Four-letter words have long been known for getting us into trouble—first with our parents and teachers; then later on, with society. But there’s one socially acceptable four-letter word that can wreak havoc on our lives in general and our budgets in particular. We encounter it at every turn and its hypnotic appeal pulls us in like a magnet—“SALE!”
This word has the same affect on all of us: young and old, male and female, we simply cannot escape its allure; the greater the discount—the bigger the temptation. It doesn’t matter whether we need the item or can even afford the item, we can’t resist a sale! What’s up with that?
We’re bombarded with sale announcements on a daily basis: through the mail, on the radio, on television, and with huge signs plastered in store windows. How can we avoid the onslaught? Grocery stores, furniture stores, sporting goods stores, department stores, even the Internet—they’re all lying in wait, ready to cast their “discount spells” to relieve us of our hard-earned cash.
The super warehouse stores are some of the worst offenders. “Ten pounds of bacon for ten dollars!” Wow! Never mind that you can’t eat it all before it spoils, or if you did you’d be one hundred pounds overweight and probably drop dead of a heart attack. But, hey! You saved twenty dollars on bacon!
My husband and I went shopping for new stainless steel eating utensils. We found a pattern we liked in a set of twelve and discovered it was on sale for seventy-five percent off.
“Let’s get two sets,” was my husband’s immediate response.
“Why do we need twenty-four forks?” I asked. “I don’t have enough space to store that many.”
“But we’re saving a hundred dollars!” he exclaimed.
Women are particularly vulnerable when they find shoes on sale. “Buy five pair and get two pair free!” Never mind that you only need one pair. If you spend five times more than you intended and buy five times more than you need, you’ll get two pair free.
Even if you do your bargain hunting at garage sales, the spending can add up in a hurry. Haggling is addictive. It’s quite a power-rush to talk the owner down from two dollars to one dollar on your twenty-third pair of blue-bird salt-and-pepper shakers. What a coup!
These days you don’t even need to leave the comfort of your home to indulge your “sales habit”. Just download your cash to anywhere in the world with the click of a button on the computer.
If we all continue to succumb to the overwhelming power of “The Sale”, we’ll save ourselves right into bankruptcy. This scenario might play out as follows:
“So, how did you wind up in this terrible predicament?” the bankruptcy judge will ask.
“It was on sale!” you’ll reply. “I already had four push lawn mowers, but this was a riding lawn mower, with a 26 horsepower V-twin engine and a fifty-four inch deck. It was half off!”
“Wow!” the judge exclaims. “Is it still on sale? I need one of those.”
“Sure,” your lawyer confirms. “I got three for myself.”
So, how does the average, hard-working American resist the power of “The Sale?”
Don’t ask me! The half-price book store is my home away from home; my best friend is a garage-sale junkie; and my eighty-year-old mother has three closets jammed with brand new clothes, which she got on sale, of course.
I guess you’ll realize that you need help when you’re living off peanut butter sandwiches and raiding your kid’s piggy bank to buy gas for your car.
Until then…Happy Shopping!
