What Not to Buy: 10 items with huge markups

[jeffrey]

Who wouldn't want to save both time and money? Often, however, one comes at the expense of the other.

Convenience, for example, comes at a price. You'll pay dearly for the luxury of enjoying a candy bar from the minibar in your hotel room. Make the effort to walk out of the hotel and the price of the candy bar drops significantly. Here's WalletPop's list of the top 10 overpriced products you should avoid if you want to save money...

Do not buy: 10 items with ludicrous markups - Business - Personal finance - msnbc.com

[bjl584]

I was surprised about the frozen vegetables. Most consumable items from the grocery store don't have more than a few pennies worth of markup to them.

In line with the text message thing, I'm sure that any streaming data has a massive markup. How much does it really cost to bring internet, phone, and tv into your house compared to what you pay per month?

[riverwed070707]

I was surprised about the frozen vegetables. Most consumable items from the grocery store don't have more than a few pennies worth of markup to them.

In line with the text message thing, I'm sure that any streaming data has a massive markup. How much does it really cost to bring internet, phone, and tv into your house compared to what you pay per month?

I think it said pre-cut vegetables, not frozen. I do think there is a noticable markup when you buy a veggie tray vs doing the peeling and cutting yourself.

[disneysteve]

The only one of the 10 that we buy is movie popcorn but we do that so rarely it really doesn't matter. I might see 2 movies in a year. And yes, DW will occasionally get a coffee out somewhere but always just a small plain coffee, not some fancy shmancy coffee drink.

I'm amazed that people buy precut fruits and veggies. Really? How lazy can you be? Wegman's has really played into this and recently expanded their precut department. There is an elevated show area where their staff is always cutting the stuff up and packaging it for sale. It is really insane. I was just in the store today and wanted to get some mango for smoothies. I actually looked at the precut stuff - $5.90/lb. Fresh mangoes were 2 for $3. Mangoes are pretty heavy. I'm sure 4 of them would be a lot more than 1 lb. I bought one for $1.50 and went on my way. I'm not too sloth-like to pick up a knife and cut it up myself.

[riverwed070707]

The only time I might be likely to splurge for precut is if I need to bring a dish for something and I've waited too long to make something or cut my own. I prefer to take a fruit platter over a bag of chips any day

[disneysteve]

The only time I might be likely to splurge for precut is if I need to bring a dish for something and I've waited too long to make something or cut my own. I prefer to take a fruit platter over a bag of chips any day

We have occasionally bought a fruit tray for the same reason. It can actually be fairly economical when you consider the total cost of buying each fruit individually. The unit price is a lot higher (cost per pound) but it would be a lot more expensive to buy a whole pineapple, cantaloupe, honeydew, container of strawberries and bag of grapes than to get the fruit tray which is just the quantity that you need and nothing more and nothing goes to waste.