Monday, September 14, 2009

How cheap is too cheap?

An important part of cheapness is the specific psychological reaction of the cheapster to a rare bargain find. The cheapster feels both that the hunt for cheap is a kind of epic adventure worth the perils and travails required, and a sense of gloating vindication when the cheap item is finally secured. At least I do. (And I am not alone: watch the Dupont Circle video in this segment and look for the Korean woman who recounts all her eBay finds.) I don't mind if I have to go to ridiculous lengths to get my cheap stuff, like wheeling my Craigslist desk more than a mile to my apartment because it doesn't fit in Seb's car. That is part of the experience, and it is a noble labor which I can then relay to other (entirely uninterested) people as part of my narrative of miserliness.

But how much should I be willing to undergo for the sake of a bargain? Seb, for example, thinks that I am willing to go so far to get a bargain that I am not thrifty at all--I am just a militant Scrooge with no sense of dignity or ability to appraise the value of my time. We've talked before about the slippery calculations involved in ascertaining opportunity cost of time, though that measure is what is supposed to stand between me and professional beach-combing for lost pennies. Otherwise, all that remains is my outsized sense of accomplishment at finding a discount.

So here is the dilemma: Massachusetts has a can and bottle deposit of five cents a container. So...? I mean, it only takes 20 empty Diet Coke cans to earn me a whole dollar. On the other hand, I think homeless people do this for a living.

On another spending on grad school stipend note, while certain expenditures have been restricted lately (shopping, haircuts, frilly things like that), my budget for books has simply faded into oblivion. Whereas I used to hate buying them because it would just mean more heavy boxes when I inevitably moved, I am now in the midst of an Amazon free-for-all. Why print out excerpts at 50% of readable size when they are just so cheap, and I may need them at some point, for papers, or generals, or things...

6 comments:

Phoebe Maltz Bovy said...

Going a distance for a bargain can, in my experience, lead to spending more. And not just spending as in spending time. For instance, last weekend, Jo and I went to Brooklyn (Sahadi's) for groceries and ended up each with a pair of sneakers as well. Cheap ones, and much-needed in Jo's case (for obvious gendered shoe-acquisition-rate reasons), but still, that's two more pairs of sneakers than we'd have bought at the pricier stores nearby. Even without the added factor of the Fulton Mall, any discount excursion leads to overbuying, because in such-and-such hard-to-reach place, OMG everything's cheap, time to stock up! Even on things you don't need, or don't need quite so much of.

And... nothing wrong with bringing a big sack of cans to the store. Although, again from personal experience, it's best to check if the store has a limit of how many you can bring at a time, as the Park Slope Key Food sure did...

PG said...

The aforementioned Ellen Ruppel Shell points out that the sunk cost of traveling, to get to a place that one believes has bargains, sometimes leads people to think they're getting a good deal when they're not.

Miss Self-Important said...

Again though, what is the cost of a 10-minute bike ride?

Phoebe Maltz Bovy said...

The idea is that it's not so much the cost in time or money of the trip, but that going out of your way to save money gives you the mistaken impression that because you've put in extra effort, whatever you purchase is a bargain. So if you walk an extra minute to a cheaper supermarket, you're not losing much time or any money, but once there, you'll think, hmm, that cereal looks interesting, and will buy it because you've already 'been good' and taken action, you feel, towards saving.

Miss Self-Important said...

Oh, yeah, I have that problem too. Last week, I walked more than a mile to the discount grocery store to pick up some staples and came home with a loaf of something called "Brazilian coconut bread." Everything else was so cheap that I decided it was self-compensating.

It was pretty good though.

Dylan said...

The MA can and bottle deposit kills me every time I pay it. And to think that as a kid I always thought it would be so cool to live in a state printed on the bottom of a bottle...