Speaker 1: Episode four oh six, the Psychology of sales and discounts.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to
Speaker 2: save money, embrace simplicity, and live a your life. Here
Speaker 2: your hosts Jen and Jill.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen,
Speaker 1: my name is Jill, and today we are talking about
Speaker 1: how sales cost you more. M Hot take what Jen?
Speaker 1: Hot take?
Speaker 3: No, the yellow and red stickers and the clear insections
Speaker 3: always mean I'm smart, yeah, I'm saving.
Speaker 1: Yes, we do love a good sale, but we also
Speaker 1: have to understand that sales are not for us. They
Speaker 1: are a marketing move. And so we're going to go
Speaker 1: through article from like a marketer's perspective written to other
Speaker 1: marketers so that you can understand what's going on behind
Speaker 1: the scenes of these sales, so that you can take
Speaker 1: advantage of them without getting taken advantage of.
Speaker 3: We love those behind the scenes marketers, like we love
Speaker 3: to be the fly on the wall, like the little creeps,
Speaker 3: like what are you guys talking about? How can we
Speaker 3: use it to our benefit not be bamboozled. We also
Speaker 3: sent you all a pole because well, we're sending you
Speaker 3: the friend letter so that you all don't get bamboozled
Speaker 3: in other ways. And then we ask you questions that
Speaker 3: you can answer and interact with us, and we ask
Speaker 3: what do you do when something is a good deal,
Speaker 3: And most of you, by a landslide, said, ask myself
Speaker 3: if it's something I really need. Others were buy it
Speaker 3: immediately others or do a quick search you see if
Speaker 3: you can find a better price elsewhere, or just walk away.
Speaker 3: There's always going to be good deals. So some of
Speaker 3: you are perfect.
Speaker 1: No, I mean, this is the general consensus. Nobody's gonna
Speaker 1: buy something that's on sale that they will absolutely never use.
Speaker 1: But it's the things that are on the edge right
Speaker 1: that it's like, oh I could use that, or I
Speaker 1: have been thinking about that, And those are the really
Speaker 1: those are the things that we want you to think
Speaker 1: about when we go through these sales psychology techniques. So
Speaker 1: the next time that you're presented with something that's kind
Speaker 1: of on the edge, you you can rethink and again,
Speaker 1: not be perfect all the time, but if you can
Speaker 1: reduce the number of impulse buys that you make by
Speaker 1: like fifty percent, that's a really great start.
Speaker 3: So that's what you all said, We're gonna talk about
Speaker 3: what the Internet has to say. But first, this episode
Speaker 3: is brought to you by your favorite things. Whether your
Speaker 3: favorite things include a beautiful day with no plans, nice
Speaker 3: weather outside, or a butterfried hot dog followed by a
Speaker 3: stick of gum. We all have a little list of
Speaker 3: what brings us joy, and if you're looking for more
Speaker 3: things to add to that list, get the friend Letter.
Speaker 3: We are sending you emails every week Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
Speaker 3: They're full of freebies and deals, deep dives on how
Speaker 3: to buy quality over quantity, budget tool kits, just all
Speaker 3: the stuff so you don't get bamboozled, and you also
Speaker 3: know if something's a good deal. Frugalfriendspodcast dot com slash Nope,
Speaker 3: just frugalfriendspiost dot com. Just go.
Speaker 1: We go to Frugal friendspodcast dot com slash friend letter,
Speaker 1: but you can get it anywhere on Frugal Friends.
Speaker 3: Podcast dot com. It's what we're pushing.
Speaker 1: And if anybody's worried about Jill's health with all of
Speaker 1: the butter and the hot dogs, know that she does
Speaker 1: drink us like a green smoothie every morning, So I
Speaker 1: think that counteracts and I think she's gonna be fine.
Speaker 3: I think I like talking about hot dogs far more
Speaker 3: than I eat them. Well, okay, the last time I
Speaker 3: had a hot dog was a week and a half ago.
Speaker 1: You're slipping, You're slipping.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 1: I get back on the hot dog, all right. So
Speaker 1: if you are very interested in sales, we have a lot.
Speaker 1: We love sales, so we have episodes on how to
Speaker 1: take advantage of sales, like episode three ninety one Best
Speaker 1: Seasonal Grocery Sales.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: And then we also have episodes about impulse buying so
Speaker 1: you can understand what's happening, like episode three seventy eight,
Speaker 1: The Psychological Reasons Why we impulse buy. That's one of
Speaker 1: my favorite episodes, honestly, so que those up to listen after.
Speaker 1: So today we are just focusing on sales and discounts
Speaker 1: and we have a one really great article and it's
Speaker 1: again written for marketers, so that's that is the audience
Speaker 1: they're writing to, and we're going to look at it
Speaker 1: as consumers to say what should we take away from
Speaker 1: the way these people are doing things? And it is
Speaker 1: from Namou Namogu Nago. Yeah, I don't know. It's called
Speaker 1: the se Ecology of Discounts. Eight research backed strategies for
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, but they're still used in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So they start off by talking about some research
Speaker 3: that was done on specifically discounts. So we've done deep
Speaker 3: dives before on marketing strategies, and discounts are a marketing strategy,
Speaker 3: but now we're kind of looking at specifically discounts and
Speaker 3: not kind of all of the different ways that marketers
Speaker 3: use to get us to spend. That there is specific
Speaker 3: things that draw us to wanting to spend when there's
Speaker 3: a discount present, sometimes more than just spending on something
Speaker 3: that we want to buy. So they reference this study
Speaker 3: where researchers uncovered specific psychological motivators that drew shoppers to
Speaker 3: certain types of promotions to encourage them to buy. Because
Speaker 3: when consumers find a good offer, it actually changes the
Speaker 3: way they think and feel about it. Anecdotally, I can
Speaker 3: say that that's true, like I definitely get excited in
Speaker 3: the clearance section more so than just the store itself.
