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Comment by tyfon | Hacker News Reader

When my wife comes back from shopping I often jokingly ask her 'how much did you "save" today' and she laughs back.

We're in a quite good position so it doesn't matter as much but it's often easy to get lost in the rebates and forget how much is actually spent.

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I usually don't like language that suggests that consumers are brainwashed by marketing. But, getting people to comprehend that spending money =/= saving money is surprisingly difficult.

Even when they understand money has been spent, it's not spent rationally: money "saved" at the grocery store doesn't actually mean less total money spent, rather the same amount as usual is spent, and more food than usual was able to be purchased.

This is a fine tact if you're going for volume, but it's absolutely not "saving money."

I'm not sure I get what you mean. If I go to the store with a list of the usual items I purchased and some of those items are on sale, I end up spending less money for the exact same items.

> usual items I purchased and some of those items are on sale

Often the "deals" are "buy 3, get one free", where the per unit price might be a bit less than a single unit, but if you only went in for 1, but ended up buy 4, you've paid more than you might have otherwise. Sometimes it's a good deal, and you get more value, sometimes the items expire before you end up using them, etc.

You haven't lived until you are comparing "buy 2 get 3 free" to the other brand with a simple price but a different package size.

Suppose a grocery bill is usually $100 a week, and (for simplicity's sake) let's say it buys 30 food items. In the example I'm referring to, $100 would still be spent, but 35 food items purchased. This could only be considered "saving money" if the extra food allowed you to spend less than $100 on next week's groceries.

Anyhow, sorry for being confusing. It's possible this example isn't all that common in general. I just bump into it all the time.

I'll take an example for my local store.

We have some Belgian waffles that cost 18 NOK a piece. They always have an offer that gives you 2 for 20 NOK.

I never eat more than one of these and they end up spoiling as they don't last very long, and even if it seems that I'm "saving" 16 NOK on the purchase I'm actually spending 2 more than I otherwise would.

The other replies have good examples. At it's simplest if you have $100 and go to the shops and leave with $20 you have not saved any money, you have lost $80. Reducing the amount you lose is not saving that money as money is still being lost. Yes you might lose less money than usual but the article and the point most people are making is that these offers short circuit rationality to make us think we are getting a deal but actually in most cases we are not. You have to be very shrewd to do the home economics correctly. I don't bother and most people don't bother and we are being swindled most of the time.

You aren't losing $80 if you are buying something that is of equal or greater value to you. No matter what, I am going to need toilet paper. If I usually spend $20 to get the toilet paper I need, and it is on sale for $15, I actually have saved money. Sure, I spent $15, but I didn't 'lose' $15. I saved $5. Even in the case of a bogo offer. I spend $22 to get 2 packages instead of 1. I don't have to buy toilet paper next month. So I saved $18 assuming that the time value of the additional $2 does not exceed the $18 savings by next month.

If that additional volume makes your daily spending on food lower, then it's a saving. If it makes you eat more, or throw away more food, then yes, it's not a saving.

That isn’t saving money it’s spending less money as I see it. If you took the surplus amount you would have spent and put that in a long term investment or savings account then I think you could claim a savings. Almost no one does this with day to day spending though so it’s best to view it as spending less. When you spend money you aren’t saving money. You are spending it. You might be spending less in a given situation than you would have if the circumstances were different but it isn’t a savings.

You wouldn't see the following statement as correct usage? "I was going to run to [store x], but I wanted to see the new [store y] instead and it ended up saving me $[amount]."

I'd agree that a "savings" figure on a receipt is bogus though, as it's comparing a price you wouldn't be charged with one you would.

In our everyday speech this is how people talk. So in that sense it is correct usage. I claim it is misleading to think this way. I think our speech has been affected by marketing and it’s caused a change in how we think about money.

Spending money is never a savings. All you can do is spend less than what you were willing to spend. I know our way of speaking isn’t going to change anytime soon but I hope to change the way people think about saving. I hear people who are broke talk about how much they saved in the scenario you presented. But they have no savings at all and it is bad for them to think they saved money when in fact they spent money. Spent money is not a savings.

Also with these "deals" you often also have to ask yourself:

Are you buying it because it is cheap or are you buying it because you need it? Often people buy stuff they don't need because it is on sale "right now."

Exactly..

A good way to get around this is to keep a "wishlist" of things you actually need and then if there is a sale you can get it.

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