The Cost of Shopping EDITORIAL

LIBERTY, December 15, 2006 – Shopping has a cost whether you do it at a local store or you drive to an out of town warehouse club. One of the largest differences is not the cost of the product you purchase, but the cost of time and transportation.

Looking at the high cost of transportation these days, you must figure in the cost of the trip to shop at the warehouse club. Assuming you drive a $20,000 car and you plan on driving it for 100,000 before you trade it off and receive $2,000 trade in the car will have cost you 18 cents per mile to drive it. If you trade cars more frequently before you drive it 100,000 your cost per mile will be more.

So your 85-mile round trip in your vehicle will cost you $15.30. But wait, that’s not all. Your vehicle most likely will get you about 17 miles per gallon of gas, less for a V-8 pickup or SUV. It will use about 5 gallons of gas. That will cost you for regular unleaded at today’s price  $10.75.

So just to shop at the warehouse store one time you will spend $26.05.

If you average saving 10 percent on the purchases you make while you’re there, you will have to spend $260.50 at the warehouse store just to break even. And to say you saved $26.05 by making the trip you will have to spend $521.00 every time you go, otherwise you’re going in the hole.

But that’s not all. Most warehouse stores charge an annual fee for the privilege of shopping. That fee can vary from $40.00 to $100.00 depending on the type of membership you have. At $40.00 per year and a 10 percent savings on the things you buy you will have to spend $400.00 each year just to overcome the cost and privilege of shopping at the store and break even.

Assuming you drive 20,000 miles per year, and you drive your car for 100,000 miles at a vehicle cost of $16,000, the vehicle will last you 5 years at a cost of $3,200 per year.

Assume you could save the miles associated with making 12 trips a year to the warehouse store; you would save 1020 miles per year. This would add more than three months to the life of your car over the five-year period, saving three months of car notes on new transportation when you trade.

But the last, and perhaps the most important consideration is the time that it costs the shopper. Time is a fixed commodity. You can’t make any more of it no matter what you do. And, we’re all running out of time because the clock is ticking away.

It’ll cost you at least three hours to shop at the warehouse store. Two hours drive time for the round trip and an hour to walk the mammoth store, get your stuff and get back to the car.

To shop at the warehouse store you must consider yourself and your time utterly worthless. Let’s face it. Time is all you have and you have a fixed amount of it.

One of the great benefits of living in a small community is that you can drive up to a local store and park within steps of the front door, do your shopping and be out in no time. You will also receive the benefit of additional service for free that the local merchant provides. That’s hard to do in the big city. This is why I like shopping locally or online. Both save loads of time and money.

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