Speaker 3: But then they go on to say that after participants
Speaker 3: in one study scored a major discount, it led to
Speaker 3: feelings of excitement, pleasure, happiness, other positive outcomes. And then
Speaker 3: another study confirmed these findings and determined that people who
Speaker 3: received a discount actually increase their levels of that feel
Speaker 3: good hormone oxytocin, and the spike in those positive feelings
Speaker 3: was higher post discount than when they just received an
Speaker 3: outright gift, which is wild to me. So we sometimes
Speaker 3: can feel even more excited, elated, happy over scoring a
Speaker 3: deal that we've spent at least some money on than
Speaker 3: if someone were to give us a gift. And they
Speaker 3: also said that when those participants snagged the right coupon,
Speaker 3: they experience less stress, their heart rates, perspiration, and respiration
Speaker 3: all decrease, while feeling on average eleven percent happier. Now,
Speaker 3: one could take this study and say, well, the discounts
Speaker 3: aren't good for my health, like I should impulse buy
Speaker 3: sales are good for sales items because I'm going to
Speaker 3: be eleven percent happier and my heart rate is going
Speaker 3: to reduce. But I think that the better thing to
Speaker 3: take from this is to know that these marketers know
Speaker 3: this and it's why they're advertising a sale. And spoiler alert,
Speaker 3: we're going to be talking about how chances are it's
Speaker 3: not actually a sale. They're like fabricating sales so that
Speaker 3: you are drawn to this so that you can experience
Speaker 3: these things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's really telling. Like so, on the
Speaker 1: topic of their fabricated sales in our book, we were
Speaker 1: writing about this and I found this was so interesting.
Speaker 1: From Checkbooked or from consumers Checkbook, they did a study
Speaker 1: where they spent thirty three weeks tracking sales prices at
Speaker 1: twenty four major retailers. And we mentioned this study in
Speaker 1: our warehouse Debate episode and whether a warehouse club really
Speaker 1: saves you money? But it tracks these twenty four major retailers,
Speaker 1: and we're talking Walmart, Target, Amazon, and they wanted to
Speaker 1: know if the store's discount claims were really discounts or
Speaker 1: just attempts to mislead. And what they found is that
Speaker 1: usually it's misleading. So for we got two, four, six,
Speaker 1: eight nine of those retailers, all of them all the
Speaker 1: weeks except for one or two or every single week,
Speaker 1: the products that they looked at never went off sale,
Speaker 1: So the whole time those products were on sale. And
Speaker 1: so in this misleading category, we've got Amazon, Gap, Banana, Republic,
Speaker 1: Old Navy, Wayfair, Footlocker, Nordstrom, Williams Sonoma, and then the
Speaker 1: ones we got three six, nine twelve on the often misleading,
Speaker 1: which means like maybe half the time these products and
Speaker 1: they tracked the same products over time, over these weeks
Speaker 1: were on sale and so on. Here we got best Buy,
Speaker 1: Cole's Office, Teaboat, Home Depot, Macy's, JC Penny. J C
Speaker 1: Penny has a great story.
Speaker 3: About j C. Penny's story. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So back in the I think early two thousands
Speaker 1: or twenty tens, j C Penny did away with sales
Speaker 1: like it was the backbone of their marketing strategy. And
Speaker 1: the CEO came in from Apple, of course, and he
Speaker 1: was like, we're doing away with sales. We're just going
Speaker 1: to do one fair every day, low price, like, no
Speaker 1: more gimmicks, let's just be straight with the people.
Speaker 3: And they hated it, like people hated it.
Speaker 1: This CEO was fired less than a year and a
Speaker 1: half later because because sales just tanked, people wanted sales
Speaker 1: because getting a deal makes you feel smarter, just like
Speaker 1: what Jill was saying. It makes you feel like you
Speaker 1: are out smarting like capitalism, and so we love getting
Speaker 1: a sale. Oh, anytime we go out in public, like
Speaker 1: and we speak like, as you know, frugal friends people
Speaker 1: come up to us after and they're like, Oh, I
Speaker 1: got this shirt for like three dollars, or I thrifted
Speaker 1: this outfit, or they want to tell us about the
Speaker 1: deal they just got because it makes them feel smarter
Speaker 1: and they think it's like crazy, and yeah, it's just crazy.
Speaker 1: And so to know that for the vast majority of
Speaker 1: retailers and products, the sales are fabricated.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that doesn't mean that it can't be a good deal.
Speaker 3: I think in my mind, I'm kind of arguing with myself, going, well,
Speaker 3: sometimes there are good deals on Amazon, or I've have
Speaker 3: gotten clothing in the Long Distant Pass from Coals and
Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, I really did get that shirt
Speaker 3: for three dollars. That is less than what you can
Speaker 3: get a shirt for. But I think the key in
Speaker 3: that is those deals are always happening. You can always
Speaker 3: get a three dollars shirt from Coals. And then that
Speaker 3: brings up a whole other issue of consumption and labor
Speaker 3: exploitation and you name it. That's not what we're talking
Speaker 3: about today. But it's not as if there aren't deals
Speaker 3: to be had or good prices that you're willing to
Speaker 3: spend on the things that you want, but being able
Speaker 3: to see through some of this to know is it
Speaker 3: actually a good deal or not.
Speaker 1: And the reason we brought this up in our Warehouse
Speaker 1: Club episode is because Costco was the only retailer that
Speaker 1: ran legitimate sales.
Speaker 3: Oh everybody.
Speaker 1: Apple was the only one other one in the green,
Speaker 1: but it's because they ran no sales.
