I was in a department store today and it was kind of interesting to see just how vulnerable so many people are when they are presented with something that is being given away for free. The first example was that there was a person announcing in the store that they were giving away this free kitchen knife of some sort and my goodness did that get a herd of people flocking over for this little tiny knife (I’m almost inclined to say they should of gave everyone in the store body armours first). Apparently though, to get the knife you had to listen through this infomercial type of pitch about this deluxe knife kit set and the funny thing is that it looked like a lot of people went ahead and bought it while a lot of others just left without the free knife as it was taking too long.
The main point of interest for myself was seeing these bundled products in the store that displayed how you can get so many of these items for free by simply buying a certain product which is suppose to make it an extremely good bargain. In reality, the main product was extremely over priced compared to other places and the free items could be bought elsewhere for less money. This can be true for other things such as dining at certain restaurants as well when I think about it.
Like a lot of people, in general I have adopted a nothing is truly free mentality when it comes to money and most other things as you are always giving away something for those free items and offers. I personally just use the word “free” as a way to get the point across that there is no immediate up-front cost in terms of your money. As a result, I tend to try and evaluate things more thoroughly to really determine if that free offer is truly worth it. Of course, that’s not to say that all free offers are bad as everything is on a case by case basis. I think the important thing to keep in mind is that knowing how something is free shouldn’t be an automatic confirmation for you to act on something despite how enticing it may be as you need to look at the bigger picture.