How Much Is Too Much?

First and foremost, my girlfriend gave me the idea for this post. She was shopping at Safeway and noticed that Diet Coke fridge 12 packs had a buy two get three free sale. I thought to myself, "Now that is one silly ass 'sale' they are having." How much soda does one person need to buy? I understand if you live with a group of people or your family, but that is just a lot of soda. It took me a while to get the courage to bring my camera into Safeway, but tonight on a quick trip for chili powder, I took my camera along and snapped a few sales that had me think twice about how much I was saving.


The first sale was for coke products, which was at buy two get two free, instead of three free. Cheap bastards. Sales are created so they can create a shortage of what was last week's surplus product. Pepsi has a sale one week, guaren-damn-tee it that Coke will have one the following. I just could never buy that much soda. I am personally trying to kick the nasty addiction, but I couldn't see me picking up four or five cases of soda and putting them on the conveyor belt. Is this the line to get adult diabetes?

So the other few products I took snapshots of were, the Campbell's Soup at Hand sale as well as Bumble Bee Tuna and Contadina Tomato Sauce. And this brings me to the title of my post: How much is too much? Honestly? Do you need to buy 40 cans of tomato soup so that when it is not on sale, you can think you stuck it to the "man." Sales like I said before are ways for companies to reduce the amount the store has in stock, in a way creating artificial shortages. People think they are saving money but their savings is just a way for the store to move the product.

Buy one get one free, two for six dollars, ten for four dollars, it doesn't matter what the sale is, you would be happy with the normal price anyway. A sale is just a reason to buy nicer things and think you are saving money. So the next time ramen noodles go on sale, think to yourself, "How much is too much?"

I would suggest that you take double paper bags the next time you go shopping, but I was informed that most Safeway stores frown or say they have run out of paper bags when you ask for them. So until then, get triple plastic.