Speaker 3: Well, then you know, if you're if you're a student
Speaker 3: getting a discount on that MacBook, that's the only time
Speaker 3: you're ever going to get that discount.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Target was like fifty percent of the time
Speaker 1: it was in the yellow. But so all that to
Speaker 1: say is that we shouldn't feel as smart as we
Speaker 1: do when we take advantage of a sale. You're smart
Speaker 1: when you figure out what you value, spend on that
Speaker 1: and say no to what you don't. That should be
Speaker 1: the true indicator. Well, that's not the true indicator of intelligence,
Speaker 1: but that's what should make you feel good when it
Speaker 1: comes to spend, when it comes to your spending. And
Speaker 1: so they have some statistics in this article about the discounts,
Speaker 1: saying that nearly seventy percent of millennials look for a
Speaker 1: deal before making a purchase. That's me guilty, sure, two
Speaker 1: thirds of people say they'd make a purchase if they
Speaker 1: had a cupon, regardless of whether they initially planned to
Speaker 1: buy something. So this is where we this is where
Speaker 1: sales get dangerous and discounts. Eighty percent admit they'd try
Speaker 1: a new brand if it offered them a discount, and
Speaker 1: forty eight percent of people will steer clear of brands
Speaker 1: that don't offer deals.
Speaker 3: Jacpenny, Wow, Yeah, they really tanked after that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was debacle. That was a some I read
Speaker 1: on Reddit. A employee of jcpenny at the time referred
Speaker 1: to the customers like drug addicts that like could not
Speaker 1: get their drug. It was so extreme.
Speaker 3: So, as you can see, as a result of these statistics,
Speaker 3: companies will then use discounts in whatever way, shape or
Speaker 3: form they want to in order to get you to
Speaker 3: buy because they know these things about us. So now
Speaker 3: we want to talk about the specific marketing techniques that
Speaker 3: will be used around sales.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's there's eight in this article, but we're
Speaker 1: going to cover the five that we think you see
Speaker 1: you will see most often and why. So the first
Speaker 1: one is the rule of one hundred, also know as
Speaker 1: the dollar off versus percent discount. So what does science
Speaker 1: say about the rule of one hundred. A marketing professor
Speaker 1: and author of Contagious Why Things Catch On, Jonah Berger
Speaker 1: theorized and tested how people perceive a percentage discount versus
Speaker 1: a dollar off discount, and that's how he developed the
Speaker 1: rule of one hundred. And according to his research, a
Speaker 1: percentage discount is more appealing to consumers four items under
Speaker 1: one hundred dollars, so ten percent off a fifty dollars
Speaker 1: sweater sounds better than giving them five dollars off because
Speaker 1: the number ten is bigger than the number five, even
Speaker 1: the oh ten percent of fifty is five. The dollar
Speaker 1: off discount works better for items price over one hundred,
Speaker 1: So on one thousand dollars computer, people were more likely
Speaker 1: to buy when they received two hundred dollars off versus
Speaker 1: a twenty dollars or twenty percent discount, even though two
Speaker 1: hundred is twenty percent of one thousand, but two hundred
Speaker 1: is bigger than twenty. So when you're looking at discounts,
Speaker 1: this is just like a fun thing you can do.
Speaker 1: Whether you see the dollar amount or the percentage, figure
Speaker 1: out which number is bigger, because the number advertised will
Speaker 1: intentionally be the bigger number when you're talking percent or
Speaker 1: a dollar, and so you'll see this. Obviously most of
Speaker 1: us are looking at items under one hundred dollars, so
Speaker 1: we'll see more percentages off in our sales than what
Speaker 1: we will see money. So price and what is displayed
Speaker 1: is definitely intentional when you're looking at sales.
Speaker 3: The second one on here that I'll highlight is understanding
Speaker 3: and protecting perceived value. So when companies are looking to
Speaker 3: sell a product, if they can understand our perceived value
Speaker 3: the consumers, and this is adjacent to a cognitive bias
Speaker 3: where we can see something and have a certain idea
Speaker 3: of what that item should be worth. And so they
Speaker 3: were describing how with certain products people want a deal
Speaker 3: on them, Like blue gens, people are going to be
Speaker 3: more apt to buy the genes that have the highest discount. However,
Speaker 3: when it comes to luxury items, the opposite is true.
Speaker 3: That one study found that when luxury items are discounted,
Speaker 3: consumers will see them as inferior, maybe being out of
Speaker 3: season or less popular, making them less desirable, which is
Speaker 3: probably the reason Apple never puts their products on This
Speaker 3: exactly was to protect their perceived value of the item.
