Smooth It On Over

I buy a lot of crap with the justification that it will “save me money in the long run.” I’ve impulse-purchased exercise equipment, cooking equipment, and Flowbees under this self-delusion. But this Ninja blender has actually paid itself off.

Meh writer @skemmehs here, delving into the gruesome depths of my own personal smoothie finances to convince you to buy this combo blender thing. We sold it a couple weeks ago and I thought to myself, “You know what? I spend a lot of money on smoothies. I bet if I buy this thing it will save me money in the long run.” So I did. And, as I will show you, I think it has.

I live in Los Angeles most of the time, where I frequent a quintessentially Southern California smoothie establishment called “The Punchbowl.” They smooth all kinds of organic, raw superfoods for outrageous prices, and usually I would avoid such a place, but they make a particular smoothie — the “Power Mint” (get it?) — that I’m fully addicted to. It tastes like a mint chocolate chip milk shake, but is supposedly more healthy.

The smoothie is made with bananas, cashew milk, coconut milk, mint, banana, and cacao nibs. And it costs — brace yourself — $11. I figured I could make it for considerably cheaper.

So after receiving my Nutri Ninja Bowl Duo from Meh, I purchased the ingredients myself and smoothed my first attempt at a Power Mint. It was delicious.

To determine the savings I was accruing, and to determine how many smoothies I’d need to consume in order to break even, I created a spreadsheet that breaks down each expense:

As you can see, each home-smoothed smoothie costs me about $2.90, a whopping $8.10 savings over the Punchbowl’s brazen price gouging. I estimate that I drink about 3 of these a week, meaning that in the 7 weeks that I’ve had my Nutri Ninja, I’ve consumed 21 of them and saved $170!

So I was, for possibly the first time in my life, correct when I predicted that this purchase would “save me money in the long run.”

Now, you might not live in Southern California, and your usual juice and smoothie joint may not be all-organic or charge $11 a pop. But unless you’re scoring delicious, wholesome smoothies for $3, it won’t take long before this blender (or really, any blender capable of making smoothies) pays itself off.

Now I’ve just got to figure out how these 50 fidget spinners are going to save me money …