The Psychology of Sales & Discounts

Published May 14, 2024, 7:00 AM

Will it surprise you when you find out that the 10% off deal you got when you purchased your new containers is the actual price? In this episode, Jen and Jill give FREE hot takes on marketing ploys such as how discounts and price sales are made to trick you into buying, costing you more!

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Episode four oh six, the Psychology of sales and discounts.

Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and live a your life. Here your hosts Jen and Jill.

Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my name is Jill, and today we are talking about how sales cost you more. M Hot take what Jen? Hot take?

No, the yellow and red stickers and the clear insections always mean I'm smart, yeah, I'm saving.

Yes, we do love a good sale, but we also have to understand that sales are not for us. They are a marketing move. And so we're going to go through article from like a marketer's perspective written to other marketers so that you can understand what's going on behind the scenes of these sales, so that you can take advantage of them without getting taken advantage of.

We love those behind the scenes marketers, like we love to be the fly on the wall, like the little creeps, like what are you guys talking about? How can we use it to our benefit not be bamboozled. We also sent you all a pole because well, we're sending you the friend letter so that you all don't get bamboozled in other ways. And then we ask you questions that you can answer and interact with us, and we ask what do you do when something is a good deal, And most of you, by a landslide, said, ask myself if it's something I really need. Others were buy it immediately others or do a quick search you see if you can find a better price elsewhere, or just walk away. There's always going to be good deals. So some of you are perfect.

No, I mean, this is the general consensus. Nobody's gonna buy something that's on sale that they will absolutely never use. But it's the things that are on the edge right that it's like, oh I could use that, or I have been thinking about that, And those are the really those are the things that we want you to think about when we go through these sales psychology techniques. So the next time that you're presented with something that's kind of on the edge, you you can rethink and again, not be perfect all the time, but if you can reduce the number of impulse buys that you make by like fifty percent, that's a really great start.

So that's what you all said, We're gonna talk about what the Internet has to say. But first, this episode is brought to you by your favorite things. Whether your favorite things include a beautiful day with no plans, nice weather outside, or a butterfried hot dog followed by a stick of gum. We all have a little list of what brings us joy, and if you're looking for more things to add to that list, get the friend Letter. We are sending you emails every week Monday, Wednesday, Friday. They're full of freebies and deals, deep dives on how to buy quality over quantity, budget tool kits, just all the stuff so you don't get bamboozled, and you also know if something's a good deal. Frugalfriendspodcast dot com slash Nope, just frugalfriendspiost dot com. Just go.

We go to Frugal friendspodcast dot com slash friend letter, but you can get it anywhere on Frugal Friends.

Podcast dot com. It's what we're pushing.

And if anybody's worried about Jill's health with all of the butter and the hot dogs, know that she does drink us like a green smoothie every morning, So I think that counteracts and I think she's gonna be fine.

I think I like talking about hot dogs far more than I eat them. Well, okay, the last time I had a hot dog was a week and a half ago.

You're slipping, You're slipping.

I know.

I get back on the hot dog, all right. So if you are very interested in sales, we have a lot. We love sales, so we have episodes on how to take advantage of sales, like episode three ninety one Best Seasonal Grocery Sales.

Uh.

And then we also have episodes about impulse buying so you can understand what's happening, like episode three seventy eight, The Psychological Reasons Why we impulse buy. That's one of my favorite episodes, honestly, so que those up to listen after. So today we are just focusing on sales and discounts and we have a one really great article and it's again written for marketers, so that's that is the audience they're writing to, and we're going to look at it as consumers to say what should we take away from the way these people are doing things? And it is from Namou Namogu Nago. Yeah, I don't know. It's called the se Ecology of Discounts. Eight research backed strategies for twenty twenty two, but they're still used in twenty twenty four.