Speaker 3: My takeaway from this as as a spender, as a
Speaker 3: consumer is don't worry about my perceived value, like get
Speaker 3: the MacBook pre owned, Like buy whatever luxury item that
Speaker 3: I want at a consignment store. Like if I have
Speaker 3: a value for the thing, and I believe the thing
Speaker 3: is quality and will serve its purpose, then there are
Speaker 3: ways that I can still get a deal and get
Speaker 3: around that, around the fact that some items never will
Speaker 3: go on sale.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is why in the friend letter we try
Speaker 1: to every couple of weeks we will do a deep
Speaker 1: dive on the quality of a certain product that is
Speaker 1: on sale for that month. So in the spring, when
Speaker 1: some like lawn equipment was on sale, we did a
Speaker 1: deep dive into lawnmowers so that you know these are
Speaker 1: the things you should be looking for in equality. Lawnmower. Yes,
Speaker 1: the very expensive ones are going to have all of
Speaker 1: these things, but you can find less expensive ones that
Speaker 1: have most or all of these things and maybe not
Speaker 1: the brand name. But you also don't want to buy
Speaker 1: a cheap lawnmower that compromises on all these important factors
Speaker 1: just for price. And so when we say choose quality
Speaker 1: over affordable quality over cheap quantity, that's what we're talking
Speaker 1: about we're looking for true value. So when you make
Speaker 1: a purchase, I mean social media really does like promote
Speaker 1: this idea of brand value. But like I think what
Speaker 1: started this series in the front letter was that I
Speaker 1: saw all of these social media videos about how these
Speaker 1: ceramic pans that were huge on social media. I don't
Speaker 1: know what the brand name was, but they were just
Speaker 1: absolute crap, like utter crap. In two years, they were
Speaker 1: basically unusable. And like, we've both had our stainless steel pans,
Speaker 1: different brands, not all clad, which is like the higher
Speaker 1: highest echelon of pans. I mean, we've had each of
Speaker 1: them for ten years. So that's what really inspired us,
Speaker 1: Like how can we get quality at an affordable price
Speaker 1: without you know, sacrificing anything, but not paying for the
Speaker 1: perceived brand value. So that's another thing. Just because a
Speaker 1: brand is all over social media doesn't mean it is
Speaker 1: actual actually valuable. So the next one is the play
Speaker 1: on scarcity versus urgency mindset. So this is another This
Speaker 1: is playing on another cognitive bias, loss aversion. So people
Speaker 1: and this is like a famous study where they did
Speaker 1: is it more painful to lose ten dollars than to
Speaker 1: miss out on an opportunity to gain ten dollars, and
Speaker 1: by and large, it was more painful to people to
Speaker 1: lose ten dollars, and that's because of loss of version.
Speaker 1: And that is a way that sales play. They don't
Speaker 1: want you to feel like you've like if you've missed something,
Speaker 1: if you have the opportunity to miss something. So flash
Speaker 1: sales create a sense of urgency buyers. No deals will
Speaker 1: only be available for a limited time, so they need
Speaker 1: to take action and impulse buy or this is what
Speaker 1: we see even more than flash sales now, low stock,
Speaker 1: limited inventory, This creates scarcity mindset. And this isn't just
Speaker 1: a sales tactic anymore. This has become a brand strategy.
Speaker 1: So if you've ever heard of Supreme, the clothing brand,
Speaker 1: it is their entire sales strategy before they got bought out,
Speaker 1: like they would release only a limited number of each
Speaker 1: piece and you had to get it like and it
Speaker 1: was gone like in minutes. So this is not just
Speaker 1: a sale strategy anymore. It's an entire brand strategy, which
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily hate, like it's definitely better for sustainability,
Speaker 1: but it is a marketing tactic. So I think knowing
Speaker 1: that sales come every at least every year, but typically
Speaker 1: multiple times a year. When we are looking at our
Speaker 1: consumer reports, our account with all of the things that
Speaker 1: are on sale every year, and we click on something,
Speaker 1: it is very rare that we click on an item
Speaker 1: and it is only on sale once a year. It's
Speaker 1: usually on sale several times a year. The sales always
Speaker 1: come back, So you can always plan in advance. If
Speaker 1: there's something you want and nothing that you really need,
Speaker 1: is is gonna never be available again? If you truly
Speaker 1: need it, it'll be available when you can afford it,
Speaker 1: and unless that is, unless that is like time, time
Speaker 1: is truly our only resource that is non renewable, and
Speaker 1: then some natural resources, but those can typically be traded
Speaker 1: out for something else. So realize that your time is
Speaker 1: your only non renewable resource. It takes time to work
Speaker 1: to pay for these things that you are buying on sale,
Speaker 1: So what's the true trade off? And so if there
Speaker 1: if there is something that you truly value that is
Speaker 1: on a flash sail. I heard this on the radio.
Speaker 1: This DJ wanted to buy the Star Wars lightsaber because
Speaker 1: he loves Star Wars. It is something he truly values
Speaker 1: and he obviously hadn't saved for it. He was like,
Speaker 1: should I buy it? Should I buy it? And I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't know, but I thought about it
Speaker 1: for a long time. And so here is my real
Speaker 1: world solution to flash sales of things that you actually
Speaker 1: do value. First, you can prepare for them if you
Speaker 1: if you're thinking about this now, you can have a
Speaker 1: sinking fund for a value. So if Disney is something
Speaker 1: you value, and Star Wars falls in that, this guy
Speaker 1: was an annual passholder at Disney, so you can have
Speaker 1: a sinking fund for Disney that can include any food
Speaker 1: that you buy at the parks, or merch you want
Speaker 1: to buy, or memorabilia. That way, when something like this
Speaker 1: comes up, you can say, I would like to use
Speaker 1: my money on this. The next time I go to
Speaker 1: the park, I will just bring all my own food.
Speaker 1: I won't buy any food, so you'll make you can
Speaker 1: make that direct trade off. If it is something that
Speaker 1: you have not saved for. Then hopefully you have a
Speaker 1: spending place and you can think, Okay, what are things
Speaker 1: that are in my spending plan that I can give
Speaker 1: up this month reincorporate next month, but I can give
Speaker 1: up this month In order to take advantage of this
Speaker 1: flash sell. So whether it's a couple date nights, or
Speaker 1: a couple lunches at work, or a combination of something,
Speaker 1: you can still take advantage of sales. But no, there's
Speaker 1: always a trade off. If it's not time, then it
Speaker 1: can be the consumption of other goods. But just know
Speaker 1: there's always a trade off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if it's not worth those trade offs, then
Speaker 3: there's your answer, you don't want it. Yeah, all right.
