Saving Money

The Best Fireworks Sale is the One You Don’t Know About

This is the week when large tents pop up in parking lots across town.   It’s 4^th of July week, and they’re selling fireworks. Commercials saturate the radio stations trying to coerce people to stop by and pick up a piece of explosive celebration.   Driving to work, I heard one of these commercials. Music pumping in the background, a very excited narrator shouts in a deep voice:

“Buy one, get one free!”

“Buy two, get two free!”

“Buy three, get THREE free!”

At first I was impressed by the sale. The way the guy emphasized the numbers sounded like the more you buy, the better deal you would get. Just as I was thinking of bringing my son to one of the tents after work to take advantage of the sale, I realized two things:

• All of the above statements mean the exactly same thing: It doesn’t matter how it’s phrased, or how big of a number you use. You could say, “Buy 50 and get 50 free!” and it simply means you get one free for each one you buy.
• If they’re able to give one away for each one they sell, the fireworks are horrifically overpriced to begin with.

I remembered my previous experience with buying fireworks and decided to wait. Maybe we’ll stop by the evening of the 3^rd of July, or maybe even the morning of the actual holiday.

If you think buy one get one free is a good sale, you’ll be surprised at what kind of deal you can get by waiting until the last minute.

Aerial fireworks are legal in my state but for some reason there are no permanent stores as I see elsewhere. The tents go up a week in advance, but by evening on the 5^th of July operations are completely shut down and the tents are being loaded into trailers.

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

During the final hours of business the retailers are looking to liquidate as much inventory as they can.

One year I stopped at a tent just before closing on the eve of the holiday. I didn’t even need to negotiate, as the guy working was literally throwing fireworks at me. He followed me around offering to give me several extra items for every piece I decided to buy.   When I finally did check out, he put a few more items into a bag and handed them to my son with a wink.

“Happy 4^th of July, young man,” He said.

If I do decide to buy fireworks this year, I’ll be waiting as long as possible, because “buy three, get three free” just isn’t that great of a deal.

Brought to you courtesy of Brock

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Brock Kernin

Brock is a software engineer by day and personal finance blogger at night. He is a fitness junkie and enjoys grilling and smoking meat. Married with two children,  Brock strives to improve his skills as a husband and father, and is always on the lookout to stretch his family’s budget as far as he can.