America.  The land of the fair deal.  Why is it a fairer deal when we’ve worked harder for it?  Tonight, we are trying, desperately, to move from the realm of “fairer deal” to that of the kingdom of “great deal.”

I get that we like a bargain.  In most societies, the bargain is made through the act of bargaining, of a series of maneuvers developed through centuries of purchasing.  Before the invention of money, people would come together and barter with good for trade.  Society evolved, moved ahead, and with currency came the belief that the object of “money” was an appropriate translator of worth.  At first the worth was tied to the value of the metal itself, then later an intrinsic value was placed.  Since the 1970′s, America has been off of the gold standard, meaning that the value of a dollar doesn’t represent an actual equivalent in metal, but instead the market value of what the dollar represents.

So now the dollars I am spending at the grocery store represent an interpretation of an American worker’s worth, which at the maximum is 1/8th of an hour (minimum wage being eight dollars an hour).  This means a minimum wage worker earns a single dollar every 7.5 minutes.  If I buy a soda for one dollar, I am trading for it what is considered at most 7.5 minutes of a minimum wage earners worth.

Could you imagine, back in the earlier days of civilization, if one would show up at a farmers house and they asked for a drink, and the farmer would tell them “sure, but you need to work at least 10 minutes for it.”?  Yes, 10 minutes of raking leaves would earn a large sugary drink.

We have innovated in terms of currency as our society has evolved, because we now have coupons.  As currency in trade became popular, ideas on how to gather and collect monies became a very popular notion, so schemes were hatched, plans made, and in last couple of centuries we’ve discovered advertising.  Psychology had a big hand in that, and poking at basic human programming encourages us to rationalize away our common sense all for the purpose of getting just the right thing.  At a bargain.

Coupons.  So shopping last night, standing in an aisle looking for six jars of pickles that do not exist ONLY because we have a coupon, I had an epiphany.  All of the years of careful evolution to this modern society, and I now understand that couponing as a marketing gimmick has encouraged me to leave all my common sense and my warm bed to that moment at 10 o’clock at night, in the aisle, and befuddled.

We left the store with sixty-dollars of goods for less than twenty, and we knew we achieved a great bargain.  All it cost us two hours of prep work to get the coupons and to find the products.  And at my current rate of earning, well…. this was my off time, so it doesn’t really count that way.  But it is interesting because we left the store with goods in hand feeling like we did great.

Advertisement