$pends and The $imple Dollar

I enjoy the heck out of a blog called The Simple Dollar. Blogger Trent Hamm provides thoughtful advice and shares his own experiences with/without money. Today's post has a great little blurb in it, which I'll share below. I have always said that a sale shouldn't be called a sale at all, it should be called a SPEND! Because, no matter what, you're spending money.

Trent's post today, specifically #4:

I can save a huge amount of money hitting big sales.

Lots of people get very excited about Black Friday (and other huge sales), and why not? They offer impressively low prices on consumer goods of all varieties - you can save big money, right?

Actually, sales are designed to encourage excessive and premature purchasing. They show off these low prices on certain items to get you into the store and get you into the buying spirit. I’ll see an ad and think, “Wow, that game is on sale for only $40? I’ll pick it up!” Then, I’ll go into the store, spend $40 on that game (that I shouldn’t be spending), and then spy something else I “need,” like a big pack of AA batteries. Before I know it, I’ve spent $100 on stuff I shouldn’t have bought and could very easily live without.

Even better, some retailers actually mark things as being on “sale,” but in fact they’re marked up compared to their basic original price. My uncle personally did this when working at a major retail chain in the 1980s and 1990s - when applying a “sale” sticker to an item, he’d first put a sticker on below it with a hugely inflated price, then affix a “sale” sticker on top of that with a markdown from that inflated price, returning it to a price that’s still higher than what it was to begin with.

Sale prices are fine if they match up with something you’re already planning to buy, but if you see something in an ad and the sale price is convincing you to buy it, then that sale isn’t saving you money - it’s costing you, big time.



Back to Rick's thoughts:

Stores like Kohls, JCPenney, and Art Van who all offer a different themed sale every single week–end are a pain in the butt because sometimes they convince you that you should come on in and buy something that you need (really, like a pair of shoes!) and you end up purchasing way more because you're SAVING money. I imagine there will be some President's Day Sales coming up, so SPEND your MONEY!