I might use ActiveRecord's sum
method in this case (docs). All in one:
today = Date.today
vendor_sales = Sale.where(:vendor_id => self.id)
self.sales_today = vendor_sales.
where("created_at >= ?", today.beginning_of_day).
sum("amount")
self.sales_this_week = vendor_sales.
where("created_at >= ?", today.beginning_of_week).
sum("amount")
self.sales_lifetime = vendor_sales.sum("amount")
This would mean you wouldn't have to load lots of sales objects in memory to add the amounts.