When it comes to errands and the to-do list, I am pretty lazy. I have the tendency to take the easiest and quickest route, because I don’t want to have to wander around looking for something. I can’t handle the stress of not being able to find what I am looking for, so I tend to go where I know they have exactly what I am looking for, even if it’s at a much higher price.
For instance, there is nothing more frustrating to me than not being able to find something in the grocery store. A few weeks ago I found myself going in circles, wasting tens of my precious minutes looking for tahini. I was spinning my wheels getting nowhere, and when I finally did find a jar of tahini, it was in the health food section so it cost far more than any jar of tahini I would have found in the nut butter section.
That sounds like a stupid scenario, but I was at my wits end trying to find this stupid tahini so I bought the first jar I found since there were no stock people or staff around for me to ask.
My impatience and reluctance to continue searching has ended up costing me a lot more over the years, but I had one small win last week.
My iPhone Charger Finally Kicked the Bucket
Normally, my iPhone chargers somehow end up breaking or not working within a few months of their purchase, but this particular one was the original that I got with my phone over a year and a half ago.
I take my chargers everywhere with me, resulting in a lot of wear and tear from being transported to and fro. I’m super impressed that my charger lasted the year and a half, but during it’s last few weeks, I could see it’s demise coming. It was getting worn out and the part of the cord right before it plugs into the phone was getting pretty bent up.
I took it out of my purse last week to charge my phone at work and it wouldn’t respond.
After checking general charger prices online and being relieved that chargers aren’t as expensive as they were six years ago, I skipped off to Shopper’s Drug Mart for a new charger.
(This is part of my lazy nature. Shopper’s is just up the street from me, whereas Staples or Walmart are a 6-7 minute drive away).
When I finally found the chargers at Shopper’s, I was shocked to see a $29.99 price tag for just the USB charger. Yup, just the cord. The charger with the wall plug was $34.99 so I still can’t wrap my head around how they can get away with charging $29.99 for a cord.
I Conquered My Impatience and Laziness
(for tonight, anyway).
As much as I was tempted to just buy the cord and be done with my search for a new charger (after all, I’d found one! The search was over! Why bother continuing and wasting time?) I couldn’t swallow the $29.99 price tag for a charger I could buy at Walmart for $5. After all, I just posted about how we desperately need to detox our budget after our wedding spending.
I decided to drive past the dollar store across the street to see if they were still open, and lo and behold, they were.
I would have probably lost interest in my search and went back to Shopper’s if the Dollar Store didn’t have chargers, but thankfully, they did, at $7.79.
Without tax, I saved $22.20 just by going across the street and not taking the easiest way out possible.
Could I have saved more? Sure. I could have gone to Walmart and spent $5 on a charger, but that would have cost me almost as much in gas to drive across town and my time is more valuable than that.
Patience Is a Financial Virtue
My tendency to take the easy way out isn’t as much about laziness as it is about patience. I have always been an impatient person and while I do like to joke that I am secretly lazy, that’s not the case. I just can’t handle wandering around looking for something. My blood starts to boil and I start to get frustrated.
This incident, after having saved me $22.20, made me think back to all the times I could have saved a lot more money if I had only been a bit more patient with the search and avoided taking the easy way out.
– The $10 a pop I could have saved each time I needed to fill up when I worked near the border, but didn’t want to wait in the border line up for 10 minutes.
– The tahini incident, because I was feeling anxious to get out of the grocery store and losing patience with searching for a normal jar of tahini.
– The time I didn’t think I could handle the line at my bank, so went across the street to the ATM which charged me $3.50 for the privilege.
– Any time I’ve ever paid to rush order anything that wasn’t actually a rush because I wasn’t patient enough to shut up and wait for it.
The list could go on and on, but it’s boring for you and depressing for me. When they say patience is a virtue, they are not lying! Having patience is one small skill that I desperately need to continue working on, but that pays off with dividends if you can have it.
So there you have it. Saving $22.20 was a great reflection tool for me on skills that I need to build.
Have you ever spent far more on something than you maybe should have because you didn’t have the patience to find a better deal?
If I have to wait in a line, I try to treat it like a little mini vacation (opportunity) that I wasn’t planning to take. I can zone out or people watch or just take deep breaths and appreciate all I have. So next time you don’t think you have patience to save you money, you can think of it like a double bonus.
That’s a good attitude to have. I’ll have to adopt it next time I am in line for something.
I’m really rough on chargers as well. My fiance cannot believe it, but thankfully he used to have an iphone and I have an ipad, so we had a spare. Now we both have Samsung phones, so we can steal each others.. because I broke mine. I don’t know what it is about me, but I’m horrible with them!
I was buying a jar of pesto recently to make pizza, and I saw some black label PC jars with the pink stickers (50% off) so I thought “hey that must be a good deal” at $5.99/2. Nope! I walked through the aisle and the Classico kind was on sale for $1.99, regular $3.99. I wouldn’t have realized I wasn’t getting that good of a deal if I hadn’t gone back to the section.
I’m glad I’m not the only one that is terrible with chargers.
Good eye for catching the pesto prices. Pesto is pesto, no matter the brand, right?
This is a trick that advertisers use to get us to spend in the first place. They make a deal seem scarce either through limited quantities or a sale that ends soon. Good for you for recognizing a weakness! Hopefully you can work on overcoming it so that you can save money going forward more easily.
I’m still working on overcoming it, but it’s a struggle.
Great lesson, plus it’s money in the bank for you!
I love me some money in the bank 😉
Ooo… I would be very careful with the type of charger you buy! My friend bought a cheapie charge on Deal Xtreme and it wrecked her battery! Now she has to keep an eye when she charges her phone because once it hits 100% charge, it will reverse the charge and goes back to 0%! Since I heard that, I have been buying charges from reputable companies because I don’t want to wreck my iPhone battery (which is much more costly to replace)!
I’ve obsessed about this before.. I believe that if the generic charger has the same power rating as the original chargers, you are good to go. I make sure of that and I’ve never bought an Apple brand charger and have never had an issue. Thank you for the head’s up, though!
Yeah, not so much in regard to the actual electric part, but just in terms of durability/quality. Generic charger cables/car charger plugs for the cigarette lighter never seem to last us long.
I came to post the same thing the previous person wrote. Buying a cheap charger which may not last long or worse, wreck your phone,is not a frugal option in my mind. But then again you never know.
Yes, I’ve heard about that and have looked into it quite a bit. It depends on the type of charger you get but I just make sure to check it out thoroughly and I’ve never had an issue. I’m TERRIBLE with chargers and I’ve had to buy quite a few. Maybe I’m just lucky though.
Sometimes I think 5 year olds have more patience than me…..
Haha.. I hear you.
I too am so NOT a patient person. In fact, when I ride in the car with my mom to go to Walmart, I can’t stand it. She never takes the quickest, most direct route from point A to point B and it drives me nuts. After we arrive, she doesn’t park as close as possible. In my head I know these two things only save maybe 1-2 minutes max (since my town is so small to drive across) but I’m not patient and I like to make the best use of every second of my day.
I have to admit that I never park as close as possible, just out of principle. But I hear ya – I always take the easiest, quickest route!