Tag Prices

It Doesn’t Add Up

Michael 3 Comments

I’ve been noticing a disturbing trend here and I think it explains why stores are in trouble. It has nothing to do with on-line shopping or discount warehouse stores. It has to do with store managers who are stupid.

I was in our local grocery store comparing the prices of the admittedly overpriced pod coffee selections. Single people who live alone and drink one cup of coffee a day understand their attraction. I noticed the sale tags (yippee!) then I noticed the need for improved math skills. Same brand, same flavor, different size packaging. The 12 count box, regularly 8.99, was on sale for 5.99. The 36 count box, regularly 24.99, was on sale for 18.99. I’ll wait. (Lah de dah, do dee dee, dum, hum, hum) Yeah! That’s what I said! I even mentioned it to the guy reaching for the box of 36. “Oh, I go through a lot of them,” and he grabbed two of the larger boxes adding, “Great price.”

Different day, different store, different item. Actually this was in a well-known major retailer whose name I’ll not mention but it ends in mart. I happened to be in need of some maintenance items for my outdoor gas grill including the little heat tent thingies that go over the gas tubes. Three of those little thingies actually. I found them on the shelf at 5.49 each. Right next to them was the “Economy Two Pack” (buy in bulk and save!) for 12.49. Once again I noticed an in store sucker … er, shopper … grabbing, once again, not just one but two of the two packs.

SaleSignLater that same day I was at the nursery (the plant kind, not the baby kind), picking out some herbs for my patio garden. Fortunately I only needed 4, or at most 6 plants. Why is that fortunate? Because they were on sale! What were regular price pots of 3.28 each were on sale for “$2.87 each, $24/tray of 8.” Of course someone had three trays in his cart. I hope he was planning on asking them being rung up separately.

Maybe I spoke too harshly of the store managers. They probably really are quite adept at math. It’s the consumer who needs the arithmetic refresher course. I think I might set one up. A friend of mine says I’d make a good tutor and I always can use a little extra spending money. I’ll charge a very reasonable $19.99 per lesson. Or 4 for 100 bucks!

Who says you have to be a big retailer to get in on Special Pricing?

 

Nickel and Diming the Penny Pinchers

Michael 7 Comments

I didn’t believe it. There was no reason to doubt her, but when my daughter told me there is a difference in English muffin prices I didn’t believe her.

Specifically, we were talking about Thomas’ English Muffins in your basic grocery six pack, the goto English muffin for both of us. When we feel like splurging. C’mon! Thomas’ are expensive for just a little something extra when you don’t want plain toast for breakfast. I found a store brand that was mighty tasty for less than half what the Thomas brand runs in our neck of the woods. Over two dollars less. “In fact,” I said, “They’re two and a quarter cheaper.” And that started it.

She explained to me that what I found was indeed $2.25 less than the PLAIN Thomas muffin. (In fact, it was $2.27 but why quibble over a couple pennies when so many countries are no longer even minting penny equivalents of their coinage. I’m still not sure why the American monetary police insist on continuing to print $1 bills, the paper equivalent of useless money. But, that’s a different post for a different day.) I tried to beg to differ but you can’t beg in front if your own child so I just differed with a simple “Nuh uh.”

She went on to say she was certain the wheat, raisin, oat bran, super duty extra protein, and seasonal limited editions are all increasingly increasing in suggested retail prices (that for grocery stores is the retail price or why have door buster savings every week?) ranging from $4.26 for plain to $5 and change for double protein. I still resisted based on the logic that all of my Cheapo Brand Muffin were $1.99 across the board from normal to off brand bran. Since it wasn’t greatly affecting my savings or her inheritance we left it as a supermarket curiosity. One of millions down every aisle.

