of this :a woman knows how to smell out the best bargains , even those that guys can make use of .

She brought back a case full of creams from beauty stores there . One well-known product cost only about 25 yuan, compared to the 113 yuan price tag in Beijing.

I can just imagine now how much I could have saved on my past big-time purchases if I had gone shopping with my female friends or checked with them before . Man , that amount is huge , even with just a rough estimate .

The common remark about girls generally being more meticulous than guys is in no place truer than when it comes to looking for bargains .  

The feeling of getting a real bargain does help to soothe my nerves, even if it means waiting for them to shop till they drop, which can take hours . Just one thing though: don’t tell them that this is why you make friends with them .

Pal:伙伴
Pullover:套头衫
Meticulous:小心翼翼的
Soothe:安慰

what are the meaning of the two sentences underlined?
THX .