To quote Sir James Paul McCartney (CH, MBE), “Can’t buy me love, everybody tells me so / Can’t buy me love, no no no, no.” You also can’t, according to the Food and Drug Administration, list “love” as an actual ingredient in your granola. [More]
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Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places? Try Walmart
By 3.4.13
Are you tired of heating up a microwave dinner for one? Is there an empty spot on the pillow beside you just waiting to be filled? Do you need to stock up on toilet paper? Perhaps you need to head to Walmart for some love at first sight action. A study claims that the big box retailer is the most popular place for people to meet and fall in love at first glance, so what do you have to lose? [More]
Study: People Love Their Cars Because They're Lonely
By 7.22.11
Why do people love their cars? Like really really love love LOVE their cars? More so than any other possession, cars arouse deep emotions in their owners. A study in the Journal of Consumer Research went to five car shows and interviewed car enthusiasts about their passion to try to figure out why. The most far-reaching of their conclusions is that people who love their cars do it, essentially, because they’re lonely. [More]
Sprint Loves You, Kinda Creeps You Out
By 7.15.11
Jerry doesn’t really have a problem with Sprint, his mobile phone carrier. But what the carrier’s site told him when he looked up the status of his contract has him holding back a bit. “We love you,” it proclaims, offering a discount on a new phone. Sprint loves him? [More]
Vermont Teddy Bear Gets Guy Dumped On Valentine's
By 2.14.11
Vermont Teddy Bear are supposed to be harbingers of love and snuggling. But for reader Erik, who emailed us his story in response to our request for tales of romance, love and heartbreak centered around a specific product, sending one of those stuffed bears only served to herald his doom. Here’s his story of how a Vermont Teddy Bear got him dumped on Valentine’s. [More]
A Rose Scented Conditioner By Any Other Name…
By 2.1.11
Guys, if you’re looking for something nice and Consumeristy to do for your gal for Valentines, here’s some inspiration. Benjamin Stein blogs about how his wife was in love with, besides him, Clairol’s Herbal Essences with Rose Hips and Jojoba conditioner. Then the line was discontinued. She was crushed. So he concocted a plan. He bought up all the overstock of the conditioner he can get from eBay and stashed it away, 38 bottles worth… [More]
Being Frugal Makes You More Appealing
By 8.23.10
According to a new ING Direct study, the word that most comes to mind when a hypothetical blind date partner is described as frugal is “smart.” Sadly, “sexy” only came to mind about 3.7% of the time, but at least you’ll have more chances: an eHarmony review commissioned by Ron Lieber at the New York Times “found that both men and women were 25 percent more likely to have a potential mate reach out to them if they identified themselves as a saver rather than a spender.” [More]
Marital Trouble? Consider Divorce Insurance!
By 8.7.10
You already have home insurance, car insurance, life insurance, and maybe even health insurance—why not insure your marriage, too? For around $16 per month, a North Carolina company called SafeGuard sells “units of protection” that could be worth $1,250 if your marriage implodes in divorce. The company claims that it wants to help defray the costs associated with legal fees and finding a new home, but the insurance, called WedLock, comes with plenty of catches. [More]
How To Do Valentine's Day On The Cheap
By 2.6.09
Next Saturday is Valentine’s Day, and with the economy in the tanker many people are looking for celebrating the day of love without spending a fortune. Fortunately Trent at The Simple Dollar has several good suggestions for celebrating cupid’s day on the cheap. Here are some of our favorites:
FTD.com Delivers The Bill, Forgets The Flowers
By 2.16.08
FTD.com forgot to deliver flowers to Tip’s girlfriend on Valentine’s Day, but that didn’t stop them from delivering the bill. When calls to FTD.com didn’t go through, Tip launched the fearsome Executive Email Carpet Bomb. He wrote:
Perhaps $75 is not a lot to you. Perhaps the happiness of your customers does not mean a lot to you either. Perhaps, for a company that’s been around for nearly 100 years, you simply forgot to mark your calendar that yesterday was Valentine’s Day.
Valentine's Day Retail Love Triangle: Pier 1's New CEO Slaps Restraining Order on TJ Maxx
By 2.14.07
On Monday, a Pier 1 spokesman said in a statement the company was trying to stop TJX from interfering with Smith’s new employment agreement. Such threats were “improper,” said spokesman Tom Thomas, because the two companies are not competitors.
25 Most Expensive Cities for a First Date
By 2.9.07
We tallied the average costs of some key elements of a first date: alcohol (specifically, a 1.5 liter bottle of Livingston Cellars, Gallo Chablis or Chenin Blanc wine), food (a 11- to 12-inch pizza from Pizza Hut), entertainment (an evening movie ticket), grooming (a barbershop visit), suiting up (a dry-cleaning bill) and transportation (price per gallon of gasoline). All categories were weighted equally (though price differences in barbershop visits and dry cleaning tended to be greater than those in gas and pizza). Finally–call us old-fashioned–we assumed that the guy pays, hence the barbershop visit instead of a trip to the beauty salon.
Gallo and Pizza Hut? Awesome. We guess that saves money by ensuring that there will not be a second date.
Taco Bell Loves You
By 11.7.06
Well, as reader Christy points out in her email, “Some people are cynical, but I really believe it.”
Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf: The Best Coffee Chain of All TIME
By 6.6.06
Okay, it’s official: Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf is the best coffee chain ever. From Consumerist Ben, this flabbergasting story of corporate caring:
Japanese Girls Sick Of Valentine’s Day
By 2.15.06
Adorable Japanese girls are sick of the expense and tedium of slavishly giving all the men in their lives chocolates on Valentine’s Day. From Yahoo News:
British Supermarkets Sell 8 Pence Valentine’s Cards
By 2.14.06
ASDA, a British supermarket chain, is selling discount Valentine’s Day card to forgetful dole sponges in the UK:
It’s Just Lunch Rips Off Love-Lorn Professionals
By 2.13.06
Consumer Affairs has posted an expose of It’s Just Lunch, a match-making company that for a “modest” fee will listen to you gush forth your wildest dreams of dating a banker or a neurosurgeon and then hook you up with a salivating, dead-eyed landscaper at the local mental asylum. Here’s the link. Now here’s our take.
