"Hey self, Monday sucks, let's go have a $1 double cheeseburger."

Today is the first day of the most expensive month of my life. Last night before I went to bed, I had the tv on after midnight, and *poof*, in just a few short minutes it was suggested that I buy the "Perfect Brownie Maker." For only $19.99 I'll own a cooking device that gives crust to every piece of brownie cut from the pan. It's totally the opposite of what I'd want (crustless brownie). Alas, the infomercial sold me on it. Then two commercials later, Ikea suggested I buy the Sultan mattress for $549. Our current mattress sinks in the middle. So I guess I would consider myself in the market. This one looks comfy. Sold. My wallet already thinning, I went to bed.

This morning I read the comments on my blog. Fuki questioned how I would determine what I would buy and what I wouldn't buy. He informed me that simply driving to my office from my apartment, I'd encounter thousands of ads. My answer... I don't know yet. But I did decide that I should start to establish criteria that would determine what I would purchase and what I wouldn't. Rule #1: The ad should probably have a price. Rule #2: it must be a relevant product that I would consider purchasing. I'm not going to buy tampons just because I see a convincing ad on television. Now, back to my day...

After I ate my homemade lunch of grilled salmon, a co-worker and I drove to the local upscale grocery store, where I am addicted to the $2.50 two-days-away-from-being-ripe mangos. The last one I ate, I declared it the most delicious piece of fruit I've ever had. (This reminds me to inform you of an unspoken rule for this blog: I'm not going to count purchases I was going to make anyway.) So, while at the store, I wondered what "advertisements" I would have to buy. There's a hundred thousand little advertisements at the store, but really only one is a "promotion/forceful advertisement of sorts," and that's the marquee at the front of the store highlighting the sale items. (On a side note, I would also consider taste-test items at Costco in the same category). The handwritten sign at the premium Zupans store read: "Kabobs $4.99/lb... Honey Crisp Apples $2.99/lb... Shrimp Meat $4.99/lb..." I think it was of pure coincidence that all of the advertised items were "per pound" items. I bought all three. But how much? I would say that as I general rule I will purchase one person's worth; one serving worth of Honey Crisp Apples, etc. Spending almost $5 just on fruit, I went back to my office.

Believe it or not, I didn't really tally anything up while working. Even online; I didn't click on every ad that came up (but if you, loyal audience feel that I should, then I will) since my rules are to only buy relevant stuff. The only money spent was $1 on Facebook as part of a donation-matching program for the Boys and Girls Club. Then another $5 went to a pop up that claimed it could "drive more traffic to my website." It was for some trial membership, when next month the price raises from $5 to $70. Facebook and Myspace have recently lead an ad revolution because of their targeted markets. If a small business owner, or Nike or anyone, wanted to advertise only to moms, who are over age 28, who live in California... they could easily do so. In fact, Facebook is under some heat right now because of a controversial privacy update that left many of it's users over exposed. You can't blame them: the more information they know about you, the more you can be advertised to.

Due to the nature of the rest of my day, I wasn't really exposed to any other advertisements. I was on YouTube listening to music and a few live songs from last night's Grammys when an ad popped up for a dance music compilation CD. It read "Download on iTunes for $7.99." Since I own similar CDs, I figured my new rules dictated that I just had to buy this item.

Being one of the last people to arrive at the office today, I was the last person to leave. It was late and I was starving so I thought, "Hey self, Monday sucks, let's go have a $1 double cheeseburger." Burger King had bigger plans for me. I had barely pulled into the drive thru when I saw the first advertisement. It was for one of those gourmet "real meat" burgers. The signed suggested I add bacon for the random price of $1.10. This brought my total to $6.09. I am going to count this purchase, because the gourmet burger is not what I intended to buy. I wanted only one of the $1 double cheeseburgers, but due to the amazing ad efforts (and sign placement) of Burger King, I was upsold five bucks. I ate the burger along with a homemade spinach salad and glass of milk, watched the finale of For the Love of Ray J with Marie, and now I'm going to bed.

Today's total: $595.04

Running month total: $595.04
(p.s. don't get on my ass about the math being exact, I'm an art major)

So today's post was a little stream-of-consciousness, sorry.... I have to explain myself as I go along sometimes. Your homework for this post is to help me finish my list of rules. What are some of your proposed rules for how I determine whether or not I should purchase an advertised item or service?