Random Financial Thoughts

The Sandbox Finance/Investments
21

Question, if you sat down at a restaurant at 4:58 and were ready to order but happy hour begins at 5, would you order the full price food or wait 2 minutes?

I’m not offended by either response, but curious your thoughts given what we’ve discussed. I also have no interest in arguing. Just curious.

Edit: My thinking here is that you sat down to order under one particular menu, but by occupying their table for 2 minutes while providing back no value you can instead get the cheaper food that they voluntarily offer at that price. They profit from you, but a little less.

22

Also,

Going to the library’s toilet and using a half a roll of TP because you made a questionable meal choice of gas station sushi = OK

Going to the library’s toilet and using a standard amount of TP but deciding to take the rest of the roll with you for future home use = Not OK

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23

What about driving an extra two minutes to use the library bathroom so you don’t clog your toilet at home?

24

I’ll allow it but you really should check out at least 2 books. One on DIY plumbing and one on the benefits of adding fiber to your diet.

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25

Note to self: DFTT…DFTT…DFTT

26

I don’t think it’s unethical.

Regarding the mom and pop shop thing, I have bought from some smaller shops online before. Many have advertised things to get me to save, like “subscribe and save 10%, cancel ANY TIME!!” Implying you can use it just to get the discount, then cancel later. They hope that you forget and they get a few orders out of you, or better yet, you love the product and keep the orders.

I’ve also been on Etsy many times, perusing the online store from a local (to someone, but not to me) quilt shop, typically a small 1-2 person operation, and had a few small fabrics in my basket. Then as I’m about to check out, I am told “add another item, get free shipping and 20% of your whole order!” or something like that, and the amount that I’m saving is more than the cost of the additional item, so I’m not giving them any more of my money.

But this does benefit them, because they’ll likely get more positive reviews and will have more of their items to review. They have fewer boxes to have to ship. I’ll probably associate the experience with their shop and come back. Etc.

And I’m constantly adding and removing items from my subscriptions on Amazon, either I try a product and don’t like it, or I change to a different product. I have all my facial cleaners on subscription and definitely have an abundance of them (I don’t like to risk running low); Amazon has made out on me more than once.

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27

I wasn’t trying to troll, I was honestly curious your thoughts on the situation.

I rarely troll here, or at all really. I sometimes ask questions (particularly related to religion) that can ruffle feathers, and being known as a troll would be counterproductive.

In my mind it related back to the concept that “stealing $1 of $1000 or $1 of $1,000,000,000 is the same crime”. In my example you weren’t stealing money but you were occupying a table for no benefit to the restaurant, and in fact in order to pay them less.

28

Waiting 2 minutes to order is not petty theft.

This I don’t like:

Price of widgets:

[ ] $10 for 1 item
[ ] $9 each when you subscribe to a 1 widget per month order.

If you want 1, pay the $10. If you want to pay $9 per widget, pick the subscription. I would even say that it’s ok to order the subscription and cancel if you find that you don’t care for the widgets after all. If you know that you really want exactly one, don’t order the subscription with the full intent to cancel. Will you go to jail? No. But I think that it’s just a little piece of immorality that I don’t agree with.

In my youth, my mom actually demonstrated many such actions that I now think of as wrong, as so she was basically teaching me to steal. Not shoplifting, but stupid little stuff. Taking home all the sugar packets off of a diner table, or even an occasional ketchup bottle. Telling me to say I was 12 if someplace had a children’s price and an adult price. Revisiting free sample tables at the grocery store rather than buy food. Paying for movie tickets and staying to see 2 or 3 different movies. Even eating food inside the grocery store without paying for it. We were pretty poor and I guess she felt it. As an adult and as a parent, I don’t like that and I would feel bad about myself for doing these things now. Maybe this is some deep rooted childhood psychological stuff for me. But I make FCAS money now and I can pay an extra buck or two to buy things and feel good about myself.

But in no way are these things “financial thought” They are tiny little slightly unscrupulous acts of fraud or petty theft.

29

lol@taking a ketchup bottle from a diner.

That is just bizarre behavior.

30

Sure it is.

And almost everyone would agree that shoplifting a $50 radio from Walmart is wrong.

But it seem to me there is a growing public sentiment that stealing things under $50 is not as wrong, so it is, de facto, acceptable behavior.

It’s a very slippery slope.

