posted by baby at
10:20 PM
posted by baby at
9:58 AM
Over at DebtKid, he’s feeling bad about a fairly recent purchase (a Nintendo DS Lite) and giving it away to one lucky reader. But like anyone miserable, he wants company, so he’s asking bloggers to share their dumbest purchases with him. Everyone who shares their story has a chance to win the DS. Honestly, I am not sure what a DS Lite is other than a video game system of some kind (although, if I won it, I am sure both my spouse and my son will be THRILLED) but I was interested in sharing my story so I thought I would.
I am going to choose my dumbest purchase ever not as one big thing, like my first car, or my current “My engine died before 100,000 miles” Saturn (although I probably could make a strong case for either), but more as a mindset I had that led to a long string of purchases.
I am a reformed addict of Bath and Body Works. Their marketing had me hook, line, and sinker. I don’t know how many of you have shopped in their stores, but they use two very tricky marketing ploys to hook you on spending tons of money there, and I completely fell for both of them over and over again - scarcity and special deals.
First, scarcity. Although they have a set of “core” scents that they tend to keep around for a long time, they also have special “seasonal” scents. Every few months, a set of scents comes out that are for a limited time, and you don’t know if they will ever return. The scents aren’t the same set every fall, for example, by the next fall they might have an entirely different line of seasonal scents. So if you like one - you’d better snatch it up right then or you may never see it again. Well, okay, but seriously, do you need to forever have every single scent you have ever thought smelled nice? No, of course not. But I bought lots of rather forgettable scents just because they were only available for a limited time. And I still have half-empty bottles of Pumpkin Pie, Hazelnut, Chocolate, Candy Apple (okay, so I like food scents) and probably a dozen others in my linen closet. They’re all nice (to me) but I could have just selected one I *really* liked and bought that, versus an assortment every season. Blackberry - that’s the one I should have bought two bottles of, instead of one bottle each of 25 different ones over the course of three or four years.
And that brings me to the special deals. Every time you walk into Bath and Body Works, they have some kind of special deal going on. 4 bottles for $25! 6 bottles for $30! Buy one, get one free! There is always something. And I *always* got the deal. Why pay $10 for one bottle when I can get 6 bottles for $30? That’s only $5 a bottle! What a savings!
Except - who needs 6 bottles of lotion? Especially every few months? I don’t. I use lotion every single day, sometimes twice a day, and still, I have tons and tons of Bath and Body Works stuff left over from my buying heyday (which I stopped doing several years ago, I might add). Even selling off a bunch of my unopened and unused bottles on craigslist, I still have more lotion than I probably can conceivably use in a lifetime. I was a huge sucker for their special deals, and I collected a lot of lotion that I didn’t need and honestly, some I didn’t even particularly want. But it was a good deal. Uh huh. It is only a good deal if the purchase is something you would make anyway or need to make anyway, not just because it is cheap. Ah, to be young and foolish again.
So my dumbest purchase was really my mindset about Bath and Body Works. I always walked in expecting to buy, and I always succumbed to their marketing strategies. I was their perfect customer. Until I realized I was seriously broke and quit cold turkey. I’m reformed now, and I know I am reformed because my mother-in-law gave me a $20 gift card this past Christmas to there, and I managed to go in, buy things I could really use, like bubble bath, and only spend $19.55 total. I really evaluated what I could use versus what would just sit on my shelf, sniffed twice and used once, and did not spend any money at all out of pocket.
It would be really easy to fall back into that spending trap again, though. I am a sucker for pretty smells. I used Victoria Secret’s “Passionate Kisses” today as my morning lotion as a symbolic protest against my Bath and Body Works addiction. Not that I was a better Victoria’s Secret shopper… but that is a story for another day. Too bad you can’t resell underwear…
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posted by baby at
12:24 AM
For a very long time, I thought that prepaid cell phone plans were only for people with bad credit. Basically, I believed the “mainstream” cell phone plan hype - that the minutes for a prepaid were horrendously expensive and any self-respecting person with decent credit would get a cell phone plan instead. I focused on the wrong thing - the cost per minute - instead of the actual number that mattered, which was how much I use it.
I admit, I may be the only person on the planet that simply hates talking on a cell phone. When people talk about their cell phone being their only phone and not having a “landline” at home, I cringe. I simply hate talking on my cell phone, and the only reason I have one is in case of an emergency, and for the occasional text. I do like to send and receive texts. I have two small children who I transport here, there, and everywhere, and I need the security of a cell phone in case something happens. My spouse was happy to have his, too, when my car broke down a few miles from our house in sub-zero weather.
So, I don’t use my cell phone very often. I generally would get a low-usage monthly plan, which cost, for two phones, anywhere from $50-60 a month, and call it good. But a few years ago, I started researching cheaper alternatives, and realized that for me, a prepaid phone was really a viable alternative. Once I let go of the “cost per minute” factor and started focusing on the “cost per month”, I realized that I was throwing tons of money away on minutes I wasn’t using. At the time I switched to a prepaid phone, I paid $20 every 60 days, per phone, to keep it active. For 2 phones, that was basically $20 a month vs the $60 I was paying for our family plan. I immediately started saving $40/month, or $480/year. What a difference!
Prices have gone down even further since then, and I currently pay $20 every 90 days per phone, or about $14/month for the two phones combined. I personally use Virgin Mobile, but I also used Tracfone in the past and liked it, but when we moved, our reception suffered so we switched. The other nice thing about prepaid is, since there is no commitment, if you don’t like the reception, you can just try a different one when your minutes and time run out. I have successfully gotten a free phone through a promotion both with Tracfone as well as Virgin Mobile, so my startup costs was just the minutes for the phone. And the money you don’t use in the 90 days carries over to the next 90 days once you add time/money to your phone.
I would recommend checking out a prepaid cell phone to anyone who is an infrequent user like me. For frequent talkers, a monthly plan is probably a better deal, but for people who don;t use their phone too often, like me, the prepaid plan makes perfect sense. I did a little research about what is out there right now, and I found a few companies that do the $20 every 90 days plans:
And T-Mobile has a $10 every 90 days card - which I think means they are really the best deal! But, I couldn’t confirm through the website if you only have to add $10 every 90 days or not. It seems since they have a $10/90 days card, that you would only have to add $10, but I need to check that out more thoroughly. I may be changing my plan soon…
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posted by baby at
12:18 AM
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