Last night I went to a big box store to get some low-priced items. Yes, I do this from at times. I have champagne tastes on a beer budget. Or in this case I have all-organic boutique tastes on a giant everything-under-the-sun department store budget. Hey, remember: People of Wal-Mart are still people. Plus, those people who take pictures of People of Wal-Mart are people of Wal-Mart as well. OK, you got me. I went to Wal-Mart.

So I’m at Wal-Mart when I pass by a display of breakfast cereals in tiny boxes. Each box was 4.5 oz. – real small. They had these priced at $1.00 each. I’m guessing the appeal would be that, if you couldn’t scrape together $2.50 for the 15 oz. box, you could at least get the 4.5 oz. one. But the box was so small! And Honey Comb is a large, airy cereal.

A box at this size may yield about a bowl a bowl and a half (though the side probably said there’s 45 servings per container at 0.1 oz. each). So the box is smaller and cheaper but is it a deal? Well, at $1.00 for 4.5 oz., you’re looking at paying around 22 cents per oz. The 15 oz. box sells for around $2.50 – a cost of roughly 17 cents per oz. That’s a big difference. One could argue that all this is moot since high-calorie, corn and sugar based breakfast cereal would not be fit for human consumption but…

Yes, I have very large manly hands.

I heard that businesses and product manufacturers have been hiding “inflation” behind smaller containers. Basically you would pay the same price for less product. If you didn’t check the size, you may not know the difference.

This may or may not be a bad thing. Is it so bad to have smaller packages? Studies show that we humans will consume more if more is offered. (Ever pigged out at an all-you-can-eat buffet?). So we pay more for less product but if the price truly reflects the cost of the product who can argue?

I kind of liked the small box of cereal, at least in a physical sense. When I held it in my hand, I felt like a giant. I wanted to stomp around Wal-Mart with my tiny box of cereal and grunt things like “ME EAT CEREAL!” But then someone would probably take a picture of me and send it in to peopleofwalmart.com.

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