You know I couldn’t leave it there though, could I. No. If I did, we’d have no post today. So the next time I was at the store I wandered down the English muffin aisle, and I didn’t even need English muffins. (Talk about being dedicated to my blog readers.) I find my bargain basement brand right there on the bottom shelf where all off brands belong, each iteration bearing the shelf tag $1.99. Above them, strategically placed at eye level was the Thomas English Muffin lineup. And under the plain muffin was the shelf tag with the not on sale price of $4.26. And next to those, the wheat muffins priced at $4.28, and so on to the Double Oatmeal Protein at $5.38. Who would have thought it?

While I was there, I thought I’d treat myself and pick up a pack of the cheapos. Wheat. If I was going to save I may as well splurge on it. Or whatever is the word for when you intentionally save more. The next morning I was preparing breakfast and thought I deserved more than toast and reached for an English muffin. Even though I still had a couple of plain muffins I opted for wheat and cracked open the new package. Take that Thomas muffin people! Try and gouge me just because I want wheat. I don’t think so!

As I was splitting it I had that feeling that something wasn’t right. It didn’t feel right. Not the feeling. The muffin. It seemed to not fit my hand right. It felt … small. I shrugged it off and continued splitting. I dropped the halves into the toaster and turned to tend to—- Wait! The toaster! Those are really low in the toaster. What’s wrong with the toaster? Yes, you got it. There was nothing wrong with the toaster. It was that muffin. That blasted, small muffin.

I took out another wheat muffin and one of my remaining plain guys.

Muffins

Side by side there was no mistaking it. The wheat muffin was smaller. And judging by how much, I’d say more than two cents worth smaller.

I feel so violated.

 

They’re At It Again

Michael Leave a comment

About a year ago I posted a post where I posited that we all could make a nice piece of change by buying car insurance (see “Buy, Save, Repeat,” Jan, 15, 2015). There’s another opportunity out there just waiting to be taken advantage of – cell phone service.

Yesterday’s haul of junk mail included six (6!) offers of fabulous savings just waiting to be doled out in exchange for trading in my current cell service. Offers included a flat rate offer of $20/month and another of $30/month, one with a free phone and one with two free phones, one with a new phone, one with savings of up to 60% off, and one for half of whatever I might be paying now.

I did a little figuring and if I trade in my phone for the new service with 2 new phones then switch to the $20/month plan for each of those then take 60% off and finally move on to the half of what I would then currently be paying I could get service for $6/month and end up with an extra phone that I could sell.

Makes you wonder how these guys stay in business.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

Double Coupons

Michael Leave a comment

I’m so frustrated. I was doing my weekly coupon thing (you know about from reading “Past Their Prime” (Oct. 13, 2014)) and I discovered I am throwing out more old coupons than I am adding new ones. The problem is that I don’t need four cans of soup and if I did I’d like to save more than 25 cents on the transaction.

Manufacturer coupon writers are getting greedy. It’s no longer enough to encourage repeat buyers to continue repeating or to entice new buyers to try their items. Now they want to move as much product as possible in as short a time as possible.

The retailers aren’t helping much either. A few years ago it was routine to find supermarket ads with specials like 10 for $10 never caring if the buyer really bought 10, 6, 4, or just 1. They could have made the ad read 500 for $500 (a real steal as long as you have the storage space available) but the real price was actually one for one dollar (a real bargain and much less cabinet space required). (You know about this also because you read “Buy One, Get What?” Jan. 12, 2012.)  “Buy one get one” was just a fancy way of saying “half off.” That was then. This is now.

And now the ads are much more literal (not to be confused with literary). If the ad says PowerAde is buy 10 get 10 free you better plan on buying 10 if you want to reap any savings. But before you get carried away clearing shelf space in the kitchen, know that the buy one/get one ratio is also changing. Now you’re more than likely to see buy 10 get 5, an overall savings of only 33%, not the 50% we’ve gotten used to.

