#052 Inefficient Shopping

I live on an island (I've mentioned this before), so shopping is not a particularly easy task. There are not many stores on my island, and the stores that are there carry the basics when it comes to food, water and beer. Also, these stores are more expensive because the food needs to be purchased and then brought onto the island, so therefore the stores mark up everything about 10% to make a profit. I am not against this practice - these are just mom & pop stores and they need to make a living for themselves.

When the person I live with and I need to go purchase something from either of a couple big box home stores, it is a minimum 25 mile drive. This past Saturday's trip consisted of going to a specific tool store - a favorite of his - which is 35 miles from our home. We only go to this store about once a month or so because it is so out of the way and not actually on the way anywhere we would normally go... so I didn't have a problem with making the trip.

What I DID have a problem with was the fact that he needed to purchase something of which he thought he remembered the specific size he needed. When we got to the store, he took a look at what he thought was the correct size in the package, then realized he wasn't actually sure if that was, in fact, the correct size. This item happened to be on sale, and sale items rarely last very long in this store (sometimes it's hit or miss because they have great prices anyways). I suggested to buy the size he thought it was (on sale) and we could always return it at a later time if it wasn't the right size. He decided to pass on it altogether and just check it out when he got home.

Once home, he realized that the size he thought he needed WAS, in fact, the correct size.... so he decided to have me go back to this store on Sunday (the next day) on my way to my parents' house for Mother's Day. Again, this store is NOT on the way to anywhere I would normally go, and it is especially not on the way to my parents' house. He also had me pick up a few other things that he forgot to grab the previous day to complete his shopping at that store this time around.

This is exactly why I tell him (and anyone else for that matter) to MAKE A LIST any time you go shopping. I don't go shopping for anything unless I have a list. Sometimes I may purchase more than what was on the list, but at least I got everything I needed. It is so completely frustrating going 70 miles round-trip for something, only to have to double that because someone didn't make a shopping list to pick up the right items. The amount of money we saved for the items being on sale combined with the coupon we used actually doesn't even add up to the amount of money we spent on gas to get there. Seriously. We may as well have just purchased it online and paid to have them ship it to our house.