(I think I will be moving back to this blog. I hate the CAPTCHAs, but Blogger is a better platform to blog from than MSN Spaces.)
I was at the mall with my wife and kids tonight. In the time that I’ve been blogging on my MSN Spaces blog and leaving this one dormant, I’ve been listening to Dave Ramsey quite a bit. He really does change the way you look at money. My wife stopped at Sears to buy shoes for Joshua. She also needed a bathing suit for my company’s picnic tomorrow. She went to pay, and sure enough got the inevitable “You can save 10% if you open a Sears card account.” We politely declined. After paying, my wife went upstairs to look for clothes for the kids. She found a few, and went to pay again. This time, once again, the cashier tries to push a Sears card on us. My wife said “I don’t work.” Well, she works harder than I do, but I don’t issue her a W-2 :-) . The cashier looked at me, and I said “No thank you. You can tell how much money Sears is making off finance charges by how hard they’re pushing the card on people.” My wife told me to knock it off, but after 3 hours at the mall chasing uncooperative kids around, I didn’t feel like it. I muttered “You can hardly get a cup of coffee at Wawa anymore without hearing ‘you can save 10% on your purchase if you open up a charge card account.’”
According to Dave Ramsey, (and I assume his sources), most stores these days have very narrow profit margins. Apparently, Best Buy and Circuit City don’t really make any money off of merchandise anymore. Most of their money is made from finance charges and warranties and service plans, like charging $50 to install a RAM chip, a service I am proud to still perform for pizza and beer for ten straight years. Even with a Meat Lover’s, and a six pack of a premium lager, I’m still cheaper, but Best Buy doesn’t make money otherwise.
Be careful with the store credit cards. My wife and I often will buy larger items on a “12 months no interest” plan. Dave Ramsey recommends not doing that, as Murphy’s Law is in full effect. It doesn’t matter how disciplined you are; life still gets in the way.
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