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We needed a roll of packing tape, so my first instinct was to order from Amazon. But I didn’t want a three- or six-pack, and I didn’t feel great about the environmental impact of an Amazon truck driving to my house to deliver an overly large cardboard box containing a single roll, even if it was a bargain at less than $4.
Instead, during my afternoon walk, I stopped by the local drugstore to pick up a roll—which was priced at $5.99. Okay, I mused, I’m out $2, but at least I’d have the roll of tape right away and this was one chore I could now tick off my list.
I headed to the self-checkout, scanned the tape’s bar code and tapped my credit card. As the word “approved” appeared on the card reader, I noticed that I’d been incorrectly charged $8.79.
I immediately imagined what lay ahead: finding an employee, showing him or her the store’s displayed price, getting my purchase cancelled and then running the transaction through at the correct price. How long would all that take? Perhaps 10 minutes?
My younger self would have done it. Maybe even my five-year-ago self would have. But today, I value time far more highly than money, and not just because of my cancer diagnosis. Which is why I walked out the store a few dollars poorer, but richer by 10 minutes.
But I wonder: Would others have made the same choice? When I asked my wife, Elaine, she said, “Hell, yeah, I would have got my money back.”
in these older years, it occurred to me that “time is money” has more than one sound interpretation.
for one, for all the diligent saving of “money” in a lifetime, you can afford more “time.”
i really do like not having to be in a hurry!
I’m with Jon. While I do look at my receipts and try to catch things, I find myself valuing my time as well. If it’s easy to correct, sure. If it’s not, oh well, go enjoy life as the hassle has a cost of both time and emotions. Good for you Jon!
I agree with Elaine hell yes, but for another reason besides getting the right price. For many years I was the price coordinator at a grocery chain. My job was to upload price changes in our system and to make sure shelf tags and display signs were changed. Almost always the scanned price is the correct price. The errors come from a shelf tag or display sign not changed. Also if a store ran an in store special and that wasn’t changed back. Personally I always wanted a customer to let me know if a price is off so it can be fixed. It’s a lot better then having multiple customers get home and find out find out the price is wrong, and they are all going to be rightfully irritated. I can only speak for grocery stores, but each week they do a set of price changes and a new weekly ad. These can total into the low thousands. Mistakes happen. No chain wants their customers questioning price integrity.
I can see Johnathan’s point and have done the same thing a few times over the years but it depends on the dollar amount. While attempting a dual head gasket and cylinder head rebuild on my 1996, 308K mile Chevy Lumina Van last summer, I decided the exhaust valves were too pitted from the hot exhaust gasses to be reused and needed to be replaced. The Rockauto supplier (who was supposed to be a supplier to engine rebuilders) I went with only had four of the six needed so I ordered those (paid extra for 2 day shipping) and picked up up the other two valves locally. When the valves arrived, they didn’t look right. When I compared them to the old valves, they were too short, but all the part numbers were correct. The only thing I could figure was the supplier sourced their parts from other suppliers and one of them had put the wrong valves in the correct bags. I wasn’t going to eat the cost of those valves. It gave me great satisfaction to send those valves back to Rockauto (who paid for return shipping), have them investigate the problem, and credit me a refund.