$100
I’ve noticed something strange lately. Any time I go to Target, and that’s often, my total damages are always equal to about $100. It doesn’t really matter what I went into the store for that day, I’m guaranteed to walk out with $100 worth of stuff. Is this a conspiracy on the part of Target? Why do they tempt me so?
I went to Target on my lunch hour today. Let’s compare my list of things “to buy” to what was actually bought.
On the “to buy” list:
- A wall mirror for my husband’s closet
- Hand sanitizer
- Coke
- A ball for my daughter
- Q-tips
What was actually purchased:
- A canvas storage bin
- A hand mirror for the bathroom
- Q-tips
- A curling iron
- A new powder brush
- Two pairs of toddler shoes
- A Spongebob ball
- A pair of earrings
- A copy of Vanity Fair (magazine)
My total was around $100. What most shocks me, on analyzing both of these lists, is just how many things were on my original list that I didn’t buy. The wall mirror? I decided buying that on my lunch hour was too much of a hassle. Ditto for the Coke. And as far as the hand sanitizer, I really could have taken that off my list because my husband actually bought several bottles of it this morning on his way back from dropping V off at daycare. So out of the original list, only two items were successfully purchased according to plan: the Q-tips and the ball. If I had bought just those two items, my bill probably would have been $5! So that means I spent nearly $95 on impulse purchases.
The impulse purchases:
-Â Storage bin: well it looked nice. And I’d been thinking about getting one for my car. Plus it gave me something to carry my other stuff in, since as usual I neglected to get a cart or basket on my way into the store.
- Hand mirror: strictly speaking, I didn’t need this. I already have one, but this one is superior because it can stand up on the counter, and also has a magnifying side. Overall I don’t regret the purchase.
- Curling iron: almost not an impulse buy, because I’d been thinking about getting one for a week or two. I even looked at them in CVS the other day. I’ve been growing my hair out and thought I might need one again at some point (I haven’t actually used a curling iron in about 10 years; I’m hoping the technology has improved somewhat!).
- Powder brush: total impulse. I’ll definitely use it, but I could have made do with what I already have for a while longer.
- Toddler shoes: impulse, but V does need these. She’s quickly outgrowing her soft-soled pre-walkers, and since she’s starting to pull herself up against things we thought she needed some real shoes. I bought two sizes bigger than what I got for her the last time we bought shoes, so she’ll grow into them if necessary.
- Earrings: now I’m ashamed. This was the worst kind of impulse – I don’t need them, I wasn’t looking for them, but I walked past and they were pretty. I blame low blood sugar because I hadn’t eaten yet, and therefore was easily distracted by something shiny!
- Vanity Fair: impulse, but for under $4, who cares? Actually I used to subscribe, and my subscription ran out, and I really wanted to read this article about Bruce Willis, and yadda yadda yadda…
Is there a lesson here? Hell I don’t know. Maybe I’m a bit of an impulse shopper, but I’m usually not quite as bad as it seems from this list. Maybe though, I should start limiting my visits to Target!
I swear, comment spam is the new email spam, or something. I may get 50 email spams a day, but luckily Gmail is awesome at catching them and I only ever have to manually flag a few a week. However, comment spam is on the rise at all of my blogs. 
