In a marketing email I got this week, I was told that I “could have an extra $84.84 in my wallet this week”.
Bold, and interesting claim.
First of all, I would rather have $84.90 in my wallet, because I assume the marketer is generous enough not to keep the $0.04 and would give me the extra six cents as a gift of good faith in anticipation of my valuable custom.
But it is how I might come into this extra cash that intrigues me.
What it boils down to is this: I can have an EXTRA $84.84 in my wallet, THIS WEEK, if I go to the supermarket, buy one of everything in this week’s mailer (a total of 54 items) and pay this week’s ‘special prices’ for a total of $513.95. And if I do so starting the week with $598.79 in my wallet in the first place, well, there will be $84.84 left over.
Of course this is ridiculous.
I mean, if I did that I’d end up with 8 bottles of wine, 31 bottles of beer, 3 types of chocolate, a packet of ‘howler’ hot dogs and only 4 rolls of toilet paper.
And two types of sunblock.
The point here is marketers make all kinds of claims and promises to persuade us to buy stuff.
And insurance is no different.
What matters is buying the stuff you need, walking right past the stuff you don’t. You have to stick to your shopping list. The hard part with insurance is knowing what to put on the list.