Speaker 3: The final one that I'm going to highlight is the
Speaker 3: power of free and how the use of that word
Speaker 3: will often get people to buy. They did a bunch
Speaker 3: of different studies. One example was that consumers viewed getting
Speaker 3: fifty percent more of something as better than saving thirty
Speaker 3: three percent, even though the deal itself actually worked out
Speaker 3: the same mathematically. They wanted to feel like they were
Speaker 3: getting more for nothing rather than saving money. So this
Speaker 3: is us, they're talking about us, And so they are
Speaker 3: recommending to marketers to add the word free in wherever
Speaker 3: they can consider offering a free welcome, gift, free shipping,
Speaker 3: free returns, free samples. Just the fact of seeing the
Speaker 3: word free can be what draws people to buy from
Speaker 3: that brand, especially if it's their first time. If we
Speaker 3: remember back to those statistics, I think it was something
Speaker 3: like eighty percent of people so that they were likely
Speaker 3: to buy from a new brand if the new brand
Speaker 3: offered discounts and especially freebies. So again, be aware of
Speaker 3: this and calculate, well, what is the actual cost because
Speaker 3: you still are paying for something like free am and Bogo.
Speaker 3: Is still you buying free shipping? Is still you buying
Speaker 3: a free welcome gift? Is still you buying? So again,
Speaker 3: none of our values based spending principles go out the
Speaker 3: window when it comes to this. Know that if they
Speaker 3: are saying free something, it's a tactic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And we still again love free Every Monday in
Speaker 1: the front letter we tell you where to get free
Speaker 1: food and we try to make it one hundred percent free,
Speaker 1: like no obligation free. But those become fewer and far between.
Speaker 1: So sometimes it is and it's up to you to
Speaker 1: discern whether it's worth it for you to take advantage
Speaker 1: of that freebie marketing campaign. And again on the topic
Speaker 1: of the numbers, like seeing the numbers, the bigger numbers
Speaker 1: are what we like. I remember hearing a story about
Speaker 1: I think it was Burger King tried to sell one
Speaker 1: third pound burgers and they did so much worse than
Speaker 1: the quarter pound burger because even though one third is
Speaker 1: bigger than one fourth, people would buy the quarter because
Speaker 1: the four is bigger than the three. No.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's like back to grade school when people
Speaker 3: are like, the dime is smaller than the nickel. So oh.
Speaker 1: Another like part of psychology is heuristics, like these mental
Speaker 1: shortcuts our brains take. Yeah, we see a bigger number
Speaker 1: and that's the one we go with. So it's almost
Speaker 1: like anchoring, like the that cognitive bias. The first number
Speaker 1: were presented with is the one we take, and quarter
Speaker 1: pounders were around first, and the four is bigger than
Speaker 1: the three, So like, we're not dumb people, right, our
Speaker 1: brain is using these shortcuts to save us energy. They're
Speaker 1: just shortcuts. The biases are shortcuts, but we have to
Speaker 1: question everything we think because shortcuts aren't always the best.
Speaker 1: Like in every episode of I Think Bluey when the
Speaker 1: dad tries to take a short cut, I think that
Speaker 1: was the show and just ends up in the jungle.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's another kid's show, But like, shortcuts are not
Speaker 1: always the way to go. Nope, So the last one
Speaker 1: I'll talk about on here is don't ask customers to
Speaker 1: do math. So that kind of like goes perfectly into.
Speaker 3: This, because we don't know if one quarner is bigger
Speaker 3: or smaller than mord No.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so they're just saying, don't ask customers to
Speaker 1: do hard math, because again, mental shortcuts are what we
Speaker 1: default to. So they're saying, if you decide to discount
Speaker 1: a fifteen dollars item down to ten, people get that
Speaker 1: that's five. But if you price an item at fourteen
Speaker 1: ninety nine down to nineteen ninety six, they may not
Speaker 1: as quickly realize they're getting five dollars off, and in
Speaker 1: this case more than five dollars. So you will see
Speaker 1: a lot of like easy math when it comes to discounts.
Speaker 1: And this is why is these mental shortcuts that our
Speaker 1: brain takes. Marketers and advertisers want to cater to those
Speaker 1: as much as possible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So armed with some of this knowledge about the
Speaker 3: psychology of discounts, you can be more aware of whether
Speaker 3: or not you're being bamboozled. Is it actually a deal?
Speaker 3: Does it actually fit within my values? Do I want
Speaker 3: this thing? And I think there are some ways that
Speaker 3: we can check that is it a deal? Boom our
Speaker 3: new game show?
Speaker 1: Is it a deal?
Speaker 3: So while there are some ways that you can check that,
Speaker 3: I think we can run through a couple of things,
Speaker 3: it's not a deal if you don't need it, So
Speaker 3: you're just going to be spending money on something you
Speaker 3: don't need and therefore not a deal. So that's definitely
Speaker 3: something to be asking yourself. Do I actually need that?
Speaker 3: It's going to solve a problem for me? Is it
Speaker 3: something that I've been wanting?
Speaker 1: Do I have something else that could do the same thing?
Speaker 1: And usually the answer is yes.
Speaker 3: Oh. My grandfather would always get deals from CVS and
Speaker 3: they were always just junk plastic junk tons of candy
Speaker 3: that expired. Nobody ended up eating it. I mean even
Speaker 3: at like eleven it was like pop pops. This isn't
Speaker 3: a deal, like because no one's going to eat this,
Speaker 3: this is gross candy. No one likes taffy. It's not
Speaker 3: a deal if you don't have a current use for it.
Speaker 3: If it's one of those things of but I might
Speaker 3: someday and will I ever be able to come across
Speaker 3: this price? Yeah? Probably, And you don't need to be
Speaker 3: storing that thing either, because then it just becomes clutter.
Speaker 3: So if you don't have an actual use for it
Speaker 3: right now, not a deal.
