Frugality
With Mark out of town, it seemed like a good day for a field trip! My friend Debbie and I decided to take the kids to a store called The Scrap Bucket. The Scrap Bucket sells little tiny bric-a-brac that you can use in crafts and scrapbooks. Decorative paperclips, buttons in funny shapes, alphabets and numbers made of shiny plastic, ribbon -- that sort of thing. You carry around a little bucket to put your selections in.
Certain that Caroline would go hog wild, I put a limit on her. I said I would give her $10 to spend and not a penny more. Caroline took me to heart and went all over the store, carefully comparing prices and adding up sums in her head.
I made my own selections, racking up a whopping $40, but that included two albums, one of which is a baby gift (honest!). Then Debbie and her daughter Ariana made their purchases. Then we sat and tried to keep the boys entertained, while Caroline milled around the store, putting things in and out of her bucket while she made her calculations.
She had made it clear that she didn't want to be interrupted, as it threw her math off, but I couldn't take it anymore. I asked her how much she had in her bucket. Her answer -- $3.75 -- and she fully intended to keep going until she got to $10. If I'd know she was going to be so cautious, I would have given her a $5 budget instead of $10. There were plenty of $1 and $2 items and I had been sure she would blow through the money fast. Finally, I agreed that she could keep filling her bucket until she got to $5 and I would give her the other $5 to use at another store we were going to that day.
None of these items are labeled with their price. The price is listed on the bins they come in. With no scanners, the employees have to look each individual item up to check the price, which gave Caroline ample time to RECITE what each item cost. She was only wrong on one item -- she thought it was 10 cents, but turned out to be 50 cents -- and when the loot was totaled up, her order came to $5.40. If she hadn't had that one price wrong, she would have been right on the money (so to speak).
After we left, Caroline said, "I like that store. We should go back there sometime soon." I think she deserves a return trip.
Certain that Caroline would go hog wild, I put a limit on her. I said I would give her $10 to spend and not a penny more. Caroline took me to heart and went all over the store, carefully comparing prices and adding up sums in her head.
I made my own selections, racking up a whopping $40, but that included two albums, one of which is a baby gift (honest!). Then Debbie and her daughter Ariana made their purchases. Then we sat and tried to keep the boys entertained, while Caroline milled around the store, putting things in and out of her bucket while she made her calculations.
She had made it clear that she didn't want to be interrupted, as it threw her math off, but I couldn't take it anymore. I asked her how much she had in her bucket. Her answer -- $3.75 -- and she fully intended to keep going until she got to $10. If I'd know she was going to be so cautious, I would have given her a $5 budget instead of $10. There were plenty of $1 and $2 items and I had been sure she would blow through the money fast. Finally, I agreed that she could keep filling her bucket until she got to $5 and I would give her the other $5 to use at another store we were going to that day.
None of these items are labeled with their price. The price is listed on the bins they come in. With no scanners, the employees have to look each individual item up to check the price, which gave Caroline ample time to RECITE what each item cost. She was only wrong on one item -- she thought it was 10 cents, but turned out to be 50 cents -- and when the loot was totaled up, her order came to $5.40. If she hadn't had that one price wrong, she would have been right on the money (so to speak).
After we left, Caroline said, "I like that store. We should go back there sometime soon." I think she deserves a return trip.
posted by Sandy and Cathy at
6:32 PM
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