Yeah, So they start off by talking about some research that was done on specifically discounts. So we've done deep dives before on marketing strategies, and discounts are a marketing strategy, but now we're kind of looking at specifically discounts and not kind of all of the different ways that marketers use to get us to spend. That there is specific things that draw us to wanting to spend when there's a discount present, sometimes more than just spending on something that we want to buy. So they reference this study where researchers uncovered specific psychological motivators that drew shoppers to certain types of promotions to encourage them to buy. Because when consumers find a good offer, it actually changes the way they think and feel about it. Anecdotally, I can say that that's true, like I definitely get excited in the clearance section more so than just the store itself. But then they go on to say that after participants in one study scored a major discount, it led to feelings of excitement, pleasure, happiness, other positive outcomes. And then another study confirmed these findings and determined that people who received a discount actually increase their levels of that feel good hormone oxytocin, and the spike in those positive feelings was higher post discount than when they just received an outright gift, which is wild to me. So we sometimes can feel even more excited, elated, happy over scoring a deal that we've spent at least some money on than if someone were to give us a gift. And they also said that when those participants snagged the right coupon, they experience less stress, their heart rates, perspiration, and respiration all decrease, while feeling on average eleven percent happier. Now, one could take this study and say, well, the discounts aren't good for my health, like I should impulse buy sales are good for sales items because I'm going to be eleven percent happier and my heart rate is going to reduce. But I think that the better thing to take from this is to know that these marketers know this and it's why they're advertising a sale. And spoiler alert, we're going to be talking about how chances are it's not actually a sale. They're like fabricating sales so that you are drawn to this so that you can experience these things.

Yeah, I think it's really telling. Like so, on the topic of their fabricated sales in our book, we were writing about this and I found this was so interesting. From Checkbooked or from consumers Checkbook, they did a study where they spent thirty three weeks tracking sales prices at twenty four major retailers. And we mentioned this study in our warehouse Debate episode and whether a warehouse club really saves you money? But it tracks these twenty four major retailers, and we're talking Walmart, Target, Amazon, and they wanted to know if the store's discount claims were really discounts or just attempts to mislead. And what they found is that usually it's misleading. So for we got two, four, six, eight nine of those retailers, all of them all the weeks except for one or two or every single week, the products that they looked at never went off sale, So the whole time those products were on sale. And so in this misleading category, we've got Amazon, Gap, Banana, Republic, Old Navy, Wayfair, Footlocker, Nordstrom, Williams Sonoma, and then the ones we got three six, nine twelve on the often misleading, which means like maybe half the time these products and they tracked the same products over time, over these weeks were on sale and so on. Here we got best Buy, Cole's Office, Teaboat, Home Depot, Macy's, JC Penny. J C Penny has a great story.

About j C. Penny's story. Oh my gosh.

Yeah. So back in the I think early two thousands or twenty tens, j C Penny did away with sales like it was the backbone of their marketing strategy. And the CEO came in from Apple, of course, and he was like, we're doing away with sales. We're just going to do one fair every day, low price, like, no more gimmicks, let's just be straight with the people.

And they hated it, like people hated it.

This CEO was fired less than a year and a half later because because sales just tanked, people wanted sales because getting a deal makes you feel smarter, just like what Jill was saying. It makes you feel like you are out smarting like capitalism, and so we love getting a sale. Oh, anytime we go out in public, like and we speak like, as you know, frugal friends people come up to us after and they're like, Oh, I got this shirt for like three dollars, or I thrifted this outfit, or they want to tell us about the deal they just got because it makes them feel smarter and they think it's like crazy, and yeah, it's just crazy. And so to know that for the vast majority of retailers and products, the sales are fabricated.

Yeah, that doesn't mean that it can't be a good deal. I think in my mind, I'm kind of arguing with myself, going, well, sometimes there are good deals on Amazon, or I've have gotten clothing in the Long Distant Pass from Coals and I was like, yeah, I really did get that shirt for three dollars. That is less than what you can get a shirt for. But I think the key in that is those deals are always happening. You can always get a three dollars shirt from Coals. And then that brings up a whole other issue of consumption and labor exploitation and you name it. That's not what we're talking about today. But it's not as if there aren't deals to be had or good prices that you're willing to spend on the things that you want, but being able to see through some of this to know is it actually a good deal or not.

