Investing in Candy after Halloween
If your like me, you like to indulge with a little candy every once and awhile (if not, candy is also a good tool to use in the workplace, but more on that another time).
Regardless, this next week is the best time of year to buy candy. After Halloween everyone has too much candy. Not only do all your kids have candy, but all the stores still have candy. The stores need to sell their candy, but they have to get rid of it quickly so they can start putting in the holiday merchandise.
The good news for us is the big stores operate in a very logical fashion when they have too much supply, very little demand, and need to make shelf space. They put it on sale, and then even more on sale and then even more on sale to get it off their shelves.
Take Walmart and Target - two of my favorite stores. Immediately after Halloween, all the Halloween candy will go on sale. Probably 50% off clearance, but you shouldn't buy any. This is for suckers.
Around Sunday it will probably be marked around 75% off, but you still shouldn't buy any candy. Finally at some point next week or so, these stores will mark the candy at 90% off!! That’s getting a $2.24 bag of candy for $0.22. This is when you should move in and buy your upcoming year's supply of candy - even candy to give out for next year's Halloween.
After all this is better than just about any stock investment you can make, depending on how self disciplined you are to use the candy when you would otherwise buy candy at full price. You can earn a 10x return on your investment in one year. Even if you buy twice as much candy than you would have otherwise purchased full price throughout the year you will still get a 5x return on your investment plus have twice the candy to enjoy.
Granted we are probably only talking about at most a $10-30 investment so this isn't going to make you a millionaire, but it should help you save a few extra bucks.
Comments (9)
The only bad part about doing that is that candy, like most foods, have a limited shelf life. Especially chocolates. One year is pushing it, and it would probably be better to hand out pencils.
Posted by Stefanie | October 31, 2006 10:48 AM
True - hard candy has a pretty good shelf life. I am a sucker (on occasion) for 100 grand and Take 5 candy bars, etc. These candies tend to last at least a year from my experience.
Posted by 2 million | October 31, 2006 11:33 AM
I think Ponzi schemes are illegal, but MLMs aren't necessarily so. Amway (or Quickstar), Mary Kay, Prepaid Legal come to mind.
Posted by 2 million | October 31, 2006 2:44 PM
"Finally at some point next week or so, these stores will mark the candy at 90% off!! "
By then you will have the scraps. All the good candy will be gone :(
Posted by Anonymous | October 31, 2006 2:45 PM
"Finally at some point next week or so, these stores will mark the candy at 90% off!! "
By then you will have the scraps. All the good candy will be gone :(
Posted by moneymonk | October 31, 2006 2:46 PM
hmm, just what I need - a few big bags of candy sitting in a cabinet for a year!
why not just buy it the week before halloween, but buy it at Costco / BJ's / Sam's instead of at a normal store. Your cost will be within a dollar or two, and you won't have to sit on the candy for 360 days!
Posted by Malcolm | October 31, 2006 3:51 PM
This is the only time of year I buy candy. But that's because I'm not all that big on candy in the first place and spending money on it just doesn't appeal to me.
50% is good enough if you want the good stuff!
Posted by Matt | October 31, 2006 4:01 PM
You can do this after most holidays. I got wrapping paper for the year after last Christmas at 90% off. Not all of it was Christmas paper either. Some of it was just silver or gold, perfect for wrapping wedding gifts or anything like that.
Posted by Lazy Man And Money | November 1, 2006 12:10 AM
It's all about timing. If you time it right, you can make or save money in almost anything. I didn't go the candy route but I'm planning on getting a pretty good ROI using the same concept.
Posted by Money Smart Life | November 13, 2006 1:20 AM