The Danger of Shopping With My Wife
This week one of the local grocery stores is having another Catalina deal, buy $20 of Proctor & Gamble products get a $10 off your next order coupon. Pretty good deal especially since you only need to spend $20 at “regular” prices and many of the items are on sale. Normally I can just do the shopping myself but since I have no idea what kind of Olay and Covergirl products my wife is going to want, I took her with me.
First we end up parking and using the door furthest from the health and beauty section, this leads to us coming in and walking past the overpriced flowers section. “I want a tulip” she says. “That’s not what we came here for” I respond. Needless to say a tulip ends up being the first thing in the basket. I try to walk quickly to the health and beauty section but notice that she’s stopped and looking at some chocolate bunny’s on the display. Fortunately we have plenty of chocolate at home, so none of them end up in the basket. We finally make it to the Olay section and she looks straight to one of the most expensive items on the shelf: a $25.99 moisturizer. “Is this what you normally get?” I ask. “No last time I got that $11.99 green bottle over there” she responds. After the 20% off sale price and the $10 Catalina, it ends up being $10.79. It’s less than the green bottle so I agree.
We then check out the Covergirl section to see what she likes there. Here the sale is 30% off plus the Catalina so some great deals are possible. I tell her to pick out a combination of things she likes that add up to $20. Eventually she settles on some things she likes. Then it’s off to the checkout, again I try to walk quickly. Again I look back and find her looking at some fancy decorated cupcakes strategically placed on a low table (right at eye level for the kids). These $1.99 each cupcakes intended to catch the eyes of 4 year olds had ensnared my 31 year old wife. I think the look on my face was enough to get her to move on.
So we end up spending $36 on the cosmetics, some cat food, and a tulip, nearly half the monthly grocery bill and have a $10 catalina to save for next time. Was it a good deal? We’ll see if she actually uses all of the cosmetics…
