Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is that you can save money and avoid clutter
Speaker 1: by trying not to pay attention to sales. When you
Speaker 1: are thinking about buying something, ask yourself if you would
Speaker 1: pay full price. If you would, then a sale is
Speaker 1: saving you money. If you wouldn't, then it isn't really
Speaker 1: saving you much of anything. I am a frugal person,
Speaker 1: so I am always drawn to sales. But like many
Speaker 1: frugal people, I have had the experience of buying something
Speaker 1: I didn't truly want because it was on sale. Think
Speaker 1: a sweater and a color that I didn't really like.
Speaker 1: Then I didn't wear it. So rather than spending let's
Speaker 1: say sixty dollars on something I would have worn, I
Speaker 1: spent thirty dollars on something I didn't. It's hard to
Speaker 1: see how that was better avoid buying two of those
Speaker 1: thirty dollars unloved sweaters, and you could have fully funded
Speaker 1: the good one anyway. Because of experiences like that, I
Speaker 1: am trying to ask myself this question, would I pay
Speaker 1: full price if the major reason I am buying something
Speaker 1: is that it is on sale, then that is a
Speaker 1: problem unless it is an actual necessity. This isn't saving money,
Speaker 1: it's spending money on something I don't truly want. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I discover that an item I was planning to pay
Speaker 1: full price for is on sale. Now that is always exciting.
Speaker 1: For instance, I have a new hobby of setting up
Speaker 1: miniature rooms in my office. I had an eye on
Speaker 1: a miniature dishwasher for my miniature kitchen for a while,
Speaker 1: and after a few weeks, when my mentally created hobby
Speaker 1: budget was replenished, I put it in my online shopping cart.
Speaker 1: Once it was there, I learned it was fifty percent off.
Speaker 1: How wonderful. But broadly, there is a reason that sales exist.
Speaker 1: Merchants are trying to move products by increasing demand. There
Speaker 1: wasn't demand for a product at let's say, fifty dollars,
Speaker 1: but there might be a twenty five dollars, So someone
Speaker 1: who didn't want it at fifty dollars might theoretically be
Speaker 1: willing to take it at twenty five dollars, But did
Speaker 1: the person really want it? This is how many of
Speaker 1: us wind up with cluttered closets and houses. You might
Speaker 1: even take this philosophy a step further and not look
Speaker 1: at price tags at all. Now, before you think I
Speaker 1: am being extreme or made of money or something, consider
Speaker 1: that a lot of the places we shop have prices
Speaker 1: within a fairly small range. If you are shopping for
Speaker 1: clothes at Old Navy or for school supplies at Target,
Speaker 1: you know roughly what they are going to cost. If
Speaker 1: you are shopping at your usual grocery store, you also
Speaker 1: know what your usual tally is. Old Navy is not
Speaker 1: going to suddenly start selling a pair of Jeanes that
Speaker 1: cost five hundred dollars. Cereal isn't going to start retailing
Speaker 1: for fifteen dollars a box at your local grocery store, well,
Speaker 1: at least I hope not not at my grocery store
Speaker 1: at least. So if you know roughly what the price
Speaker 1: range for a store is, then maybe don't look at
Speaker 1: the price tag first. If you are considering if you
Speaker 1: want something, look at it and ask yourself that quotequestion first.
Speaker 1: After you have established that you do truly want something
Speaker 1: and will wear or use it, then you can look
Speaker 1: at the price tag. You might be pleasantly surprised or
Speaker 1: you might not, but you won't be convincing yourself that
Speaker 1: you need the thing solely because it is on sale.
Speaker 1: When you would pay full price for something and then
Speaker 1: you get it on sale, you are actually saving money.
Speaker 1: If you wouldn't, then you aren't. You are bringing something
Speaker 1: into your life that perhaps you don't want quite as much,
Speaker 1: which can be okay, but at least you want to
Speaker 1: know what you are doing in the meantime. This is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've
Speaker 1: got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at
Speaker 1: Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.