Who doesn’t love the word “free”?
This week, I decided to buy myself some new jeans. I went to the website of one of my favourite jeans-buying retailers, and discovered to my delight that everything was 50% off. Hooray! Jeans I want at a price I wanted to pay… how could I possibly ask for anything more?
And then another little banner popped up on my screen. I could get free shipping if my purchase was a minimum of $100.
Great googaly-moogaly! All I had to do was spend more than I’d planned in order to have someone else pay to ship my desired items to me? I could do that! I’d be an idiot not to spend more than I’d planned to spend, wouldn’t I? And I don’t like to think of myself as an idiot so the only logical thing to do was to search for a way to spend another $40.
So I set about reviewing other pages on the website. I looked at tops. Then I looked at the outerwear & accessories. My furious hunt through the pages of the website led me find another item I wanted under the sale-tab. (For the record, it’s a long-sleeved stripped sweater than only cost $9.49+tax after the discount code was applied.)
Yet, no matter how hard I looked, there was nothing else that I really and truly wanted to buy so my order did not meet the $100 minimum purchase. I would have to… <shudder>… pay for my own shipping. At the end of the day, my chosen items, the tax and the $10 shipping fee came to $83.46.
Afterwards, I thought about it and realized that the Ad Man had successfully convinced me to spend more money than I’d planned. Remember how I said that I only wanted jeans? What did I wind up buying? Jeans and a sweater… Sure – it was only an extra $9.49+tax, but I’d been willing to spend an extra $40 to save $10.
How is that a smart financial move? I would’ve been out $30 more than I’d planned to spend had I simply bought any-old-thing just to hit the minimum purchase amount to avoid having to pay my own shipping fees.
This kind of behaviour is less than financially prudent, aka: stupid money choices.
Don’t be a Dum-Dum
One of my very dear friends taught me this simple, useful piece of advice: don’t be a dum-dum. This advice is golden! I strive to follow it every day, and I think you should too.
Never spend more than you planned to spend just to get free shipping. I can’t make it any simpler than that. Chances are, you already have too much stuff and you’re one of those people who wishes they had more storage in their home.
Don’t buy more stuff, which is the only reason storage is needed in the first place, just to meet a minimum purchase.
If your planned purchase doesn’t entitle you to free shipping, then the only “downside” is that you get to keep your money.
Explain to me how keeping more of your own money is a bad thing? So you had to pay for shipping? So what? The only important consideration is that you spent what you’d planned to spend to buy what you’d planned to buy. Everything else is irrelevant. Do not let the Ad Man convince you otherwise.
I love free shipping just as much as the next person. However, you know what I love more? Having an extra $16.54 stay in my bank account because I didn’t meet the $100 minimum purchase. That extra $16.54 will go towards something else – groceries, retirement, post-pandemic travel. Who knows? The important thing is that $16.54 stayed in my wallet, instead of flying out the door on some item of clothing that wouldn’t have made me happy.
So my shipping wasn’t free. Big deal. I’ll survive to fight another day.
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Weekly Tip: Sell what you don’t need anymore. There are so many platforms that can be used to sell the things that might fit someone else’s need. You need not keep things that no longer serve a purpose for you. And while you won’t get the price you paid for whatever it is that you no longer need, you’ll get back some of your initial purchase. That’s far better than getting nothing back and having stuff cluttering up your home. Always, always, always be safe when you’re selling stuff online!