I have decided to participate in the January 15th Peeve Week project . This is my fourth post for that project.

I wonder if one should feel sorry for paper calendars. Not only are more people depending on online calendars, many people simply know what day and month it is based on the big “SALE” signs at almost every retail store. A “Clearance event” usually means it is winter, a “Biggest sale of the year” sign means it is July, a “50% off” sign says it is the time after Christmas and before New Year’s, and so on. You see these sales signs everywhere and I think they are put there by retail stores to help you get rid of your paper calendar. Regardless of the reason, the sales events are always around at retail stores, and you will always find every item at a discount throughout the year.

It seems as if the customer is always fortunate enough to run into a lucky sale that the store says is about to “end very soon!” There is always a sales event going on at retail stores. There is always the need to give more discounts to the customers, and this need to give more never ends because of sales events. Last year, the retail stores had sales ranging from Independence day sales to Labor day discounts to Thanksgiving sales to Christmas day discounts to New Year’s and Memorial day, enabling customers to see the “Sale ending soon!” sign change its color and size almost every week of the year.

Car dealerships have something similar too. Car dealerships always have discounts on cars, almost every single week of the year. Car dealerships have different kinds of cars, and sales events usually mean that any car out there is advertised to almost every customer. Similarly, retail stores promote every item as being the perfect gift for every holiday out there. It’s as if you can never go wrong with your purchase throughout the year. You can probably do the same in your life: you can buy something for Valentine’s and give it as a gift to someone during the holiday season and not be ridiculed.

How many times can we usually find good deals that we would not find rest of the year? Only about 2 or 3 times. So if you go to a store and get attracted to something because of the “On Sale!“, ask yourself whether you like buying stuff based on their price or based on your needs and wants. If you find a good deal on an item today, chances are you can find a better deal on that same item in the same store in the next 4 months.

There will be a different sales sign with a different color by then, of course.