Buying In: A Good Deal

This series of articles from Jessica Bennett is a personal reflection based on observations of society and its trends — learned through the eyes of a retail salesgirl. In her last installment, Mirrors, Jessica examined the dangers of second-hand self-esteem. The subject of money can be just as precarious.

“So you think that money is the root of all evil?”

This is a question posed by Francisco d’Anconia in Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged. Francisco, and through him Rand, goes on to refute this statement from an array of angles. Here is a small addition from me.

A lot of people in our society fret about money. On its most basic level, money is simply a currency used to purchase goods. In reality, however, money has inherited a social stigma, as well as many symbolic representations. Money is a safety net. It is power. The major flaw in these premises is that money has been converted into an ideological representation, which, for the purposes of rationality, it is not.

Money is simply a means to an end. One of the greatest traps of money is in perceiving it as an end to itself. Money doesn’t buy power: it is power. The people who carry this faulty notion are the ones who tremble at parting with their cash. For them, getting a “good deal” is like gaining power. The accuracy of this perception is as flimsy as a recklessly thrown morale.

“A penny saved is a penny earned.”

Working in the women’s clothing department of a major department store provided me with the opportunity to observe the way people understand and spend their money. I have come to realize that the perception of saving money is in itself a value. Saving money is seen as an accomplishment: something to brag to friends about, something to savor, something that ultimately justifies the purchase. I cannot count the number of women with the same mischievous look in their eyes who explained how they “just couldn’t pass it up.” In effect, the idea of ‘saving money’ is worth more than the object purchased. When a person buys something simply because it is “such a good deal,” they are paying money for the reward of saving money.

Another author I enjoy is George Orwell.

“2 + 2 = 4”

One slow night, I wondered out loud to my manager: “If there was a pretty dress originally priced at $39.99, and it wasn’t on sale, no one would buy it. Customers always walk right past the regularly priced racks and look at the sale stuff.”

My boss raised an eyebrow. “Your point is…?”

“Well, if that same dress was marked up to $69.99, then put on sale for $39.99, people would buy it and congratulate themselves for saving so much money.”

“It’s kind of depressing if you think about it,” my boss acknowledged.

“Well, those women would think that they saved $30.00, but in reality they saved nothing, because they only paid what the dress was worth. The money that they ‘saved’ never existed except in their imagination.”

My boss and I stared at each other feeling the weight of this profound revelation. We both began to laugh.

“Every little bit counts.”

The perception of money does strange things to people. Some become desperate to save every last penny. In their obsessive quest to ultimate thriftdom, they end up selling something priceless. Call it pride or self worth, but I think of it as a sort of self respect that enables one to shrug off the minor setbacks, or to buy something fantastic without a coupon and still feel proud of oneself.

At my job, I often avoided working at the cash register. I did this primarily to avoid dealing with people and their money issues. One particular episode stands out in my mind.

A woman approached the counter and spread a white shirt very carefully across the cash register. “Right there!” her long painted fingernail stabbed down at the collar. “Makeup.” She put a hand on her hip waiting.

“Makeup is always washable, but I’m sure that we have more of these. I can go get you another one,” I replied.

“What about a discount?”

“But there are others over there, if the makeup is a problem.”

“But I want the discount!”

There is something about a woman demanding to purchase a soiled shirt for a 10% discount that makes me both sad and cynical.

The quest to “save money” is often a hunt for the worthless. Every year our store would make the final markdowns of the merchandise that simply didn’t sell. It was a rack of hideous, strange, and misfit clothing, but as soon as that $2.77 sign went up, those clothing items were jewels to be pillaged. The $2.77 rack is like blood in the water, and often reminded me of a shark feeding frenzy. Clothing was blindly snapped up by greedy hands and thrown across my counter. Loaded racks of the ugliest designs imaginable disappeared in days.

“You get what you pay for.”

Through my job as a salesgirl, I began to understand how others perceive money. I noticed many trends and ideas that I believe are both wrong and harmful. If I could humbly submit my own motto on the subject it would be: “Money is a means to an end, not the end.” If I were allowed to tape any one phrase across the cash register of the store where I worked, it would be this: “Saving money on a purchase always means spending money first.”

I am not saying that one should pay full price for every object and stoutly refuse to touch a clearance rack. I am saying: Buy to buy, not to save money. If you have a coupon for something you need, wonderful. But don’t refuse to buy a shirt that looks great, is made well, and you’ll wear for years because you can’t get an extra dollar off. Don’t let money be anything but money.

I gave the woman with the makeup-stained shirt 10% off. She saved less than $2.00, but looked at me liked she had just won the lottery and said:

“What a deal!”


Jessica Bennett attends school at Truman State University where she is studying for a BA in communications. She has loved writing all her life, and hopes to incorporate her passion into a full-time writing career.

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