And the reason we brought this up in our Warehouse Club episode is because Costco was the only retailer that ran legitimate sales.

Oh everybody.

Apple was the only one other one in the green, but it's because they ran no sales.

Well, then you know, if you're if you're a student getting a discount on that MacBook, that's the only time you're ever going to get that discount.

Yeah, and Target was like fifty percent of the time it was in the yellow. But so all that to say is that we shouldn't feel as smart as we do when we take advantage of a sale. You're smart when you figure out what you value, spend on that and say no to what you don't. That should be the true indicator. Well, that's not the true indicator of intelligence, but that's what should make you feel good when it comes to spend, when it comes to your spending. And so they have some statistics in this article about the discounts, saying that nearly seventy percent of millennials look for a deal before making a purchase. That's me guilty, sure, two thirds of people say they'd make a purchase if they had a cupon, regardless of whether they initially planned to buy something. So this is where we this is where sales get dangerous and discounts. Eighty percent admit they'd try a new brand if it offered them a discount, and forty eight percent of people will steer clear of brands that don't offer deals.

Jacpenny, Wow, Yeah, they really tanked after that.

Yeah, that was debacle. That was a some I read on Reddit. A employee of jcpenny at the time referred to the customers like drug addicts that like could not get their drug. It was so extreme.

So, as you can see, as a result of these statistics, companies will then use discounts in whatever way, shape or form they want to in order to get you to buy because they know these things about us. So now we want to talk about the specific marketing techniques that will be used around sales.

Yeah, so there's there's eight in this article, but we're going to cover the five that we think you see you will see most often and why. So the first one is the rule of one hundred, also know as the dollar off versus percent discount. So what does science say about the rule of one hundred. A marketing professor and author of Contagious Why Things Catch On, Jonah Berger theorized and tested how people perceive a percentage discount versus a dollar off discount, and that's how he developed the rule of one hundred. And according to his research, a percentage discount is more appealing to consumers four items under one hundred dollars, so ten percent off a fifty dollars sweater sounds better than giving them five dollars off because the number ten is bigger than the number five, even the oh ten percent of fifty is five. The dollar off discount works better for items price over one hundred, So on one thousand dollars computer, people were more likely to buy when they received two hundred dollars off versus a twenty dollars or twenty percent discount, even though two hundred is twenty percent of one thousand, but two hundred is bigger than twenty. So when you're looking at discounts, this is just like a fun thing you can do. Whether you see the dollar amount or the percentage, figure out which number is bigger, because the number advertised will intentionally be the bigger number when you're talking percent or a dollar, and so you'll see this. Obviously most of us are looking at items under one hundred dollars, so we'll see more percentages off in our sales than what we will see money. So price and what is displayed is definitely intentional when you're looking at sales.

The second one on here that I'll highlight is understanding and protecting perceived value. So when companies are looking to sell a product, if they can understand our perceived value the consumers, and this is adjacent to a cognitive bias where we can see something and have a certain idea of what that item should be worth. And so they were describing how with certain products people want a deal on them, Like blue gens, people are going to be more apt to buy the genes that have the highest discount. However, when it comes to luxury items, the opposite is true. That one study found that when luxury items are discounted, consumers will see them as inferior, maybe being out of season or less popular, making them less desirable, which is probably the reason Apple never puts their products on This exactly was to protect their perceived value of the item. My takeaway from this as as a spender, as a consumer is don't worry about my perceived value, like get the MacBook pre owned, Like buy whatever luxury item that I want at a consignment store. Like if I have a value for the thing, and I believe the thing is quality and will serve its purpose, then there are ways that I can still get a deal and get around that, around the fact that some items never will go on sale.

