When it comes to sales, you aren’t saving money unless it was something you already intended to buy. If you weren’t going to buy it before, you did not save 25% of the price, you spent 75% of it.

I know this. This is how my thinking worked even before I started paying attention to sales and coupons, etc. And yet, sometimes things still get me.

I have signed up for Groupon, Living Social, Amazon daily deals, and even Doggy Loot. I rarely purchase something through them, but it has made it affordable to do some things I would have liked to do but never would have paid full cost for.

And unless I am looking for something in particular (stuff to do while relatives visit, fulfilling a promise to a friend, etc), I am in general very good at ignoring the deals in my inbox. After all, I’m not saving any money, I’m spending an acceptable amount.

Recently, however, I was tempted- tempted like I’ve never been by a coupon.

Confession time: I was in middle school when New Kids on the Block were big, and I was a fan. And I don’t mean casual. I was a fan in the way that preteen girls are fans- obsessive and devoted. I have all their albums, two of their videos, and even bought a ticket to a concert I had no way to get to. Oh how I loved them.

NKOTB is back on tour. They are playing a location near me this Friday. This is the second time in the last couple of years and the second time I have resisted going. But then I got the Groupon in my inbox, the one that had 50% off tickets to go see them…

I clicked on the deal. I did. I clicked on it. I was tempted, so very, very tempted.

But then I saw the price. $52 dollars for a ticket. $52 was the half off price! When I was in middle school, I had to save my babysitting money to afford the $20-30 tickets. Now, $104?

I know their fans are older and can afford more. I know concerts cost more. I do. But $104 for a concert ticket? A single show, not even festival entrance. I can’t do it.

I’ll be honest, if the original price of the ticket had been $52 and the sale price was $26, I’d be at the NKOTB concert this Friday night. I would have spent $26 and I would have enjoyed every second of the show (though maybe not the drive home). But $52- no, especially not when you’re claiming this is half off. I can’t do it. I can’t.

No matter how big my crush on Jordan Knight was.