The ads are full of buy 4 get 2, or buy 2 get 1. There are still some buy one get one deals but you better plan on walking out with two items and not think you’ll get away with one for half price. On the other hand, do that twice in one shopping trip and you can use that “save 25 cents on 4” coupon you’ve been holding on to.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Buy, Save, Repeat

Michael 2 Comments

Congratulations!  You are about to discover a sure fire way of making money at home.  No, it’s not stuffing envelopes or even the twenty-first century equivalent, sending out serial e-mails.  No, it’s not completing surveys or even the old-fashioned equivalent, convincing patsies that they can make money by giving others their opinions.  It’s not coupon clipping, rebate responding, or cyber shopping.  It’s insurance!  Specifically, auto insurance.

Lately my mailboxes, old-fashioned and new-fangled, have become repositories for solicitations to change my car insurance.  I’ve had the same insurance for over 20 years and they say that is when one should seriously consider switching.  Complacency builds and what was a bargain then can be a wallet buster now.  So I took a good look at some of the offers and discovered that there indeed was money to be saved.  In fact, there was money to be made.

Every offer had some huge savings that I was overlooking.  There were savings of $400, $450, even $500 to be had.  There were premiums as low as $19 per month.  There were offers of 75% off of what I am currently paying. It didn’t matter if it was a big company, little company, on-line only, or multi-service.  The insurance version of the name brands – Liberty Mutual, Travelers, Nationwide – were represented.  The ones nobody had ever heard of but sounding like the name brands – Safeco, National, 21st Auto – were there.  The ones with cute ads – Farmers, GEICO, Progressive – were in on it too.  Everybody wanted to save me money!  Everyone from Allstate to State Farm had cash to offer. How nice of them.

So, here is the plan.  Step one, switch to one of the low premium companies.  The best plan is to replace my current insurance with one that has a monthly premium of the low, low price of $19.  Once that’s established, trade it in for 75% savings over my now new cost for a newer, lower, lower outlay that comes out to the remarkably low, low, even lower as in less than $5 per month.  Now, switch to the dollar savings that range from $415, to $450, to $500 for a total savings of $1365.  Subtract the $5 premium payment and we net an income of $1, 360!  There are enough companies offering these fantastic savings that we can do this at least three times for a total money haul of over $4,000.  That’s a used car.  Not a very good one but a car just the same.  And where there’s a car there’s a need for car insurance.

Car insurance, – a sure fire way of making money at home.  Buy, save, repeat.  You gotta love it!

Now, that’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

It’s a Pizza Revolution – err, Resolution

Michael 2 Comments

It’s still too early for New Year’s Resolutions for me.  If you want to know why, look back two posts.  However…if I owned a pizza shop I would be building a new bandwagon to hop on with a dandy.  Pizza palaces, parlors, purveyors, and other who have you’s need to seriously get hold of their coupons.

While cleaning out the old coupon keeper and unpinning overflow restaurant coupons from the coupon board, a myriad of pizza coupons bit the dust – expiration date speaking.  Besides the fact that it is remarkably easy to make your own pizza, it is remarkably hard to figure out pizza coupons.  Even the big national chains are getting into the “let’s make this so confusing that nobody will ever want to redeem our coupon or take advantage of our special” craze.  And that’s just plain crazy.

Let’s start with those national chains.  Two pizzas at $5.99 each.  What a deal.  Oh wait, only Monday through Thursday.  Still a deal.  And it comes with two toppings.  On two pizzas.  Now hang on.  Just to whom are they marketing this great special of theirs?  How often does a family of one want two pizzas?  How often does a family of four want two pizzas?  While we’re hanging out with that family, have you ever tried to get four people to agree on two pizza toppings?  Sometimes you can’t get one person to agree on two toppings!  So let’s cross the street to the other chain.  Any large pizza for $7.99.  But we’re back to two toppings.  Unless you want bacon.  Then it’s $12.99 for one topping.  Don’t confuse that with the “Any Pizza for $11.00” deal.  It all depends on do you want carry-out or order on line.  While we’re at it, do you drive to work or carry your lunch?  Sheesh.