Yeah, this is why in the friend letter we try to every couple of weeks we will do a deep dive on the quality of a certain product that is on sale for that month. So in the spring, when some like lawn equipment was on sale, we did a deep dive into lawnmowers so that you know these are the things you should be looking for in equality. Lawnmower. Yes, the very expensive ones are going to have all of these things, but you can find less expensive ones that have most or all of these things and maybe not the brand name. But you also don't want to buy a cheap lawnmower that compromises on all these important factors just for price. And so when we say choose quality over affordable quality over cheap quantity, that's what we're talking about we're looking for true value. So when you make a purchase, I mean social media really does like promote this idea of brand value. But like I think what started this series in the front letter was that I saw all of these social media videos about how these ceramic pans that were huge on social media. I don't know what the brand name was, but they were just absolute crap, like utter crap. In two years, they were basically unusable. And like, we've both had our stainless steel pans, different brands, not all clad, which is like the higher highest echelon of pans. I mean, we've had each of them for ten years. So that's what really inspired us, Like how can we get quality at an affordable price without you know, sacrificing anything, but not paying for the perceived brand value. So that's another thing. Just because a brand is all over social media doesn't mean it is actual actually valuable. So the next one is the play on scarcity versus urgency mindset. So this is another This is playing on another cognitive bias, loss aversion. So people and this is like a famous study where they did is it more painful to lose ten dollars than to miss out on an opportunity to gain ten dollars, and by and large, it was more painful to people to lose ten dollars, and that's because of loss of version. And that is a way that sales play. They don't want you to feel like you've like if you've missed something, if you have the opportunity to miss something. So flash sales create a sense of urgency buyers. No deals will only be available for a limited time, so they need to take action and impulse buy or this is what we see even more than flash sales now, low stock, limited inventory, This creates scarcity mindset. And this isn't just a sales tactic anymore. This has become a brand strategy. So if you've ever heard of Supreme, the clothing brand, it is their entire sales strategy before they got bought out, like they would release only a limited number of each piece and you had to get it like and it was gone like in minutes. So this is not just a sale strategy anymore. It's an entire brand strategy, which I don't necessarily hate, like it's definitely better for sustainability, but it is a marketing tactic. So I think knowing that sales come every at least every year, but typically multiple times a year. When we are looking at our consumer reports, our account with all of the things that are on sale every year, and we click on something, it is very rare that we click on an item and it is only on sale once a year. It's usually on sale several times a year. The sales always come back, So you can always plan in advance. If there's something you want and nothing that you really need, is is gonna never be available again? If you truly need it, it'll be available when you can afford it, and unless that is, unless that is like time, time is truly our only resource that is non renewable, and then some natural resources, but those can typically be traded out for something else. So realize that your time is your only non renewable resource. It takes time to work to pay for these things that you are buying on sale, So what's the true trade off? And so if there if there is something that you truly value that is on a flash sail. I heard this on the radio. This DJ wanted to buy the Star Wars lightsaber because he loves Star Wars. It is something he truly values and he obviously hadn't saved for it. He was like, should I buy it? Should I buy it? And I was like, I don't know, but I thought about it for a long time. And so here is my real world solution to flash sales of things that you actually do value. First, you can prepare for them if you if you're thinking about this now, you can have a sinking fund for a value. So if Disney is something you value, and Star Wars falls in that, this guy was an annual passholder at Disney, so you can have a sinking fund for Disney that can include any food that you buy at the parks, or merch you want to buy, or memorabilia. That way, when something like this comes up, you can say, I would like to use my money on this. The next time I go to the park, I will just bring all my own food. I won't buy any food, so you'll make you can make that direct trade off. If it is something that you have not saved for. Then hopefully you have a spending place and you can think, Okay, what are things that are in my spending plan that I can give up this month reincorporate next month, but I can give up this month In order to take advantage of this flash sell. So whether it's a couple date nights, or a couple lunches at work, or a combination of something, you can still take advantage of sales. But no, there's always a trade off. If it's not time, then it can be the consumption of other goods. But just know there's always a trade off.