31

This makes a lot of sense to me in terms of how you formed your opinion.

Your mom took advantage of unspoken/implicit “contracts” in your youth and you didn’t like it.

I view the Amazon subscription as a more explicit contract than those situations in your youth. 1 per month can be 1 month in duration 1 in quantity per their programming. They have chosen to allow this, where there is no significant overhead in creating the permission. This is in contrast to a “please use what you need” toilet paper situation, where preventing folks from taking it home is harder to enforce.

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32

This reminds me of a movie scene and I cannot recall what movie it was. Set many decades ago, a boy is in a corner store and he had a penny to buy candy. Root beer barrels were 2 for a penny and jawbreakers were 2 for a penny. The kid had 1 penny and wanted 1 root beer barrel and 1 jawbreaker, and the shopkeeper kept insisting “THAT’S NOT HOW THIS WORKS”

33

How is it stealing if it is completely permissible and even accepted by Amazon as what can and will happen?

Is it also immoral to order two pairs of the same pants from a store, taking them home to try them on knowing that one will need to be returned, then returning one and costing the store time and resources processing and restocking the return? This is within their own terms of what a customer can do, and they are not required to accept returns at all, but they do, because the positive experience of the customer has a value to that company.

Do you also think it’s wrong to accept an internet contract at a reduced rate for the first year, then change providers when the rate increases?

Is it wrong to go to the grocery store and get 2 packs of soda at a sale price (max of 2 per day), then coming back the next day to get 2 more at the same sale price, instead of buying all 4 in one day and paying full price for the 3rd and 4th?

It’s an interesting viewpoint, and I can understand it, but I don’t think there are any violations of trust or loopholes being exploited here. The company sets the terms, they are not coerced or manipulated into anything, and every company in existence today has access to the data to understand exactly what they are offering and how it is going to be utilized.

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34

Answers/comments in BOLD

Let me ask you some:

Is it immoral to go to your AA meeting that has free coffee and walk out with a dozen new Kcups in your pocket?

Is it wrong to go grocery shopping and buy $100 worth of groceries but not pay for the apple you ate while in the produce department?

If you were an athiest, would you walk into a church right at the moment the services were over just so you could snag a couple of free donuts?

If you saw a woman returning a cart to the cart stall at the grocery store at the end of her shopping, and she forgot an item on the bottom shelf of the cart, would you wait until she drives away and snag the free item?

Do you return shopping carts to shopping cart stalls in the parking lot?

Is it immoral to regularly steal office supplies from work for your kid to use at school?

Is it immoral to steal flatware from a cafeteria?

Is it immoral to pay for a movie ticket but stay and watch 2 movies?

Is it immoral to pay 50 cents play skeeball that offers redemption tickets that can be turned in for prizes, but decide that heck, I’ll just keep 4 wooden balls that are worth way more than 50 cents?

Is it immoral for 4 people to go to a restaurant and let 1 person order all-you-can-eat chicken wings and the other 3 order just water and then they all eat as many chicken wings as they can off 1 plate?

Ayn Rand had a career writing about how shitting on and pilfering things from other people was the best thing to do. I just cannot catch that wavelength.

35

Where does it say “2 for $18” though? All it says is if you set up a subscription that can be cancelled or skipped at any time, you get a price of $9. I’ve checked. It says nothing about “in exchange for more than one purchase.”

Would it be better if you kept the subscription and skipped all remaining shipments instead? You still have the subscription and are following the t&c they’ve laid out there as well. Or is more the spirit of the thing where you’ve informally agreed to buy it at least once more, and aren’t? Does the fact that Amazon could arbitrarily decide to charge you 50% more for that second purchase change anything?

I suspect this is an “agree to disagree” kind of thing, and it’s odd for me because I’m usually the one in your seat (which admittedly makes me stop and question my own position a bit).

36

It’s etched into my personal code of ethics in my soul. You can go back and reread “The Fountainhead” again.

37

Responded.

38

Thanks for typing my responses.

39

Alright, but why stop at 2? Why not 3? Or 10? Or are you required to keep buying it until you’re no longer happy with the product? Is it irrevocable without a qualifying life event that changes your circumstances?

I hope I’m not coming off as rude. I think it’s genuinely fascinating.

40

When amazon offers a “single item price” and a subscription price for 2 or more of the product for a discount, I think it is wrong to order the subscription price knowing you only want a single item as that…