We wonder why the economy is so bad and yet sometimes we don’t even stop to think about how much we spend on some of the products we buy.   If people only realized that in many cases they’re paying five to ten times more than they should then perhaps more families would be saving more than they do.

Granted that yeah, places like Wall Street are crooked and swindle the lot of us.   Realize that you’re very own grocery store and restaurants you frequent are also screwing you over on a daily basis.  How so?

Check out how much seven different consumer products markup their prices…..

Thanks to Top Tenz for some of the info in this article

Cosmetics

Little did most of you know that cosmetics consists of a material you can find in your own home.  Yeah that’s right 80-90% of cosmetics are made up of dirt, yes dirt.   Funny, to look cleaner and prettier you’re putting dirt on your face.  And yet for a couple of grams of dirt, stores will charge you at least $20-$30 for this crap…literally.  For the record the other ingredients are oil and wax.   Perhaps you can look into making your own makeup.

Brand Name Clothes

Somehow the power of marketing wins out in this one.  By now I’m sure most of you know how brand name clothing is made.   It’s usually in some sweat shop in a country we’ve never heard of where the labor costs less than a dollar per hour.   Those clothes are then shipped here and we are charged a 500-1000% markup.   Can you believe that?  I can.  Consumerism at its finest.   You’re really just paying for the label, not the quality of the item.

Bottled Water

Here’s another one where you’re paying for the name and honestly the “idea” of water.   Think about the boom in water over the years.   How many brands of water do we really need?  Or do we even need them?  How about buying your own empty bottles and making the 50 dollar investment in a water filter for your faucet?  But no.  People spend as much as 3 bucks for a bottle of water.  Hell you can pay over 5 if you’re at a sporting event.  I mean, it’s water!

Movie Popcorn

I mean how the hell do they get away with charging over 7 bucks for the big tub?  How is this possible?  I mean you’ve bought plain kernels in a supermarket right?  That would make at least 20 big tubs and that usually costs under 5 bucks.   The average movie popcorn sale has a markup of 900-1200%.  Not a bad return.  I’d take that on my stock account any day of the week.   Enjoy the movie!