Speaker 1: Same with procrassus spending. If you see a sale on
Speaker 1: something like and I always go back to, like running shoes,
Speaker 1: if you're not already in a habit of running, buying
Speaker 1: shoes is not going to put you into a habit
Speaker 1: of running.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's also not a deal if it's not in
Speaker 3: your spending plan, if you don't have a plan for it,
Speaker 3: or said another way, if you can't afford it, if the.
Speaker 1: Money not there, it's not a deal and no deal.
Speaker 3: It's not a deal. It is a good game show.
Speaker 1: Actually is it a no deal?
Speaker 3: It's not a deal if the deals are happening year round,
Speaker 3: no deal.
Speaker 1: No deal.
Speaker 3: If it's always two ninety nine, no deal. I mean
Speaker 3: Walmart does this right? They're yellow stickers like they're yellow stickers.
Speaker 3: I think a long long time ago did mean a
Speaker 3: markdown price, and now it's just yellow stickers everywhere. The
Speaker 3: rollback remember the rollback guy? Do they still do that?
Speaker 3: It's all the un rolled back always not time love
Speaker 3: the black.
Speaker 1: Friday like things where they will put up a deal
Speaker 1: a black friend sign, like it's on sale, and somebody
Speaker 1: will take the sign away and behind it. Same price,
Speaker 1: same price, no deal, no no deal. In a way
Speaker 1: if you're online that you can check if something is
Speaker 1: a deal. You can use Chrome extensions like c net
Speaker 1: or camel. Camel Camel is a website for Amazon. Use those,
Speaker 1: track the price for the last six months and see
Speaker 1: if what you're getting is actually a deal.
Speaker 3: Do you know what is a deal? Because it's truly free,
Speaker 3: free for everybody.
Speaker 1: It's a big deal.
Speaker 4: It's the bill of the week, that's right. It's time
Speaker 4: for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a
Speaker 4: baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you've
Speaker 4: paid off your mortgage, maybe your car died and you're
Speaker 4: happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. Duck bill,
Speaker 4: butffalo bills, Bill Clinton, This is the bill of the week.
Speaker 5: Hey, Gin and Jill, this is Amber from East SIMC.
Speaker 5: My favorite bill of the week is actually my son
Speaker 5: broke his Xbox controller and it was going through so
Speaker 5: many batteries. Two batteries at least one to two times
Speaker 5: a week is driving me crazy. Batteries are pretty expensive,
Speaker 5: and he bought his own new Xbox controller and has
Speaker 5: a cord, so it doesn't even take batteries, and I
Speaker 5: am extremely happy not to have to worry about buying
Speaker 5: stupid batteries every other week. That's what I got for
Speaker 5: you guys. Thanks Gen and Jill.
Speaker 1: H Amber. I feel you with batteries. But then now
Speaker 1: every toy my sons have have a cord, and it's like,
Speaker 1: if we did use every cord, it would be like
Speaker 1: eighteen cords lined up charging RC cars and roller.
Speaker 3: E the power strokeer just one big power stroke.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, it's insane.
Speaker 3: You're still paying for it, but you're not needing to
Speaker 3: run out.
Speaker 1: You're not paying much for it. You're just paying for
Speaker 1: it like in it, like with space, you're paying with space. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he can keep it in his room and deal
Speaker 1: with that space.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad for you, Amber, especially because it did
Speaker 3: not skip past me when you said he bought his
Speaker 3: own new controller. And that's a good day. When your
Speaker 3: own kids are buying their own stuff, that's a deal.
Speaker 1: That is a deal.
Speaker 3: That's a good deal.
Speaker 1: Save one hundred percent of the things you don't buy
Speaker 1: for your kids. Yes, parenting parenting hack.
Speaker 3: If you all want to submit your bill of the week.
Speaker 3: If it is about not needing to buy any more,
Speaker 3: bringing batteries anymore, or your kids are buying their own stuff,
Speaker 3: or you actually found a deal, or you knew something
Speaker 3: was not a deal. Skuy's a limit for Girlfriends podcast
Speaker 3: dot com, slash Bill, leave us your bill, and now
Speaker 3: it's time for the Library Round. I just listened to
Speaker 3: a comedy special last night and they said that they've
Speaker 3: never heard females do sound effects, that like little boys
Speaker 3: and dudes are always the ones doing sound effects. And
Speaker 3: I was like, false, Wow, false, because Neil Bannan, I.
Speaker 1: Don't even know who that is.
Speaker 3: Get out of Get him out of here, Neil Brennan, Yeah,
Speaker 3: we're doing sound effects.
Speaker 1: Pew. All right, for today's vulnerability Round. What is the
Speaker 1: last good deal you passed up because she didn't need it?
Speaker 1: Go for it, John, Okay. For me, it was the
Speaker 1: all d aisle of shame. I actually did go in
Speaker 1: there for organizing things. Uh you know, it is my
Speaker 1: container store and I got these beautiful glass containers and
Speaker 1: some plastic containers because we just redid our kitchen and
Speaker 1: finally ready to organize it. And it was great. I
Speaker 1: saved a lot of money by getting my things at
Speaker 1: All d when they had them something I waited for
Speaker 1: and it's not a sale. But like I have price
Speaker 1: checked again and again and again. And the things in
Speaker 1: the all de Aisle of Shame, which is actually I
Speaker 1: caught that. Many people called that, but it's actually all defined. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's actually all defines.
Speaker 3: Wait till they just rebrand it entirely shame.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, so I have tested, I have, I have
Speaker 1: price checked over and over again. And the things not
Speaker 1: on sale in the Aldi Fines Aisle are cheaper less
Speaker 1: expensive than anything on sale at any other store. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so there you get.
Speaker 3: Is it a deal?