Yeah, and if it's not worth those trade offs, then there's your answer, you don't want it. Yeah, all right. The final one that I'm going to highlight is the power of free and how the use of that word will often get people to buy. They did a bunch of different studies. One example was that consumers viewed getting fifty percent more of something as better than saving thirty three percent, even though the deal itself actually worked out the same mathematically. They wanted to feel like they were getting more for nothing rather than saving money. So this is us, they're talking about us, And so they are recommending to marketers to add the word free in wherever they can consider offering a free welcome, gift, free shipping, free returns, free samples. Just the fact of seeing the word free can be what draws people to buy from that brand, especially if it's their first time. If we remember back to those statistics, I think it was something like eighty percent of people so that they were likely to buy from a new brand if the new brand offered discounts and especially freebies. So again, be aware of this and calculate, well, what is the actual cost because you still are paying for something like free am and Bogo. Is still you buying free shipping? Is still you buying a free welcome gift? Is still you buying? So again, none of our values based spending principles go out the window when it comes to this. Know that if they are saying free something, it's a tactic.

Yeah, And we still again love free Every Monday in the front letter we tell you where to get free food and we try to make it one hundred percent free, like no obligation free. But those become fewer and far between. So sometimes it is and it's up to you to discern whether it's worth it for you to take advantage of that freebie marketing campaign. And again on the topic of the numbers, like seeing the numbers, the bigger numbers are what we like. I remember hearing a story about I think it was Burger King tried to sell one third pound burgers and they did so much worse than the quarter pound burger because even though one third is bigger than one fourth, people would buy the quarter because the four is bigger than the three. No.

Yeah, no, it's like back to grade school when people are like, the dime is smaller than the nickel. So oh.

Another like part of psychology is heuristics, like these mental shortcuts our brains take. Yeah, we see a bigger number and that's the one we go with. So it's almost like anchoring, like the that cognitive bias. The first number were presented with is the one we take, and quarter pounders were around first, and the four is bigger than the three, So like, we're not dumb people, right, our brain is using these shortcuts to save us energy. They're just shortcuts. The biases are shortcuts, but we have to question everything we think because shortcuts aren't always the best. Like in every episode of I Think Bluey when the dad tries to take a short cut, I think that was the show and just ends up in the jungle. Maybe it's another kid's show, But like, shortcuts are not always the way to go. Nope, So the last one I'll talk about on here is don't ask customers to do math. So that kind of like goes perfectly into.

This, because we don't know if one quarner is bigger or smaller than mord No.

But yeah, so they're just saying, don't ask customers to do hard math, because again, mental shortcuts are what we default to. So they're saying, if you decide to discount a fifteen dollars item down to ten, people get that that's five. But if you price an item at fourteen ninety nine down to nineteen ninety six, they may not as quickly realize they're getting five dollars off, and in this case more than five dollars. So you will see a lot of like easy math when it comes to discounts. And this is why is these mental shortcuts that our brain takes. Marketers and advertisers want to cater to those as much as possible.

Yeah, So armed with some of this knowledge about the psychology of discounts, you can be more aware of whether or not you're being bamboozled. Is it actually a deal? Does it actually fit within my values? Do I want this thing? And I think there are some ways that we can check that is it a deal? Boom our new game show?

Is it a deal?

So while there are some ways that you can check that, I think we can run through a couple of things, it's not a deal if you don't need it, So you're just going to be spending money on something you don't need and therefore not a deal. So that's definitely something to be asking yourself. Do I actually need that? It's going to solve a problem for me? Is it something that I've been wanting?

Do I have something else that could do the same thing? And usually the answer is yes.

Oh. My grandfather would always get deals from CVS and they were always just junk plastic junk tons of candy that expired. Nobody ended up eating it. I mean even at like eleven it was like pop pops. This isn't a deal, like because no one's going to eat this, this is gross candy. No one likes taffy. It's not a deal if you don't have a current use for it. If it's one of those things of but I might someday and will I ever be able to come across this price? Yeah? Probably, And you don't need to be storing that thing either, because then it just becomes clutter. So if you don't have an actual use for it right now, not a deal.

