So today is the last shopping day before Christmas. Since here in Canada we have a boxing day sale on the 26th most retailers conduct its online sales today and the in-store ones on the actual date. Funny enough, this can actually make last minute Christmas shopping a good way to save money assuming you are not too concerned about having to give your gifts on time.

Example, I had a family member telling me that he really needed some computer items like a wireless router. I know that he needed a bunch of other stuff too and was able to find a pretty decent deal for all of this:

I did find it interesting that some online stores actually have a queue system now as in previous years the sheer amount of site traffic that one receives is enough to take the whole site down.

There were some pretty laughable sales that I noticed in some places like this one:

What were they thinking? At least I get to relax now from all the shopping and bargain hunting.

Just the other day I was looking to buy some oatmeal and most of the time I just get those boxes that come with small packets in them. The price is usually a little over $3 with the amount you get being a little over 300g of oatmeal. I then noticed the exact same brand except the product was in a larger bag packaging and it contained about 2.25KG of oatmeal. The price for this was about $5.50.

That is a pretty ridiculous difference when you think about it. With that calculation, that’s almost as if you would have to buy the smaller packages 7.5 times or spend about $22.5 to get pretty much the same thing as the other one. I know it is usually cheaper to buy in larger volumes too, but the difference in that is pretty enormous.

I know fruits and vegetables are usually kind of similar in terms of the price difference when it comes to packaged and non packaged ones. For example, I often see these packaged apples where there are literally only four of them and it costs almost $5. They aren’t any bigger than those 59 cent a pound ones either.

The only time I really care about packaging is if for some reason I am trying to determine if the product is genuinely new or in good shape. Example, shopping in a store where they sell used products and me not wanting to get tricked into buying a used item as new. Other than that, it’s usually about getting the best value.