Have you ever walked through a store with nothing but lint in your pockets and stared at all the cool things you couldn't afford that you would just love to have? More than likely, had you been asked to, you could have made an extensive list of all the things you would have bought for various prices had you any money at all. It's this sort of thinking that bums out the "budgeted" among us.
Now give that same person (you or me) a gift card for a finite amount at that same store and witness the transformation. Suddenly nothing seems worthy of your limited but totally free (to you) funds. You can walk through the store five times and not find one thing that is worthy of your precious gift card.
This has been happening to me since Christmas. At one point my wife asked me if a gift card to Sears would be a good gift for some of her relatives to get me and I quickly told her that it would and that I could find tons of stuff at Sears that I wanted that would make having a gift card there very valuable to me.
So here we are on Jan 11, and have I spent my Sears money? Of course not. All of a sudden, I can't seem to find a single tool or gadget that seems to be a "good use" or "wise investment" of the money I was given.
Here are my two theories.
Either I have become so cautious with my spending money these days that I can't pull the trigger on something that I think is just "kinda cool".
Or
I'm too afraid that as soon as I buy something that I'm going to immediately think of something that I should have used it for that I want more.
So what am I to do? My first thought was to find someone who needs a gift card and trade them straight up for cash so that I can stare at every store on earth and worry instead of being limited to just one. Failing that, I will probably either buy something "kinda cool" and immediately regret it or hold onto the cards so long that I won't be able to read where they were from anymore, in the hopes of being struck at some future utopian point in time with the perfect idea.
So anyway, I guess I won't ask for gift cards next year. I loved the gift, but I have no idea how to use it.
1 comment:
Here's how you do it:
1. Look at the price of whatever's in front of you at the store.
2. Subtract the value of the gift card from the price.
3. Ask yourself if the item is worthy of THE PRODUCT resulting from the aformentioned equation.
Don't take anything for free. It's a sucker's bet. Spend $7 on a $27 item (or whatever,) and feel thrifty while enjoying the gift. Plus, you can always tell the gift card giver that you bought that something without mentioning the extra few bucks you chucked in. They'll be amazed and pleased that you got something so great for the amount they gave you...even though you didn't really.
Just avoid the black hole of the freebie temptation. You're better off with my system.
e-mail me once you've read this.
Dave F. in Vienna
Post a Comment