Brain drain, which would be cheapest.

[Locc]

I want to order a total of 8 items and my normal mental arithmetic finesse has left my brain. Can you help me work out this offer please - which is the cheapest way to buy? The offer is shown below in a) b) c)

a) Buy 3 items and cheapest is 20% off

b) Buy 4 and the cheapest is 60% off

c) Buy 5 and get the cheapest is 90% off

Would I save more money by

1. splitting my items into 2 purchases putting the most expensive 5 items together, getting the cheapest at 90% off along with the 3 cheaper items with 20% off the cheapest item for the 2nd transaction

OR

2. Buying them.all and having 90% off the cheapest.

3. any better split that I haven't thought of?

The items cost
1 - £27
2 - £24
3 - £24
4 - £22
5 - £22
6 - £21.59
7 - £21.50
8.- £19
.
Thank you so much, I genuinely appreciate your help as I'm not feeling erll

I think you're a bit better off buying 1-4 together with 60% off #4, and 5-8 together with 60% off #8, but it doesn't make a wild pile of difference.

That was my gut feeling too power and I've checked the maths with spreadsheets and agree.

It's about maximising the discount. Option a, you can only get two discounts and that discount is 20%.

Option B if you split into two orders, you can also get two discounts, but these are both 60%. It doesn't really matter how you split them, because you have to get 60% off the £19 item, and then 60% off one of the others, which are all the same price within a few pence.

90% off one item isn't going to work out better than 60% off two items, because 90% off one item would work out more or less the same as 45% off two items, so 60% off two items is obviously better.

However, the above also assumes that the two orders of 4 doesn't attract any postage charges that would be lower or free if you ordered everything in one go.

Without knowing what the items are, I don't know if there's a better option that you haven't thought of. Eg if some or all of the items are available cheaper elsewhere.

Thank you both so much, really appreciate your opinions. My maths head had absconded last night!

The spreadsheet what a good idea! Wish I'd thought of that.

However, I hadn't thought to consider postage, which has made all this irrelevant. Sometimes the obvious factor can be kicking me in the face and I don't notice it.

Thank you for helping.