Other Uses for 'Sale Math'

Ladies, have you ever hit a good sale and went a little overboard, and before you know it your at the register and, whoops. Most of the time, when this happened to me my "sale math" was to blame

It's especially bad when a girl friend's with you and you confirm each other's bad math. Sale math really hurts you during the kind of sales where you buy 4 blouses and get 1 pair of trousers free. So you subtract the regular (outrageous) sale price of the pants from all 4 blouses, calculate how cute you'll look in them and how useful they'll be in your wardrobe, decide it's almost worth it, and then the sales lady says, "Oh, and did I tell you, If you buy over $150 dollars worth you'll get and extra 20% off". You get so excited; only thinking of how much your saving but absolutely blind to the costs. So you pick out a nice jacket and.. begin again with the math. When I was single these sales would get me every time, every time. I'm a HUGE sucker for that kind of 'sale'. Since I've been married though, we haven't done much shopping and I've only had to "sale math" my way out of one such experience. Rob totally didn't get my math, he's way too logical. No wonder you mostly see only women's clothing stores offering sales that appeal to our innate 'sale math' tendencies.

I know I'm getting a little itchy to find an apartment because I've began using the same logic with our rent... it's all heading south. Recently, we agreed on the monthly rent we'd both be okay spending. Actually, we tried to go under the 30% rule, both picked figures in our heads and came out with the exact same deal - rent with a major utility (HEAT!) hopefully included.

But recently, I was thinking. Say we get into an apartment and we don't like it! That's a broken lease penalty of a month's rent, a uhaul, time and effort of looking for a new place, etc. What if we take that amount and just add it to the amount we were originally going to spend... Sounds reasonable, right? Or! What if we were planning to stay in a hotel for the first month while we looked for an apartment. Whoa, we can add a lot to the amount we originally agreed on and pick from the plethora of expensive apartments now. Or, how about we price out how much value we place on certain features. For instance, I'd totally be willing to up our monthly rent if it meant we'd have a yard, extra bedroom, or the ability to have a pet.

Fortunately or not, sale math does not work on husbands. After my presentation, "We're going to be patient" was the resulting concensus. You're right, probably is the best decision. Way to go not being swayed by tempting 'sale math', husband.