Tuesday, November 06, 2007

The Deal of a Lifetime

Michelle is sick, so I spent most of the day home. I like being home.

This afternoon I took the kids to Blockbuster to rent Ratatouille, then to Albertson's for some chicken soup and orange juice (for Michelle). We got to Albertson's at just they right time: they were putting out the discounted Halloween candy bins.*

Now, I'd sworn I wouldn't buy any post-holiday Halloween candy this year, but I couldn't resist the open invitation, or the $1 price tag. What surprised me, though was to see to of the larger 45 ounce bags of M&Ms in the bin (that weren't even overtly "Halloween" candy). I picked up the bags and mused openly to a nearby employee, "These can't possibly be $1." They were the big bags -- the kind that normally retail for $11 at Albertson's.

"Oh yes they are," she shot back proudly and defiantly. So I put the two bags in the cart, believing not for joy, and expecting the cashier to probably correct the apparent error.

She did not, and I ended up walking out of Alberton's with 90 ounces of M&Ms for $2. At 4.5 cents and ounce, that's far and away the least I've ever paid for M&Ms.

Now lets see if I can make them last for more than a day or two.

1 comment:

David said...

Those were some huge bags of M&M's*. Were they the type that include a number of smaller mini-bags?

Also, were they Peanut M&M's (which I would expect) or the more low-brow Plain M&M's?

According to this site, there are about 500 Plain M&M's per pound and 180 Peanut M&M's per pound. At 5 and 5/8 pounds of M&M's, that means you bought either roughly 2812 Plain M&M's (at 14 per penny) or 1012 Peanut M&M's (at 5 per penny).

Either way, you paid roughly $0.36 per pound, which compares very favorably with the $3.42 per pound you would pay here for a 38-pound bulk package of either Plain M&M's or Peanut M&M's (which itself is a decent discount against the $3.91 per pound you said you would pay at Albertson's for an $11 45-ounce bag). Well done!

* Although I began writing M&Ms like you did, I discovered that the official name is, in fact, M&M's! So instead of saying "an M&M," I think we should start saying "a small candy-coated chocolate belonging to M&M." :)