Since those guys are no help let’s visit a local shop.  I have a coupon from one for a large pizza with one topping, a twelve inch hoagie, an order of breadsticks and a bottle of cola.  Too much for your family of seventeen?  Another shop has one large pizza with one topping for only $10.  If it’s Thursday you can get two toppings on that large pizza for the same $10.  And if you like that you can super-duper size it to five large pizzas with one topping for only $45.  You can use the savings for your co-pay at the cardiologist.

An interesting thing about these specials is that all of the coupons specify no substitutions and to mention the coupon when ordering.  Why?  It’s not like these are secret savings to special card carrying members of the “I Like Your Pizza Parlor” club.  These come every week in every newspaper, hard copy mailings, e-mail blasts, on the Internet, on their Facebook pages, and taped to the top of the box when you actually do order something.  Substitutions?  Who understands the offer to begin with!

Does it really have to be that confusing just to get a pizza?  Tell you what to do the next time you have a pizza craving.  Take four cups of flour, a cup and a half of warm water, two teaspoons salt, one teaspoon sugar, two tablespoons oil, and a pack of active dry yeast.  Mix the yeast in the water, add the sugar, let it go to town for 5 minutes or so.  Add half of the flour and all of the salt to the water.  Get your hands into it and slowly add the remaining flour then knead it for a couple of minutes.  Put it in a bowl coated with oil to let it rise for about an hour.  Shape it, put it on a lightly oiled pan, brush it with oil then top it with however many toppings you want.  Bake it at 400 degrees for 10-15 minutes.  After you finish your pizza, call your local pizza shop and tell them to stuff it.  And you don’t mean the crust.

Now, that’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

The Great Annual Christmas Catalog Shopping Guide

Michael 2 Comments

Nine shopping days until Christmas.  Go ahead and count if you like, that’s all that’s left.  Nine days.  Remember, don’t count Christmas Eve as a shopping day, there are just too many other things going on then.  Even if you do count it, that’s not a lot of days left and they almost got by without the Official Annual Real Reality Show Blog Christmas Catalog Shopping Guide.  (Yeah, we missed last year but you can find 2012’s here: “And If You Order Now…” (Dec 17, 2012), and 2011’s here: “Buy The Way…” (Dec. 1, 2011).  If fact, you might want to pull them up as quick references.)

As close as it is to the big day, He’s mailbox has been a virtual dearth of Christmas catalogs.  An honest to gosh absence of some of the biggest names – and prices – of the holiday shopping season.  So scarce are they that it will be almost impossible to top the $500 snow shoes from years gone buy, err, by.  (Ok, so they were only $470.  That was two years ago.  With inflation they have to be $500 by now or they really aren’t from a decent designer.)  True, one can always go on line to find the highest in fashion – and prices – but that’s just not the same as good old fashioned catalog shopping in a good old fashioned recliner preferably while drinking a good old fashion.  So to make up for the lack of the high end “Hammacher Schlemmer” type mailings we will make do with this year’s newspaper insert from “Five Below,” that fabulous outlet where no item is priced more than $5.00.

So let’s start with those snow shoes.  You’ll recall from 2012 that our guide was very high on picking up a family set of these offered in eight designer colors for the low, low price of $470 for the complete ensemble.  Probably not appropriate for outdoors use, Five Below does have Stompeez slippers that “come to life when you walk” at their top of the line price of $5.00, but that is for just one pair.  Outfitting the entire family will set you back a whopping $20.  But, it is Christmas.

A featured item in the 2011 guide was the double barrel marshmallow cannon with dishwasher safe magazines at a very reasonable $39.95.  The current Five Below insert really doesn’t have an equivalent item but it does include a goblet that will hold an entire bottle of wine.  Excess is after all, excess.  And it can be yours for the less than excessive price of again $5.00.

