My wife had given me a fairly short list of items we truly needed: milk, bananas, veggies, apples, etc. But as I was waking through the store I noticed my favorite cereal was buy one get one free, so I grabbed four of them even though I had two already at home.
I also have done this in the past with clothes-I went to the mall or store needing to get a couple dress shirts for work and ended up walking out with dress shirts, a couple ties, some casual shorts, etc. The dress shirts I absolutely needed because I had worn out or gotten irreversible stains on several of my older dress shirts. The other clothes, although I have worn most of them multiple times, were not strictly necessary.
From my experience, whether you are really saving money by buying something on sale completely depends on both the time value of money and whether you actually would have bought whatever was on sale at some point in the future anyway, i.e. whether it is a want or a need. So in the case of me buying my favorite cereal, I had two boxes left when I bought the boxes so I did not need them at that point. However, I saved $8.00 by buying them now versus me paying the regular $4.00 price if they had not been on sale. I go through a box every 7-10 days so I would have gotten little to no return on that $8.00 if I had not bought the cereal.
The clothes I bought probably don't fit the same analysis. Yes I have more clothes as a result of my purchases of those on sale products and I do use them, but the extra $100 or whatever I spent on them might have been better invested, where it could have grown at whatever percent per year you consider the liky growth rate over the near and long term future.
So, at the end of the day, whether you are really saving money probably depends on whether what you are buying on sale is a want versus a need.
Have you had a similar experience where you tend to buy things on sale just because they are on sale? Do you ever wonder if you are really saving saving money by buying things on sale?
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