More Reasons to Stop Shopping at Target

Jen Smith (0:00)

More Reasons to Stop Shopping at Target.

SPEAKER_2 (0:07)

Welcome to the Frugal Friends Podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and live a richer life. Here are your hosts, Jen and Jill.

Jen Smith (0:23)

Welcome Frugal Friends, I'm Jen.

Jill Sirianni (0:24)

I'm Jill.

Jen Smith (0:25)

And if you needed more reasons to stop shopping at Target, well, you have found the right video.

Jill Sirianni (0:33)

We're talking about how everyone is feeling about Target lately. That's it.

Jen Smith (0:38)

Let's get a gauge. Let's take a gauge from the Internet.

SPEAKER_4 (0:42)

I don't know if my prefrontal cortex developed or if the quality of goods just truly diminished and went down the toilet. But the Halloween decor that places like Target is selling is the ugliest I've ever seen in my life.

SPEAKER_5 (1:05)

But every time I come to Target, it looks like this.

Are you kidding me? Like, when did Target become Ross?

Leah (1:14)

Target has not been enjoyable for years now. It used to be enjoyable to go to Target and spend your silly little money and disassociate, and it was like this privileged moment where you could afford to go to Target instead of going to Walmart or Aldi.

Jen Smith (1:28)

I used to spend my silly little money at Target. I would go in for a Starbucks and a walk around Target just to spend some silly money.

Jill Sirianni (1:42)

I'm not going to lie, I'm ahead of the curve on this episode. You know me, I never really shopped at Target. I can't say I've never been in one. I certainly have been in Target.

But it just never drew me in. I always felt like it was pretentious.

Jen Smith (2:00)

Yeah.

Jill Sirianni (2:01)

Like that statement that the girl made at the end, it's like for the privileged people who might be able to afford more than Walmart. It's like, yeah, no, that's never been for me.

Jen Smith (2:11)

But I'm a Walmart and Aldi girl, right? And so I would go to Target sometimes, get my pumpkin spice latte, and I would feel like I was better than everyone, like for a minute. But it has become such a poor experience lately. And so we are going to go down the list of more reasons to stop shopping at Target, not because Target is inherently bad. You can have the opinions you want about Target, right? But this is a place, I think, especially for millennials, that we have had this enjoyable experience with Target and we might associate it with dopamine and enjoyable experiences. And so I think it's time that we shed light on the fact that it's not the same. You're not like, you're not crazy.

It's not the same. It's not the same experience. And we cannot keep impulse spending at Target. We got to find different ways because it's not even the experience it used to be. And I don't love shopping as a hobby, but I'm not unnecessarily against it.

It does make you feel good sometimes, right? Walking around a farmer's market. It's a cute day trip.

But this is not it. This is not it anymore. And this, honestly, this video was originally going to be about how Target is making money from us and exploiting us. And we are thanking them about how Target is keeping us poor. And honestly, just, I haven't been in Target a lot recently, and it didn't dawn on me why until I started seeing video after video like the ones we're going to show you with all these reasons. And I'm like, oh my god, yes. What? Yes. And I'm putting the pieces together.

Jill Sirianni (4:08)

Time to reassess.

Jen Smith (4:09)

Yeah. But I wasn't the first one to put the pieces together. Jill might have been. But another collective society that put the pieces together before me is the sponsor of this episode, Canada.

Jill Sirianni (4:22)

Thanks, Canada.

Jen Smith (4:23)

Thank you, Canada, America's neighbor, home of maple syrup, universal health care, and most importantly, no Target. That's right. I don't know if Americans know this, but Target tried Canada and Canada said absolutely not. Technically, Target opened more than 100 stores there and then left the entire country two years later. But we choose to believe Canadians simply looked at hearth and hand and said, no, thank you, we already have baskets.

And they put the baskets next to a trash can and said, nope.

Jill Sirianni (5:02)

Doesn't pass the trash test.

Jen Smith (5:03)

Doesn't pass the trash can test. So if you're tired of walking into Target for toilet paper, and leaving $146 poor without feeling like you're better than anybody afterwards, you bought a candle called Coastal Grandmother's Library. Canada would like you to know that there is another way.