The evening started a bit different than normal. My wife came home from her meeting early with a rather odd announcement. It seems that the secretary could not get any ink cartridges for the printer. The office supply chain that they deal with simply cannot deliver this ink for at least 10 more days. Without those cartridges it is just not possible to print the required forms for the emergency services that her department does daily.
Somehow my wife was volunteered to run around town and purchase the ink. Because this was such an unusual task that might take a while, the children and I were invited to go with her to buy office supplies for work. This was actually perfect, as I needed some printer toner for my printer and a few envelopes as well. Our reward for shopping was for all of us to go out for dinner.
Shopping took only a few minutes and I guess you should never shop without a list because there was more than four items in our basket. Yet, I was blown away by the total. Sure, there was a few extra things but it seemed to be about 100€ too high. We didn’t pay before looking at the receipt and yup, a set of color toner for our printer was indeed the lion’s share. What option did I really have? Tomorrow or the next day I just may wish to print something.
So, I sucked it up, paid the bill and we all went out to dinner. The children were enjoying their meal and we were all having a great time. I guess I am cheap frugal as my mind kept drifting back to the expensive office supplies in the trunk. The answer was obvious, do a quick check online and do a price check – my cell phone was just the tool to do it.
It didn’t take more than 2 minutes to see that I could buy the exact same goods including shipping for 30€ less. There is indeed a small trade off between immediate gratification and price. My wife’s company cannot wait an extra couple of days but I think can restrain myself.
A couple of Euros would have been OK, but the savings was almost enough to get one more cartridge, or a nice contribution towards dinner out with the family.
I would hate to be in retail right now, the Internet is either keeping them honest or putting them out of business.