Same with procrassus spending. If you see a sale on something like and I always go back to, like running shoes, if you're not already in a habit of running, buying shoes is not going to put you into a habit of running.

Yeah, it's also not a deal if it's not in your spending plan, if you don't have a plan for it, or said another way, if you can't afford it, if the.

Money not there, it's not a deal and no deal.

It's not a deal. It is a good game show.

Actually is it a no deal?

It's not a deal if the deals are happening year round, no deal.

No deal.

If it's always two ninety nine, no deal. I mean Walmart does this right? They're yellow stickers like they're yellow stickers. I think a long long time ago did mean a markdown price, and now it's just yellow stickers everywhere. The rollback remember the rollback guy? Do they still do that? It's all the un rolled back always not time love the black.

Friday like things where they will put up a deal a black friend sign, like it's on sale, and somebody will take the sign away and behind it. Same price, same price, no deal, no no deal. In a way if you're online that you can check if something is a deal. You can use Chrome extensions like c net or camel. Camel Camel is a website for Amazon. Use those, track the price for the last six months and see if what you're getting is actually a deal.

Do you know what is a deal? Because it's truly free, free for everybody.

It's a big deal.

It's the bill of the week, that's right. It's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you've paid off your mortgage, maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. Duck bill, butffalo bills, Bill Clinton, This is the bill of the week.

Hey, Gin and Jill, this is Amber from East SIMC. My favorite bill of the week is actually my son broke his Xbox controller and it was going through so many batteries. Two batteries at least one to two times a week is driving me crazy. Batteries are pretty expensive, and he bought his own new Xbox controller and has a cord, so it doesn't even take batteries, and I am extremely happy not to have to worry about buying stupid batteries every other week. That's what I got for you guys. Thanks Gen and Jill.

H Amber. I feel you with batteries. But then now every toy my sons have have a cord, and it's like, if we did use every cord, it would be like eighteen cords lined up charging RC cars and roller.

E the power strokeer just one big power stroke.

Oh my gosh, it's insane.

You're still paying for it, but you're not needing to run out.

You're not paying much for it. You're just paying for it like in it, like with space, you're paying with space. Yeah, but he can keep it in his room and deal with that space.

I'm so glad for you, Amber, especially because it did not skip past me when you said he bought his own new controller. And that's a good day. When your own kids are buying their own stuff, that's a deal.

That is a deal.

That's a good deal.

Save one hundred percent of the things you don't buy for your kids. Yes, parenting parenting hack.

If you all want to submit your bill of the week. If it is about not needing to buy any more, bringing batteries anymore, or your kids are buying their own stuff, or you actually found a deal, or you knew something was not a deal. Skuy's a limit for Girlfriends podcast dot com, slash Bill, leave us your bill, and now it's time for the Library Round. I just listened to a comedy special last night and they said that they've never heard females do sound effects, that like little boys and dudes are always the ones doing sound effects. And I was like, false, Wow, false, because Neil Bannan, I.

Don't even know who that is.

Get out of Get him out of here, Neil Brennan, Yeah, we're doing sound effects.

Pew. All right, for today's vulnerability Round. What is the last good deal you passed up because she didn't need it? Go for it, John, Okay. For me, it was the all d aisle of shame. I actually did go in there for organizing things. Uh you know, it is my container store and I got these beautiful glass containers and some plastic containers because we just redid our kitchen and finally ready to organize it. And it was great. I saved a lot of money by getting my things at All d when they had them something I waited for and it's not a sale. But like I have price checked again and again and again. And the things in the all de Aisle of Shame, which is actually I caught that. Many people called that, but it's actually all defined. Yeah, it's actually all defines.

Wait till they just rebrand it entirely shame.

Yes, yeah, so I have tested, I have, I have price checked over and over again. And the things not on sale in the Aldi Fines Aisle are cheaper less expensive than anything on sale at any other store. Yeah, And so there you get.

