Martin Lewis

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Martin Lewis, Money Saving Expert.

Why BOGOFs stop me buying tangerines…
Tuesday May 6th, 2008

For the second time recently I’ve not bought tangerines because they were a BOGOF offer. This may seem strange; after all, BOGOF means two for the price of one, so as a Money Saving Expert I should go for that…

Yet the MSF doesn’t eat tangerines, so they’re just for me. I can manage one pack before they go off, but I can’t manage two. Thus I’m left with the following choices…

    A. Get both bags and throw one away. This surely can’t be right, its wasteful and environmentally damaging. Of course I could give one away, but that’s an added hassle, and I’m not sure who’d take them from me anyway.

    B. Get one bag. Yet then, psychologically this feels wrong. I can’t have something on BOGOF but not take the second one. This feels like I’m paying twice as much as I should do for them.

Of course, when loose tangerines are available, that’s the easy solution, even though peel for peel it’s more expensive than the BOGOF. Yet I think the supermarkets, for once, are a little behind on the psychology on this one… doing BOGOFs on short life span foods has some problems; after all if BOGOFs stop me buying, that can’t be right.

Have you ever done this?

Comment and Discuss

PS. If you’re struggling with food prices, take a look at the Cheap Supermarket Shopping guide.

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