Nothing will ever compare with the $60,000 Optimal Resonance Audiophile Four-Way Three-Dimensional Soundstage Quality Speakers (each requiring its own amplifier, not included) from the 2011 guide.  Imagine where that is priced out today after three years of inflation and obligatory price increases.   We suggested then that if you can afford $60,000 speakers you are encouraged to make a quite generous donation to your local symphony, opera company, musical theater, or other organization requiring pricey speakers and pocket the extra $50,000.  Otherwise, Five Below has you covered here also.  Earbuds, headphones, sound capsules, and even plain old speakers are shown throughout their flyer for your choice at only $5.00 each.  Buddy, can you spare $59,995?

There you go, nine days and one catalog to fill out your “nice list” for this year.  It could be that some of you actually got the high end catalog is your mail boxes this year.  If so, don’t pass it around.  Just keep it to yourself.  It would be a shame if someone got snow shoes again this year.

Now that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you.

 

Let’s Go Clubbing!

Michael 1 Comment

The holidays are coming.  Some of the retailer advertisements would have had you believe that the holidays came a couple of months ago but with Thanksgiving rolling in next week and Christmas just another month after that, we feel pretty confident saying they are looming.  Soon all our free time will be taken up with cooking, baking, and decorating.  If you’re looking for that last piece of regularly scheduled insanity, this week might be your last chance.  And what better way to close out the insanity than with a weekend at the clubs!

No, not those clubs.  The shopping clubs!  Regardless of the level club you patronize it’s only going to get more frantic from now through Christmas.

To start, there are the classic shopping clubs.  To these you pay a fee for the privilege of being notified of special deals on special days for special people willing to wait especially for that special sale.  Usually only on-line, shopping clubs are clubs in the truest sense.  You have to be invited, you have to pay your dues, and you don’t get to order off the menu.  Gilt Group and Beyond the Rack are two popular shopping clubs.  Some clubs require a membership but without a membership fee.  These are the public pubs of the shopping clubs, usually divisions of other retailers and include Haute Look and Rue La La.

At the other end of the spectrum are the corner bar versions of our clubs.  These are the remainder stores.  Big Lots, Ollie’s, and Tuesday Morning are filled with bargains that nobody else needs, wants, or could sell.  Everybody is welcome and the discounts can be deep.  But be cautious while clubbing at the neighborhood tavern.  Not all of the deals are deals and not all of the merchandise is of the expected deep discount.

The most common of the clubs that will see high level holiday shopping sprees are the warehouse clubs.  Costco, Sam’s and BJs may be the only remaining warehouse clubs in the United States.  Here you pay a fee and buy in large quantities.  So large are the quantities that stand-up comedians have fed on the warehouse clubs since the Price brothers turned an airplane hangar into the first Price Club in 1976.  (If you’re wondering, Price Club eventually merged with Costco.)  You may not need a pallet load of toilet paper but if you want one, the warehouse clubs will sell you one.  Or more.

Yep, it will probably be the warehouse clubs that will be filled this week and weekend as zillions of Christmas lights, mountains of frozen appetizers, plentiful place-settings, hundreds of miles of garland, oodles of electronics, and the occasional occasional chair will be trucked out to pickups and vans and the shopping season opens with a round of clubbing more feverish than Saturday night at a mid-seventies disco.

And they even come with their own cover charge.

Now that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you.

 

Second Class, All The Way

Michael 1 Comment

It was during the first week of November this year.  That’s when He’s mailbox saw its first Christmas card.  Just like other years it was from a fund-raising organization.  And just like other years it was indeed a real Christmas card.  Unlike other years it came seven weeks before Christmas – impressively early even by fundraiser standards.

We like Christmas cards here.  They’ve been bought and counted and soon will be signed.  Most will get a hand written note scrawled inside it.  They will be addressed and stamped and put out for the mailperson.  Not as many as in years past but all to the best of recipients.  The most deserving.  The crème de la crème. But none of that just yet.  Not until sometime after Thanksgiving, probably a couple of weeks into December.  Even at Christmas mail only takes a couple or three days to get just about anywhere.  That’s real First Class service.