Is it a deal?

It is a deal, but a discounted or on sale. But it is a good deal.

But it's not a deal if you don't need it, right, and a deal, it's not your spending plan.

So in the end of the story, long story short, I went there for things that I bought, but then I saw extra things that I wanted, and then I got to the cash register and I just put them on top of the cooler. I was like, no, no, yeah, don't I don't need it.

WHOA, you had that gut check. How'd you feel after that when you made that decision?

Actually one of the things I put back I wish i'd bought, you're going to go back, But the rest of it, I'm glad I didn't. Okay, I didn't actually need it, and as it was aspirational buy, like, I wanted to buy it because I wanted to do the thing that I would use it for.

But I don't really so cryptic, do you not want us to know what it was? Well, I can't actually remember what it was, okay, And that's a great I mean, that's a thing you wish that you had bought, you know, I knew the thing though.

The thing I wish i'd bought was another like a third set of those beautiful Class Canada canisters. But then there was something else and I can't remember what it was, but I remember putting it down and being like, you know what, I don't have a habit of doing this yet, so I'm not gonna like it is a good, you know, price as compared to if I was going to buy it somewhere else, But I would rather pay more for it somewhere else when I know for a fact I'm going to use it. Yeah, So I'm sorry, I'm not cryptic. I'm just having a bad memory.

No, that's good. I just thought it was like, what what were you going to try and buy it all? De that you can't disclose. My version of a walk of shame is yard sales and I'm wearing that. Yeah, here's the thing they do. Still it's still enjoyable for me. And while I don't do it as often, I don't go to yard sales as often as I used to, I still like going to them when they kind of pop up and I happen to have a free Saturday morning and that just happened for Eric and I this past weekend, and it was a whole neighborhood yard sale, which is especially fun. That is the best. You can just walk around and see what everybody's got. And this one was at Saint Pete Beach, so it was all the homes on the water and it was a beautiful sex a lot of nautical stuff, a lot of nautical home decor. Surprisingly now like a lot of antiques, which well really kind of out of place, like very heavy furniture antique stuff. That's a whole other side pangent. I'm not gonna go there, okay, but this is my thing at yard sales. Is everything is a deal? Yes, everything is about ten to twenty percent of its original value, so it's all a deal. If you're solely looking at the math, it is far less than you'd ever buy it new, but you would have to identify again, is it really is it a deal for me? Is it for me?

Though?

And there was one place that had a whole table of free stuff. Now in my younger years, that would have been open the trunk, babe year it is, but jogging going home, shovel it all in.

That's still Travis's years. It's a good thing he wasn't there because he's still in those years.

Baby baby got back. We'll figure out a use and we'll learn how to value it. So Wow, they had yard torches and that was interesting. I was intrigued. Nope, that would have been cool. I probably would have I probably would have gotten those. Nope. They looked like big old things of incense, but kind of more like candlestick forms. Would be like you shove this big old thing a wax into the yard and then they would be just like this. They honestly looked like flares. They honestly looked like they should be a part of a survival kit for like big Big Island. You're on the Big Island and you're trying to get the plane to come get you. Anyways, like both of us were like, oh, yeah, it's free, like you don't have to think about it that much. But we have found ourselves in this place where we are thinking about even the free stuff, and of course the people are just like, just take it, take it. But we passed up a lot of free stuff because we've realized For me, I think the overarching pieces, do I just feel like storing this? Do I feel like dealing with it? I really like having a simple, no nonsense schedule and maintenance plan. And it just felt like, well, yeah, we have a yard. We hang out in a yard, but we mostly hang out in the screen and porch. So what I'm going to go outside of the screen. I'm going to shove these torches in to keep bugs away, but I'm already protected by the screen, Like, no, I don't need it.

Yeah, more more is not the solution.

