Sneaking Candy into Movies: Frugal or Cheap?

[Jason White]

My wife and I went somewhere last weekend we had not been in a long, long time - a movie theater! I hit the boxed-candy-for-a-dollar section at a nearby Target and picked up a couple boxes of our favorites to "sneak in" the theater. My wife said I was a cheapskate.

Normally, I would thank her for the compliment, but this time her comment had me thinking. Is sneaking in candy to a theater being cheap, or being frugal? I don't normally think of myself as being cheap, but in this case maybe she's right. But $3.00 for a box of M&Ms?!

[amyschiff]

i'm kind of on the fence about this one... I don't really want to believe it is cheap since my mom did it when we were kids and the prices are even more outrageous now. It boggles my mind how seeing a movie can end up in the $35 range. These days I usually just don't eat anything at the movies.

[Gootsy]

My mom also did that when I was a kid. Definitely felt wrong since we would have to time the opening of pop cans with the movie noise so nobody would hear .

I haven't done it since, though sometimes I wish I did cause a can of coke (something I treat myself to on occasion) is infinitely better than the theatre stuff.

[Lisa23]

OK, here's my shadow side coming out. I don't feel guilty sneaking food into theaters in the least. The prices are outrageous, and I see no plausible justification, other than they have you over a barrel!

[jdp]

Just skip the theatre and rent the dvd.

Truly I can't call anyone cheap vs. frugal. Why should anyone be judging what others do? Unless it is a crime someone will be arrested for what the heck? Not my place, ya know?

BUT, among other things, $ and confining food policies/options are reasons we skip it and rent or better yet see if it was a book first

[mcnerd]

Sorry, it's cheap. The high prices are needed to cover a lot of their costs, so not to support the theater in buying their products is being cheap. That's just reality, but of course lots of people going to the movies are cheap and the theaters know it too.

Being frugal would be watching the movie at home.

[Gootsy]

Originally Posted by Lisa23

The prices are outrageous, and I see no plausible justification, other than they have you over a barrel!

Well, like 90+ percent of the money made from ticket sales of new movies, goes directly to the companies that financed it. So without the popcorn/pop sales, they'd(theatre showing movie) struggle or close down.

Even then some theatres have deals where each ticket gets 3 bucks off a combo (when I went to Ironman I got this), so combined the 2 discounts for 6 bucks off was not bad.

[Jason White]

Originally Posted by Gootsy

Well, like 90+ percent of the money made from ticket sales of new movies, goes directly to the companies that financed it. So without the popcorn/pop sales, they'd(theatre showing movie) struggle or close down.

I used to feel sorry for the theaters if I snuck in something because I assumed I was bypassing their primary source of revenue. That changed when I recently spent fifteen minutes watching a series of advertisements (some for local businesses) BEFORE the previews began. Obviously, theater chains are finding new ways to capitalize on a captive audience.

[Gootsy]

You felt sorry for the theatres... that's cute.

Do you mean the ads/trivia slide things they show while seats are filling up? Cause I've never experienced anything close to 15 min of the commercials they're putting before the previews... And how much of that (trivia or commercials) actually goes to the theatre, I do not know.

Getting annoyed at theatres cause they're showing commercials that're not movie related, BEFORE the movie previews, is so 1998.

[Jason White]

Well, that probably explains it - I have only seen a handful of movies at a theater since 1998! No, this wasn't just the slideshow ads that show while people are being seated. These were 10-15 minutes of commercials with the lights out. We saw car ads, Coca Cola ads, Amazon.com ads, etc, etc. Even my wife thought it was odd, and she goes to movies more frequently than I do (with her mom or a friend).