Speaker 1: It is a deal, but a discounted or on sale.
Speaker 1: But it is a good deal.
Speaker 3: But it's not a deal if you don't need it, right,
Speaker 3: and a deal, it's not your spending plan.
Speaker 1: So in the end of the story, long story short,
Speaker 1: I went there for things that I bought, but then
Speaker 1: I saw extra things that I wanted, and then I
Speaker 1: got to the cash register and I just put them
Speaker 1: on top of the cooler. I was like, no, no, yeah,
Speaker 1: don't I don't need it.
Speaker 3: WHOA, you had that gut check. How'd you feel after
Speaker 3: that when you made that decision?
Speaker 1: Actually one of the things I put back I wish
Speaker 1: i'd bought, you're going to go back, But the rest
Speaker 1: of it, I'm glad I didn't. Okay, I didn't actually
Speaker 1: need it, and as it was aspirational buy, like, I
Speaker 1: wanted to buy it because I wanted to do the
Speaker 1: thing that I would use it for.
Speaker 3: But I don't really so cryptic, do you not want
Speaker 3: us to know what it was? Well, I can't actually
Speaker 3: remember what it was, okay, And that's a great I mean,
Speaker 3: that's a thing you wish that you had bought, you know,
Speaker 3: I knew the thing though.
Speaker 1: The thing I wish i'd bought was another like a
Speaker 1: third set of those beautiful Class Canada canisters. But then
Speaker 1: there was something else and I can't remember what it was,
Speaker 1: but I remember putting it down and being like, you
Speaker 1: know what, I don't have a habit of doing this yet,
Speaker 1: so I'm not gonna like it is a good, you know,
Speaker 1: price as compared to if I was going to buy
Speaker 1: it somewhere else, But I would rather pay more for
Speaker 1: it somewhere else when I know for a fact I'm
Speaker 1: going to use it. Yeah, So I'm sorry, I'm not cryptic.
Speaker 1: I'm just having a bad memory.
Speaker 3: No, that's good. I just thought it was like, what
Speaker 3: what were you going to try and buy it all?
Speaker 3: De that you can't disclose. My version of a walk
Speaker 3: of shame is yard sales and I'm wearing that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: here's the thing they do. Still it's still enjoyable for me.
Speaker 3: And while I don't do it as often, I don't
Speaker 3: go to yard sales as often as I used to,
Speaker 3: I still like going to them when they kind of
Speaker 3: pop up and I happen to have a free Saturday
Speaker 3: morning and that just happened for Eric and I this
Speaker 3: past weekend, and it was a whole neighborhood yard sale,
Speaker 3: which is especially fun. That is the best. You can
Speaker 3: just walk around and see what everybody's got. And this
Speaker 3: one was at Saint Pete Beach, so it was all
Speaker 3: the homes on the water and it was a beautiful
Speaker 3: sex a lot of nautical stuff, a lot of nautical
Speaker 3: home decor. Surprisingly now like a lot of antiques, which
Speaker 3: well really kind of out of place, like very heavy
Speaker 3: furniture antique stuff. That's a whole other side pangent. I'm
Speaker 3: not gonna go there, okay, but this is my thing
Speaker 3: at yard sales. Is everything is a deal? Yes, everything
Speaker 3: is about ten to twenty percent of its original value,
Speaker 3: so it's all a deal. If you're solely looking at
Speaker 3: the math, it is far less than you'd ever buy
Speaker 3: it new, but you would have to identify again, is
Speaker 3: it really is it a deal for me? Is it
Speaker 3: for me?
Speaker 5: Though?
Speaker 3: And there was one place that had a whole table
Speaker 3: of free stuff. Now in my younger years, that would
Speaker 3: have been open the trunk, babe year it is, but
Speaker 3: jogging going home, shovel it all in.
Speaker 1: That's still Travis's years. It's a good thing he wasn't
Speaker 1: there because he's still in those years.
Speaker 3: Baby baby got back. We'll figure out a use and
Speaker 3: we'll learn how to value it. So Wow, they had
Speaker 3: yard torches and that was interesting. I was intrigued. Nope,
Speaker 3: that would have been cool. I probably would have I
Speaker 3: probably would have gotten those. Nope. They looked like big
Speaker 3: old things of incense, but kind of more like candlestick forms.
Speaker 3: Would be like you shove this big old thing a
Speaker 3: wax into the yard and then they would be just
Speaker 3: like this. They honestly looked like flares. They honestly looked
Speaker 3: like they should be a part of a survival kit
Speaker 3: for like big Big Island. You're on the Big Island
Speaker 3: and you're trying to get the plane to come get you. Anyways,
Speaker 3: like both of us were like, oh, yeah, it's free,
Speaker 3: like you don't have to think about it that much.
Speaker 3: But we have found ourselves in this place where we
Speaker 3: are thinking about even the free stuff, and of course
Speaker 3: the people are just like, just take it, take it.
Speaker 3: But we passed up a lot of free stuff because
Speaker 3: we've realized For me, I think the overarching pieces, do
Speaker 3: I just feel like storing this? Do I feel like
Speaker 3: dealing with it? I really like having a simple, no
Speaker 3: nonsense schedule and maintenance plan. And it just felt like, well, yeah,
Speaker 3: we have a yard. We hang out in a yard,
Speaker 3: but we mostly hang out in the screen and porch.
Speaker 3: So what I'm going to go outside of the screen.
Speaker 3: I'm going to shove these torches in to keep bugs away,
Speaker 3: but I'm already protected by the screen, Like, no, I
Speaker 3: don't need it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, more more is not the solution.
