Don’t Let Advertised Savings Trick You into Spending
Don’t you love it when people go shopping and come home with bags of new merchandise and justify their budget busting spending by saying, “I saved more than I spent.” When I go to the store and get tempted into buying something that is on sale, but wasn’t on my original shopping list, that the best bargain is to simply keep my money. I know, it’s a hard concept to grasp, but actually resisting the urge to spend is a better deal than buy one get one free.
What I find as one of the worst deals EVER, is buy one get one half off. Unless this deal is in relation to buying a car or a house, it’s a horrible deal, but it works on so many! My wife struggles with this deal when looking at clothes. When I’m dragging my feet behind her at Ann Taylor Loft (usually sitting on the one available bench in the store with someother fellow husband), I see people buy a $40 shirt that they convince themselves they really like, because they can then get another one for $20, that they like even less, because it’s the same shirt that they kind of like, but in a different color they like less, because it wasn’t their first choice. That’s a long example, but an accurate description of good store advertising to get us to spend our money.
Another bad discount is the offer enticing us to spend a certain dollar amount in order to receive a discount. For example, spend $75 and receive $15 off. Yes, I understand this is a 20% discount, but you have to ask yourself, would you of spent $75 in that store anyways? If so, then maybe it is a good discount, but this is rarely the case.
Although it’s probably well known by now, stores will almost always offer you a 10% discount on your entire purchase if you sign up for their stores credit card. Don’t do it, your credit score is worth more than the minimal savings you’ll receive. This reminds me, don’t sign up for the credit card at the airport for a free round trip either—it burns me to see people do this. If you want a free trip, volunteer to be bumped, in fact, call your airline before you even leave to the airport and ask if they need any volunteers.
Just because something is on sale doesn’t mean it’s cheap and just because something is free doesn’t mean it won’t cost you. $
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[...] this: sales can be really expensive, budget-busting things if you’re not smart about them. As Milk Your Money reminds us, “actually resisting the urge to spend is a better deal than buy one get one [...]
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I have to totally agree. “Sales” are every where now and they are not a deal.
If you want a deal, save your money and use your budgeted money to buy things you need. The clearance rack is where the deal is. I need new pants for work as I have been rotating the same two pairs of pants Monday through Thursday, thankfully Friday is jeans day. I went to the GAP, rarely do I shop there, and I bought a pair of their khakis that they normally sell for $30-50 for $8.29 including tax.
That was a deal and something I needed.
I totally agree with this post and have written on this before! If you get something for $99 and it was originally $499, that doesn’t necessarily mean you got a great deal. It probably means you just spent $99 that you did NOT have to buy something with in the first place!
Good thoughts!