Money Burn
Welcome to Polymathic Being, a place to explore counterintuitive insights across multiple domains. These essays take common topics and investigate them from different perspectives and disciplines to come up with unique insights and solutions.
Today's topic focuses on an odd behavior we have as humans where we are incredibly picky about providing money to those in need while not thinking twice about overpaying for indulgent, and largely unnecessary surplus. We hold back on paying fair prices to some while forking over crazy money for a Tesla that makes Elon Musk one of the richest men in the world.
Introduction
A Lady asks: "How much do you sell your eggs for?"
The old vendor replies "50¢ an egg, madam."
The Lady says, “I'll take 6 eggs for $2.50 or I'm leaving.”
The old salesman replies, “Buy them at the price you want, Madam. This is a good start for me because I haven't sold a single egg today and I need this to live.”
She buys her eggs at a bargain price and leaves with the feeling that she won. She gets into her fancy car and goes to a fancy restaurant with her friend. She and her friend ordered what they wanted. They ate a little and left a lot of what they had asked for. They paid the bill, which was $150, and leave a $50 tip for the fancy restaurant owner...
This story might seem quite normal to the owner of the fancy restaurant, but very unfair to the egg seller...
The question it raises is:
Why do we always need to show that we have power when we buy from the needy?
And why are we generous to those who don't even need our generosity?
I once read somewhere that a fellow used to buy goods from poor people at high prices, even though he didn't need the things. Sometimes he paid more for them. The takeaway for paying higher prices in this case was “charity wrapped in dignity."
The Moral Applied
In 2012 I was in Laos and visiting a local market to buy suvineers. I was haggling over a wood carving that had clearly taken some time to make and was beautiful (see picture) I had bartered him down to $25 and was trying to get lower.
A man I had been talking with at the market was watching and quietly commented, “Two dollars for you is nothing. But for him, it’s probably a day’s wages.” I immediately stopped and ended up paying $30, which was still a good deal.
So why do we drive such a hard bargain for those with the least means while dropping $9 on a Starbucks without a second thought?
Why do we haggle at Farmer’s Markets and then go to Whole Foods and buy lesser quality for higher prices?
Hypothesis
It all comes down to the dopamine. We get two hits. The first is when we score a good price on an item, the second is when we splurge on a luxury.
In the end, it really only takes a simple reframe to change this:
Make the farmer’s market the luxury and Whole Foods the necessity.
Buy from the roadside Mexican stand instead of going to Chili’s (or whichever your local food truck specialty is (Canadians, I’m looking at your Poutine!)
Shop at the local stores and not the big box.
Support street performers as much as Taylor Swift.
Or as my wife’s grandfather used to do at Plant City in Central Florida; Buy the fruits and veggies and then hand the kid loading them an extra buck, “Just for you.”
Summary
I won’t deny this is something I have to consciously force myself to reconceptualize on a regular basis. I have to stop the flow of dopamine in one direction, reframe it, and reprogram it in a separate direction.
When we pause and think about it, and you consider all the great content creators out there in our own milieu, and you compare that $2 toward the effort being made in art, writing, street performers, or even that little extra to someone working hard and just scraping by, the satisfaction of supporting them can go a long way.
It is an odd behavior in many ways when you think about it, but then again, it’s also explainable and therefore actionable to change. It’s an interesting psychological quirk and one we have full control over.
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Further Reading from Authors I really appreciate
I highly recommend the following Substacks for their great content and complementary explorations of topics that Polymathic Being shares.
Goatfury Writes All around great daily essays
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The Muse Fun, Witty, Insight
Out of Curiosity Great little nuggets to learn from
Artificial Intelligence Made Simple Great round-up of AI topics in the media and tech reporting.
A better egg-barter story….
We used to grow red raspberries for farmer’s markets. The best tasting berries you’ll ever have. Starting mid-end of May to early July each market, we’d bring about 200 pint baskets. Over the span of that time that would equal 1200 to 1500 baskets if you’re following along with the math.
Two of us retired people produced those by the way.
One looks at a basket of raspberries at a farmers market and never considers the work, for two people which was our case. Each berry is individually picked from a plant that has thorns and placed in paper pulp tills specially picked for market patrons who gasp and complain when berries arrive in plastic clamshell boxes. FYI. Berries, especially raspberries, do better and there is less ruined in plastic clamshells.
Those thorny plants, an acre of them, were planted by the two people, in a field that was cleared by hand, by same two people. Those baskets placed in a refrigerator at the end of the day only to be removed for transport to several eco-friendly coolers for travel to the farmers market long before farmer’s market patrons are ever up out of bed. Are you counting how many times those pint baskets are being handled?
The trip to market takes about two hours. Set up at market takes 45 minutes to an hour depending on the other items brought. Styrofoam coolers hold product longer but are quite horrifying to most buying raspberries.
Care is always placed in items situated on market tables because market patrons who have no clue about what it really takes to “nurture the planet”, will lecture on the horrors of plastic displays being petroleum based or some other hangup. Repurposed barn-wood shelves stacked on bricks is far better for these types…until the health inspector arrives.
Once you’re finally open for business, you know your berries will sell out within a half hour, even charging premium prices. You’ll always, and I mean always have customers who will say “ I’m going to buy 6 or 10, what’s the discount for bulk?”, my response, always was “that first till there was just as hard to produce and bring here as this last till here, it’s full price.”. They had read in the local foodie or green newspaper in the “10 tips for visiting the farmer’s market” article that haggling for bulk is acceptable and not insulting. Generally they didn’t walk away, and paid full price after the “farmer’s lesson in reality”. Chefs were the worst, tempers most of them, we didn’t work with many of them.
It really happens.
Good dose of wisdom in this piece. Thanks, I hope it is read widely.
I am not sure that I buy the premise here: "Why do we always need to show that we have power when we buy from the needy? And why are we generous to those who don't even need our generosity?"
In the example of the egg seller, no one forces him to sell the eggs at $2.50. Should he think the price is not fair, he can always refuse the sale.
On the point of "needyness".... how does one know who is truly "needy" and who is not? In brief interactions, there is simply not enough information. The egg seller could very well be a billionaire who enjoys selling eggs in his spare time, while the fancy restaurant owner could have a wife ill from cancer and be neck-deep in medical bills.