Things Should Cost What They Cost

I can't coupon. I'm too stupid to coupon. It's true. Any time I try to save myself some money - be it by using discount codes or signing up for junk mail to get a special deal - I mess it up, end up paying at least full price, and wasting hours of my time. Then I get the glorious after-effects, which usually involve five emails a day trying to entice me to buy more crap I don't need for prices I won't get.

I even managed to mess up Groupon. Somehow I signed up for Orlando Groupon. I don't live in Orlando. Not to mention, I never even bought anything through them, meaning I'm getting their deals (ie. junk mail) in my box three or four times a day and I never even saved 90 percent on anything ever.

I tried to get reward points through Southwest when I bought tickets to Connecticut. But I didn't feel like I got enough of them for the major purchase I made (four tickets.) So I went back and ordered them all separately, thinking if I used my name on each separate purchase, I would get points for each one. Nope. You only get points on purchases made with your information for yourself. Now, had I read the instructions thoroughly, I probably would have seen something somewhere about that. But I didn't. So, now I have four different itinerary numbers, four different tickets, I had to sign off on my kids because they can't "fly alone." The whole thing took me an extra ninety minutes to coordinate.

I can't coupon.

It is most likely because of this that I feel things should cost what they cost. If something costs X amount of dollars to make with material and labor, and you need to make Y percentage of profit to keep your business afloat, then the combination of X and Y should be what that item costs the consumer.

I don't want to play games with you. I don't want to clip little slips of paper, scour the internet for codes, go through manufacturer deals, store deals and outside party deals to pay for your item. To pay what your item should have cost in the first place.

And you're right. Sometimes you'll give out Coke for 3 cents a bottle, or mustard for a nickel and those products do cost more to make. But I don't care about that. In fact, I would ask that you just not do that because the reason you are able to pull stunts like that is because you've been overcharging me for other products for years and you have enough padding to gimmick it up. Just charge me what it cost you to create the product plus what you need for profit margin and I will buy what I need, okay?

This is in no way bashing those who can and do use coupons regularly. It's not against the extreme couponers who get a million items and the store pays them. That's great. This is the way the world is, and you have cashed in.

But for those of us (and maybe it's just me) too impatient and too stupid to figure out the savings schemes, sign up for the right deals, and win the right contests, can things just cost what they cost?

I really feel that things should cost what they cost.


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