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Showing posts with label birthday treat bags. Show all posts
Showing posts with label birthday treat bags. Show all posts

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Reducing complexity, reducing price

After assembling candy bags for 38* kids’ birthday parties over the years, I‘ve finally figured out a way to simplify the process: I buy exactly what I need for each treat bag from the bulk candy section at Meijer. For our son’s 12th birthday last weekend, I filled 14 treat bags with eight pieces of candy each for a total of 112 pieces. The cost: $6.61.


I’m fairly certain that’s less than what I usually spend on bagged candy, though I don’t have enough data for a direct cost comparison. But in this case, I’m more excited about reducing the complexity than I am about reducing the cost. I’ve always hated standing in the candy aisle, studying how many pieces were in each bag, trying to come up with a workable configuration.


The breakdown:**
28 holiday peanut butter cups (2 per bag) .... $1.37
14 Smarties sweet tarts ...................................$.32
14 Laffy Taffy .................................................$.61
28 small Hershey‘s candy bars (2 per bag) ...$2.29
14 Tootsie Pops..............................................$1.21
14 gold foil-wrapped chocolate coins .............$.81
Total cost ........................................................$6.61



*This figure would be substantially higher, with three of our four kids now in the double digits age-wise, but two of our daughters usually have a combined party because their birthdays are only two days apart.
**I bought one extra piece of each type of candy, just in case I miscounted or otherwise came up short. So the $6.61 figure is actually for 126 pieces of candy.