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Missed It By That Much - You Gotta Pay Attention
Posted on April 28, 2008 |
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Remember the show Get Smart? Well in the show Maxwell Smart would say “missed it by that much” when he would screw up some grand feat he was attempting to pull off.
I had a “missed it by that much” moment this weekend (though not so much a grand feat) and it taught me how important it is to pay attention and how much of a robot we can be as consumers.
See I was out of gas and needed to fill up the tank. Nearby there are three gas stations close to each other. The middle among them is the one we usually use. So I pull in and start pumping gas like I normally would. Then I notice the price. Regular gasoline is $3.90 a gallon! What can you do? Prices are going up and my tank was empty. So the gas is pumping and I look out across the street. Gasoline over there is still $3.79 a gallon. D-oh!
“Missed it by that much!” came into my head. Had I only paid more attention I could have saved 0.11 cents a gallon. Ok, I wasn’t going to get rich off the savings but the principle of it bothered me. I went in without even looking to see if prices were better across the street. Do I do that in other places? The supermarket maybe? I don’t know but it opened my eyes to being more conscious when I’m shopping.
When you go shopping make sure you pay attention to what you are buying and how much it costs.
Don’t let yourself be a consumer robot that goes through the motions not realizing what’s going on.
photo from calle colombia
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Ouch! That really hurts! Too bad you couldn’t have bargained with the guy at the window.
That would have been nice. This was all machine though.
Don’t you hate that! I would’ve stopped and drove across the street after realizing the price difference.
I definitely check the price on everything! I have a lot of grocery item prices memorized to the point that I know off the top of my head if it’s a good price.
I’m surprised at how many people don’t look at the price of an item they are buying. I had someone come to the register with a bag of cherries and it rang up at 6.99/lb so the 2 lb bag came out to $12! Only then did she realize the price and then decided she didn’t want it anymore!
I was already well under way with filling up the tank to drive across the street. I’m ashamed to say I impulsively went to the same station I always go to. But mistakes are also learning opportunities so now I know to keep a better eye out.
I remember one time trying to buy dries cranberries but picked up cherries instead. I was shocked to see how much more they were!
Gah…gas is less than $4 now, but it can still go over $4 with the hurricane and all. I’m glad that I just recently bought an electric motor bike to get around campus and around town. A car will cost me too much in gasoline and that’s not good with a student budget.