In my attempts to be less of a consumer, I don’t layby.  There is not a product on the planet that I absolutely must have, must reserve the right to own despite not being able to afford it. I eschew toy sales and the craziness of packing away more toys than my children will ever play with, based on the notion that they are somehow cheaper in the middle of the year than they will be anywhere in the next six months leading up to Christmas.

I’ve been known to ridicule the idea of food layby (otherwise known as food hampers, aka Chrisco, Castle etc).  This notion is even more absurd to me than regular layby. People actually pay more than a food item is worth and select hampers that contain products they have never tried and may not even eat, purely so they can pay it off in increments during the year.  On a forum recently, I read a stunning rationale for this behaviour:

For me, part of the appeal is getting things that I wouldn’t normally buy. It forces me to try new things and get out of my shopping rut.

Seriously. Go into a supermarket with a trolley and a blindfold. Just think of the excitement of reaching the checkout and finding that jar of crab paste you’ve never tried before! Or the pure joy of that random can of cocktail franks! I priced one of the Mexican hampers (corn chips, salsa, taco kits galore) and the kits in the pack average out at nearly $10. For one taco kit. That you can get off the shelf at most supermarkets for $6.50 or less, and $5 or less on special.  Paying over market value for a grocery luckydip is just plain crazy.

Also popular with these hamper types are the vouchers. You pay into it every week and get a voucher for K-Mart or whatever at the end. I can almost wrap my head around the rationale of those who do these hampers because they can’t trust themselves to put money in an account and not spend it, but really?  You get what you put in for the voucher, minus an administration fee, so for a $100 Coles voucher, you pay $105. It defies my personal belief that more than one person on the planet considers that to be value.

I think I’ve digressed enough from my original point, since I can’t remember what it was. Oh, coffee layby.  So the duck heads out for coffee for us on Saturday morning, and I asked him which café would gain our patronage. He asked if I had a preference, a choice between our favourite café and Michel’s. I prefer the café coffee by a long shot, but I have caffeinated myself into a corner with the ‘free coffee’ pull of Michel’s. You know, those cards they stamp so every eighth coffee is free?  The thing with those loyalty cards is that once you have one or two stamps, you have to keep going back until you get your ‘free’ beverage.  Now, going ahead with the assumption that nothing in life is actually free, this means that in reality I’m paying around 50c extra for every cup of coffee I purchase there, to absorb the cost of the ‘free’ one they are giving me.   At the very least it’s absorbed across every cup of coffee sold; so in reality not only am I laybying my future caffeine fix, but other people are paying into the fund as well.

How the hell is this any smarter than laybying groceries or toys?

Given that the coffee at these types of chain cafés is around the same price (or in some cases, a little cheaper) than independent establishments, one has to wonder how they are maintaining their profit margins while offering free coffee.  Cost cutting in other areas is the obvious answer. I’ve tried the cupcakes and I think I can see where they did it there, and I also believe the custard in the vanilla slice has been sponsored by an experimental plastics manufacturer.

And I’m not even going to go into the Jennifer Government style rant about loyalty cards and how they will lead to the downfall of civilisation. I’ll happily leave that in the capable hands of Max Barry (and while you’re there, read the hilarious letter he received from the UN.)