And that reminds us…back in the day when our parents were sending out Christmas cards there was Second Class mail in the US.  What ever happened to it?   Way back then one could send a card or letter by second class mail.  It seemed the only requirement was that the correspondence could not be sealed.  In exchange for the risk of just about anybody reading your mail (not unlike a postcard), postage was a penny less than First Class mail.  That was when First Class mail was something like six cents.  Today’s USPS rate sheet doesn’t even include the words Second Class but there is something called First Class for Businesses that’s cheaper than retail (read “real people”) Frist Class at 38 cents versus 49 cents.  Hmmm.  We wonder.

Somewhere along the way the post office lost its way a bit.  They’ve lost their share of mail also but that’s not the point here.  It seems to us that whether its 49 cents or 38 cents or $5.75 (that’s for Priority Mail), it’s still a deal to get a letter to any address in the country.  The other guys charge at least $13.50 for two day service and they lose packages also.  Back to the post office, it has lost its way a bit.  Between some late deliveries and salary issues, and whether to deliver or not deliver on Saturday and the general ineptitude that comes from any government agency (they say they aren’t but they really are), some people are losing faith in the service.  But every year around this time more people are planning on counting on the USPS to send their Christmas greetings to the masses.  Not by e-mail, not by text, and certainly not at $13.50 a piece.  Nope, those cards and letters are going by the old stand-by, the post office.

Most of them will go out sometime after Thanksgiving, probably a couple of weeks into December.  With their flaps seals shut.  First Class.  All the way.

Now that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you.

 

Up Next: Stoopid Tuesday

Michael Leave a comment

Only 52 shopping days until Christmas.  We could have sworn Black Friday was just a couple weeks ago.  Oh wait.  It was.  Seems around here stores have been advertising “Black Friday Prices” for their weekend sales for the past month or so.  Weekend sales, actually one day sales (with an extra preview day and sometimes an extra wrap-up day) are sweeping the country.  Everything is cheaper on Saturday.  It makes one wonder what those poor schmucks who work the weekend have to pay when they go shopping on Tuesday.

Tuesday has to be the pits, shopping wise.  We know about the weekend sales (actually one day sales on Saturday with an extra preview day on Friday and sometimes an extra wrap-up day on Sunday).  We know that on Monday there will be unadvertised specials to get rid of the “special purchases” brought in just for the more unsuccessful weekend sales.  Thursday is the day the buyers set out the stuff that will be on sale on the upcoming weekend sales and there will always be new discounts for the shopper willing to use his or her store credit card to reap those extra savings on this extra savings day.  Wednesday is the day that the grocery stores end their weekly specials so everybody is there picking up the items they said they would go back and get before the sale ended.  That leaves Tuesday as the only day that a retail store actually sells stuff at the full retail price.  Assuming that somebody actually goes shopping on Tuesday – Stoopid Tuesday.

But things will be a little bit better now that there are only 52 shopping days until Christmas.  Just in yesterday’s paper there were advertising supplements for trees, ornaments, lights, toys, and camping gear with their advertised prices good all week long.  But the ads for clothes, shoes, scarves, hats, gloves, outerwear, and underwear were noticeably missing having come out on Thursday for their usual weekend sales (actually one day sales on Saturday with an extra preview day Friday).  You can get a great deal on a crossbow this Tuesday but forget about finding any deals on a new winter coat until later in the week.

We hope you don’t have to work weekends so you too can take full advantage of the amazing “Black Friday Prices” at this week’s weekend sales (you know, the one day sales on Saturday with an extra preview day Friday) without the annoying wait for Black Friday.  But if you have to work this weekend remember, there are only 8 Stoopid Tuesday shopping days until Christmas.  That leaves you with 44 other days for the good stuff.  You’ll be fine.

Now that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you.