Right, even if it's free. It kind of boggles me because it's just like, yeah, why wouldn't you take the free stuff? But I'm realizing that this whole journey of learning what I value actually is helping me to be like I value not a lot of clutter and stuff I'm going to actually use well.

Values based spending transcends the money you spend in it all so permeates your time. So how much time am I going to spend figuring out where these things are going and then maintaining them and eventually getting rid of them? Because everything that goes into your house has an exit plan, It has an exit, So what kind of time do I want to invest in each thing that I buy? And you just you don't need to spend so much time putting stuff into your house, maintaining it, and then taking it out if you don't have it.

It's a shift I never thought i'd make, but here we are. We're keeping the trunk closed.

Close the trunk, baby. Thank you for listening. We hope that this helps you pass up the next sale of something that you don't need, and if it does, please please please leave a rating and review of the show on Apple Podcasts and or Spotify, like this one from Ray nineteen eighty two titled Learning and Laughter It Happens to be five stars. We love those These girls know their stuff and they crack me up. I've been off the frugal bandwagon for a few years now, and they've helped me jump right back in with tips and anecdotes. And the best part is they don't make me feel guilty for my financial errors past or present.

Thank you so much, Kelray, Yeah.

Thank you kel Ray nineteen eighty two.

A really kind review. We love all of our good reviews. Obviously, we read them and we read them back to you. That's how much we love them. So please, please, please do leave a rating and review. It really does help other listeners find us. It helps us. It's a freeway that you can help us. It's a deal.

It's a deal.

It's a good free deal.

It's a deal that won't cost you a lot of time. And if there is something funny you want us to read on the show, then write it in a review and you may hear us embarrass ourselves by reading or reveal you can this. Yeah, this is a way that you can hear something funny of your own doing out of our mouths.

It's for you.

Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni.

Okay, Jen m Deal Adjacent Yeah Deals Deals, and Impulse Purchases do you remember we have talked so much about my biggest impulse purchase on a spiral staircase that Eric got off of Facebook marketplace.

Yeah, longtime listeners will remember the spiral staircase Eric Facebook marketplace.

We had previously had central air and then that pooped out on us two weeks after moving to Florida in August and it was a hot summer until we got many splits. But anyways, that left a concrete pad outside and Eric was like, let's put a spiral staircase on that concrete pad to the roof. Found a spiral staircase on Facebook marketplace. It just kind of popped up and he didn't think I'd say yes. I did say yes, And we've had that spiral staircase here for about four years.

Oh my goodness. Yeah, at least three and a half.

At least three and a half, Yeah, something like that. It was an impulse purchase I was willing to buy. There was nothing on the roof. Guess would come over. We're like, where's the spiral staircase gower? Just like to the roof. That's it.

Why not to roof?

And then we were inspected by our insurance company. They were doing that to a lot of people in Florida. They're trying to drop people. Really, we've had too many storms. And they wanted us to get rid of the spiral staircase or they were going to drop our insurance coverage.

Yeah, they're making everybody do something black or they'll drop them.

They did offer us the option of putting a handrail around the entire perimeter of the roof, but even still they said, then we're still going to drop you, and you got to go with this other insurance company that's one thousand dollars more a year. And I had to realize that the spiral staircase is not worth one thousand dollars a year to me, plus the cost of a handrail. So we sold it. But silver lining we bought it for five hundred dollars, and we sold it for five hundred dollars price.

Praise hands.

Although it is so sad the room that you and I record in Jen We look out the window and we used to see the spiral staircase out that window, and now we just see cobwebs.

Well, you you faced the spiral stair case. I face your beautiful trees and your patio. So now I'm looking at it, but Rip will have to find something else to put on this lab.

And there you go. That's a reason and not impulse buy because eventually, one day the insurance company is going to take it from you.

But it is a great example of how you saw something that you want, and impulse buying is in the enemy. You impulse bought it, but you sacrificed other things in the short term to justify that purchase. So because you valued the spiral staircase, and we all did, we all valued it. Oh yeah, Rip, spiral staircase

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