Buy now, play later

Tomorrow is the most important day of the week - the show starts!

I love the show. LOVE IT! It's bright and fun and full of sugar. We'll go tomorrow night, Friday, Friday night and even Saturday morning. We will wring as much excitement as we can from this once a year event. But we'll try do it without having to sell internal organs.

My wallet doesn't have as much fun as the rest of the family at the show. We'll be lucky to get out of this weekend for less than four hundred dollars - and Master20 and Miss17 won't even be in G-town (they're off to Perth to visit their mum).

Four show bags alone will see us $80 - $100 down. We could demand the kids buy cheap show bags, or none at all, but this is once a year. We let them choose whichever show bag they want. Just the one, but it's their choice, and ohhhhh they love it: their faces really light up. The real value of a show bag isn't what's inside it, but the joy and memories the kids get out of it.

To keep our costs down this year we've embraced the buy now, play later philosophy: we have a family pass and ride tickets all ready to roll, and they haven't even finished bolting the ferris wheel together.

The cost of paying individually to get us into the show would have been $140. If we showed up tomorrow and bought a family pass (2 adults 4 kids) at the gate we'd be paying $75. That's $65 worth of hot chips and fairy floss to share around.

But wait, there's more.

By pre-purchasing our tickets we've only paid $70! That's another dagwood dog for dad, and half price entry.

We've also prepaid our ride tickets, buying $120 worth of tickets for $100: Another $20 towards a show bag? Something like that. This is my kind of bulk buying.

All up, $260 of retail value for $170, meaning $90 bulge in my wallet.

But wait, there's more.

It seems Nanny & Poppy are buying our family pass and giving the kids $20 each for a show bag!! Score! (You didn't have to do that. Love you guys).

So this time tomorrow night me and my happily bulging wallet are going to be so gee'd up on a sugar high I may not sleep till a day after they've packed up the teacups and moved on.

Only one thing left to say - BRING ON THE SHOW!