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Comment by dazc | Hacker News Reader

A long running promotion in Tesco is 3 bottles of any brand beer for £5.25. I can't imagine anyone ever goes into a store with the intention of buying 3 bottles but if you just buy 2 you're misguided into thinking you'll lose out.

In reality, you're spending more and drinking more than you really want to.

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Having recently moved to the UK, I have noticed some "offers" of this kind in supermarkets where there wasn't actually any advantage over buying the items by themselves. They really must count on people not checking.

> Having recently moved to the UK, I have noticed some "offers" of this kind in supermarkets where there wasn't actually any advantage over buying the items by themselves. They really must count on people not checking.

I've actually seen a couple cases where the bundle "offer" was a worse deal than buying individually (e.g. get one for $1 or a 2-pack for $3). I almost got suckered by it too, because I needed more than one item, so lazy-thinking said a multipack made more sense.

It's not like bottled beer goes off, so unless you were planning to buy 2 bottles and then never buy beer ever again, I don't see the problem.

It requires more self control not to drink the third one when it's sitting in your fridge than when it's sitting in the supermarket

Easy. Don't put it in the fridge until you know you're going to drink it later that day. Or quick-cool it by dunking in ice water for about a hour.

Bottled beer does start to acquire off flavors over time

If you are the type who only drinks one bottle of beer per month, you really need to just walk away from the multi-bottle "deals"

All that ever counts, regardless of "offer" or "saving" is the price per 100ml or kg. Thankfully the pesky EU interfered with the UK yet again and insisted that must always be displayed.

Haven't used Tesco delivery for years, but their "best offers" always brought back the 10p and 7% savings, the real savings were on different tabs or buried in search. There was a search by cheapest, never by price per unit. Funny that.

MySupermarket offers a unit price ordering. Its invaluable.

What really annoys me though is Tesco displays the price per/unit using different units, so you're constantly having to figure it out in your head - one loaf of bread might display the price per 100g, another the price per 1kg etc.

In the US we take it to the next level by mixing in imperial measurements. I don’t know about most people but I’m using my phone for conversations between ounces, pounds, then some SI measurements, etc.

I am mainly using my phone for conversations too.

Aren't all foodstuffs and the like supposed to be labelled in metric in the US, in addition to imperial?

I'd imagine while a pain to deal with non round SI measures it should be reasonably easy to work out price per unit, no?

But if you did want to buy 3, or 6 or even 12 bottles then it is actually a saving. It's about shopping smart.

If you buy 12 there is often a case which is a lot cheaper. I don't drink that much that it makes sense to stockpile; I also have the problem that if I have a fridge full of beer I am going to drink a lot more than I would otherwise.

I may be in a minority, but I prefer to buy a couple of beers just once in a while.

I buy a case at a time, but only put two or three at a time in my fridge ;)

Sometimes, but not often for the particular craft ales that these offers usually apply to.

Ha, I have fallen for that exact trick at Tescos too many times

I fall for this every time I go into Tesco. I think the average beer in this deal is £1.89 so you are shaving off 42p by buying 3 which is around 7% per beer. Sounds alright but only if you wanted all three. I tend to buy the 3 and feel obliged to drink them all that evening when I only wanted 1 or 2.

Plus they're overpriced anyway

Works out ok at my local supermarket on the three bottles of Guinness deal they do.

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