Target

Why does America love Target so much?  I don't know of any other country that has a store that they love more than Americans love Target.  Why do we, as a culture, keep subjecting ourselves to a store where we consistently buy $50 - $100 more stuff than we need literally every time we walk through the door?

 I am a self-admitted Target addict.  I love Target.  We buy Isabella's disposable diapers from Target so we have to make the trip once every two weeks or so and it never fails that we come out of there with an $80 - $100 bill and nothing really important in our cart except diapers.   

Maybe it is the overly bright fluorescent lights. Maybe it is the stimulating site of the 'clearance' and 'sale' signs and items on every aisle. Who doesn't love those little red clearance tags?  They are designed to make you think that you might need a 4 pack of the same deodorant for $.80 less than it was originally priced.   Maybe it is the fact that you can get anything that you want or need in the same store at the same time. With the invention of the 'Super Target' my life got a lot more expensive.

 We have found a lot of interesting food items that are at Target that they don't have other places.  We consistently buy flavored pancake mix here, different flavors of yogurt, and drinks that they don't seem to regularly carry at other stores.  I don't think that it matters what it is - just that something about Target makes a grand scale amount of consumers go there regularly and spend money like it grows on trees. 

My absolute favorite part of Target is the $1 clearance section in the front of the store.  There are three things that we absolutely love to buy from that section:

1. Kid dishes.  They have these super cute colorful character plates, bowls, cups and sometimes silverware for children.  For some reason you can't put this stuff in the dishwasher but it is really convenient for the kid's meals and easy to portion out their food.  Plus it seems fun for the kids to eat off of these colorful animal plates.  They normally have different ones for each season and/or holiday. 
2. Children's books.  We have purchased some super cute cardboard Sesame Street books that are great for the kids.  They are short, very educational and very colorful.  The kids can relate to them because they are regular characters that they know from Sesame Street like Elmo, Grover, Oscar the Grouch, etc.  They are durable and easy for small babies and kids to manipulate. 
3. Educational materials.  They regularly stock items like flash cards, handwriting books, educational games, etc that you can use with any age group.  They have flash cards for letters, numbers, words for beginning readers, and more challenging cards for older kids. 

There are too many other things to name that we love to buy from Target.  Just shopping there is a like a drug to me and many others that I know.  Their maternity section is impressive.  Their baby area is usually well stocked and neatly organized.  Their stores are easy to navigate in and usually there are an appropriate number of cashiers to people waiting in line. 

All in all maybe those pluses are what we pay for with the extra items that they sucker us into buying.  Like maybe the extra money is a surcharge to get into the Target club and the extra clearance items are just bonuses for shopping there.  Whatever it may be we might complain about the extra money that we spend but we are too consumed with it now to ever stop.

-Sara