Speaker 3: Right, even if it's free. It kind of boggles me
Speaker 3: because it's just like, yeah, why wouldn't you take the
Speaker 3: free stuff? But I'm realizing that this whole journey of
Speaker 3: learning what I value actually is helping me to be
Speaker 3: like I value not a lot of clutter and stuff
Speaker 3: I'm going to actually use well.
Speaker 1: Values based spending transcends the money you spend in it
Speaker 1: all so permeates your time. So how much time am
Speaker 1: I going to spend figuring out where these things are
Speaker 1: going and then maintaining them and eventually getting rid of them?
Speaker 1: Because everything that goes into your house has an exit plan,
Speaker 1: It has an exit, So what kind of time do
Speaker 1: I want to invest in each thing that I buy?
Speaker 1: And you just you don't need to spend so much
Speaker 1: time putting stuff into your house, maintaining it, and then
Speaker 1: taking it out if you don't have it.
Speaker 3: It's a shift I never thought i'd make, but here
Speaker 3: we are. We're keeping the trunk closed.
Speaker 1: Close the trunk, baby. Thank you for listening. We hope
Speaker 1: that this helps you pass up the next sale of
Speaker 1: something that you don't need, and if it does, please
Speaker 1: please please leave a rating and review of the show
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts and or Spotify, like this one from
Speaker 1: Ray nineteen eighty two titled Learning and Laughter It Happens
Speaker 1: to be five stars. We love those These girls know
Speaker 1: their stuff and they crack me up. I've been off
Speaker 1: the frugal bandwagon for a few years now, and they've
Speaker 1: helped me jump right back in with tips and anecdotes.
Speaker 1: And the best part is they don't make me feel
Speaker 1: guilty for my financial errors past or present.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Kelray, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Thank you kel Ray nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 3: A really kind review. We love all of our good reviews. Obviously,
Speaker 3: we read them and we read them back to you.
Speaker 3: That's how much we love them. So please, please, please
Speaker 3: do leave a rating and review. It really does help
Speaker 3: other listeners find us. It helps us. It's a freeway
Speaker 3: that you can help us. It's a deal.
Speaker 1: It's a deal.
Speaker 3: It's a good free deal.
Speaker 1: It's a deal that won't cost you a lot of time.
Speaker 1: And if there is something funny you want us to
Speaker 1: read on the show, then write it in a review
Speaker 1: and you may hear us embarrass ourselves by reading or
Speaker 1: reveal you can this. Yeah, this is a way that
Speaker 1: you can hear something funny of your own doing out
Speaker 1: of our mouths.
Speaker 3: It's for you.
Speaker 1: Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni.
Speaker 3: Okay, Jen m Deal Adjacent Yeah Deals Deals, and Impulse
Speaker 3: Purchases do you remember we have talked so much about
Speaker 3: my biggest impulse purchase on a spiral staircase that Eric
Speaker 3: got off of Facebook marketplace.
Speaker 1: Yeah, longtime listeners will remember the spiral staircase Eric Facebook marketplace.
Speaker 3: We had previously had central air and then that pooped
Speaker 3: out on us two weeks after moving to Florida in
Speaker 3: August and it was a hot summer until we got
Speaker 3: many splits. But anyways, that left a concrete pad outside
Speaker 3: and Eric was like, let's put a spiral staircase on
Speaker 3: that concrete pad to the roof. Found a spiral staircase
Speaker 3: on Facebook marketplace. It just kind of popped up and
Speaker 3: he didn't think I'd say yes. I did say yes,
Speaker 3: And we've had that spiral staircase here for about four years.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. Yeah, at least three and a half.
Speaker 3: At least three and a half, Yeah, something like that.
Speaker 3: It was an impulse purchase I was willing to buy.
Speaker 3: There was nothing on the roof. Guess would come over.
Speaker 3: We're like, where's the spiral staircase gower? Just like to
Speaker 3: the roof. That's it.
Speaker 1: Why not to roof?
Speaker 3: And then we were inspected by our insurance company. They
Speaker 3: were doing that to a lot of people in Florida.
Speaker 3: They're trying to drop people. Really, we've had too many storms.
Speaker 3: And they wanted us to get rid of the spiral
Speaker 3: staircase or they were going to drop our insurance coverage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're making everybody do something black or they'll drop them.
Speaker 3: They did offer us the option of putting a handrail
Speaker 3: around the entire perimeter of the roof, but even still
Speaker 3: they said, then we're still going to drop you, and
Speaker 3: you got to go with this other insurance company that's
Speaker 3: one thousand dollars more a year. And I had to
Speaker 3: realize that the spiral staircase is not worth one thousand
Speaker 3: dollars a year to me, plus the cost of a handrail.
Speaker 3: So we sold it. But silver lining we bought it
Speaker 3: for five hundred dollars, and we sold it for five
Speaker 3: hundred dollars price.
Speaker 1: Praise hands.
Speaker 3: Although it is so sad the room that you and
Speaker 3: I record in Jen We look out the window and
Speaker 3: we used to see the spiral staircase out that window,
Speaker 3: and now we just see cobwebs.
Speaker 1: Well, you you faced the spiral stair case. I face
Speaker 1: your beautiful trees and your patio. So now I'm looking
Speaker 1: at it, but Rip will have to find something else
Speaker 1: to put on this lab.
Speaker 3: And there you go. That's a reason and not impulse
Speaker 3: buy because eventually, one day the insurance company is going
Speaker 3: to take it from you.
Speaker 1: But it is a great example of how you saw
Speaker 1: something that you want, and impulse buying is in the enemy.
Speaker 1: You impulse bought it, but you sacrificed other things in
Speaker 1: the short term to justify that purchase. So because you
Speaker 1: valued the spiral staircase, and we all did, we all
Speaker 1: valued it. Oh yeah, Rip, spiral staircase