I beg your pardon?It's not an insult – although some consumers might consider it an insult to their intelligence. Bogof stands for "buy one, get one free". It's an age-old retail trick to get customers' attention and get them to buy something they wouldn't usually buy. When it comes to money, most people are driven by primal urges. The retailers' mission is to tap into consumers' irrational side and get them to fork out lots of cash for things they neither want nor need.

They won’t fool me. Get one free, you say?

When the word “free” is displayed in a store, shoppers tend to gravitate towards it like moths to a flame. They lose all sense of reason and revert to a childlike, instant-gratification state. Even if they don’t need the item, they’ll still spend over the odds on it, on the promise of getting something for nothing.

So this bogof is bogus.

The bogof strategy comes in myriad forms. There’s buy one, get the second for half price. Or buy three items, and get the lowest-priced one free. Then there’s the loyalty card idea, where you buy, say, nine items and get the 10th one free.

That’s 10 things you’ve bought that you don’t need.

There are endless permutations on the basic bogof, and the retailers know every one. Before you’ve left the store, you’ll have spent a grand you can’t afford on stuff you don’t need, and walk away thinking you’ve robbed the store.

Why don’t they just offer one item at half price?

Ah, but that would be a bargain, now, wouldn’t it? And we can’t be having that, particularly in these hard times for the retail sector. So they have to think of creative ways of making shoppers think they’re getting a bargain, such as discount club memberships, or a stamp-collection scheme, where the prize is some old-fashioned delph. Or they’ll pull the old “price match” trick, telling you their stuff is exactly the same price as in other stores – even though the price hasn’t dropped.

Seems like a lot of trouble to go to when they can just slash prices.

Another trick, popular with car salesmen and appliance stores, is to offer a carrot to the prospective buyer. For instance, they may offer free oil change for two years if you buy the more expensive car in the showroom. But the overall value of the oil-change is probably less than €100.

How dastardly!

Bankrate.com has advice for avoiding what they list as the seven psychological money traps. Their number one tip is to resist the lure of the free offer. When you see the word “free” in big, bold letters, take it as a warning that you’re about to be soft-soaped. They also suggest you avoid impulse purchases you may regret later.

Try at home:"Stop complaining and eat your Spam – we've only got to eat 300 more tins to get the free kite."

Try at work:"Er, don't you think giving a free cigarette lighter with every stop-smoking kit is a bit defeatist?"