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Especially when you consider that most supermarket labels will also include the "price per unit weight" or "price per unit volume" on the shelf with a smaller f
by Kuiper 9y ago
Especially when you consider that most supermarket labels will also include the "price per unit weight" or "price per unit volume" on the shelf with a smaller font, it becomes trivially easy to compare which bottle of soap is going to get you the most for your money. Or maybe you neglect to do this (simply opting for the container that looks the most appealing rather than optimizing for the amount of liquid per dollar you'll receive) and as a result you have to suffer the catastrophic consequences of spending $9 per month on dish soap when you could have spent $7.20 instead.
The funny thing is that some of the asked are all arithmetic are constructed in such a way that you will get a "wrong" answer if you treat them as practical financial questions as opposed to purely arithmetic ones. For example, one of the sample questions in the article is "If a litre of cola costs $3.15, how much will you pay for a third of a litre?" This seems to be asking you to take $3.15 and divide it by three, but as a practical matter, it would be folly for me to take the price of a 20 oz soda bottle and then assume that I could calculate the cost of a 12 oz can simply by multiplying by 0.6. This question isn't a test of practical or financial literacy; it's purely arithmetic.
- _ah 9y agoI've started noticing some sneaky math in my local supermarket. When comparing two items, both list the unit price, but they list the price in different units. Example: A 1.4-lb package lists the price per oz, while the 0.8-lb package lists the price per lb. In every case, the intent seems too be an attempt to induce math errors and cause someone to accidentally purchase the package with the higher true unit price.
- fnord123 9y agoJust multiply or divide by 10s or 100s or whatever. It's not hard. Oh.. oh yeah. ;)
- walshemj 9y agoThat's not going to work with imperial units :-)
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- zyberzero 9y agoI've noticed this as well here in Sweden. Take for example bacon - product A is listed in terms of price/slice while the other is listed as price/weight. It's ridiculous.
- tonylemesmer 9y agosame in the UK, some items priced per kg and others per 100g - not insurmountable but just another slight hump in the road to easy comparison when you're stood there.
- 0xfeba 9y agoI've noticed a similar thing. I always assumed it was negligence, not malice.
- gumby 9y agoYeah, Whole Foods in particular often lists the price "per item" (one package of 14.5 oz at $8.25 "per item" and another of 12 oz at $6.10 "per item") which makes a mockery of the unit pricing law. I wrote to the A.G. a few years ago but nothing happened.
- rbcgerard 9y agoI’ve noticed some weird anomalies as well like if there is a small, medium, and large size package the large sized package isn’t always the cheapest per unit - as they assume customer will just assume the largest packages has the lowest per unit price
- WorldMaker 9y agoSome supermarket chains have an ethics policy against shelving like that with mixed units and if you catch it, and report it to a manager they will apologize and correct it. I recall Kroger used to have a big focus on it, but a quick skim of current ethics policies on their website doesn't show an explicit mention. However they still have "honesty" as a guiding goal, so supposedly it's still worth reporting.
- jacobolus 9y agoNote: $9/month (or $7.20/month) of dish soap is a ridiculously vast amount of dish soap for an ordinary family to be using. My wife and I have been on the same $10 (?) bottle of dish soap (yay Costco) for over 5 years and it is just now running out. (Not that this affects your main point.)
- djhworld 9y agoI guess the problem for the older generation, especially here in the UK, is they were raised on imperial units and have never really gotten used to metric. Not saying that excuses it, but it could explain part of the reason why some people don't fully grasp the £-per-X calculations
- vixen99 9y agoIf you could/can work out the change from a pound on a 4s-6½ (four shillings and six and a halfpence) packet of fags (circa 1050s), you'd hardly be likely to have much problem with metric. [As was: 1 pound = 240 pence = 20 shillings i.e. 1 shilling = 12 pence]
- beojan 9y agoI don't think they had tobacco in the 1050s.
- nkrisc 9y agoWell I'm not that old so maybe it's different but as an American raised on imperial units I find metric absurdly easy to learn because it is just shuffling a decimal point around. Going from metric to imperial must be challenging.
- Izkata 9y agoI'm also American raised on imperial, and metric conversions often confuse me _because_ of the uniformity of the conversions. Each imperial conversion has a unique number, making it easy for me to associate the unit with the number, but metric tends to get jumbled up.
- gowld 9y agoYou think someone who can't solve arithmetic problems is going to understand the consequences of compound interest and the TCO of revolving debt?
- watwut 9y agoThose are not all that much related.
- nasalgoat 9y agoI have extreme issues doing any sort of math in my head and have been like this since birth - I failed a general level math course in high school. I can't add 2 two-digit numbers in my head at all, forget multiplication. However, I understand compound interest and consumer debt very well - I pay my credit card in full every month, I save for retirement, I actively budget. I've also had a career in the computer and Internet business for 25 years. A calculator solves a lot of problems.
- 0xfeba 9y agoYeah. I suck at arithmetic. For the soda example, I just round down to 3 and say: "about $1". Much faster than worrying about 5 cents. But I also know how to solve for discount percentages, where most people would not, the article states.
- thanatropism 9y agoPeople are mixing "solving arithmetic problems" with "solving arithmetic problems without paper or calculator". Furthermore, GP's example mixes "can't calculate price per pound" with "Can't read a line graph". The former is okay, the more I advance in graduate training as a mathematician, the less I'm able to do mental math. The latter is bad. There are good reasons for teaching mental math to children, but for adults, really, calculators exist. If you can't calculate price-per-pound with a calculator, you have a low IQ (can't translate a simple written instruction to pressing buttons on your phone) and should be elligible for government aid. But if you can't calculate discounts, compound interest, read graphs, etc -- these can be taught. Should be taught. For example: banks could condition debt renegotiations to attendance to special financial education classes for adults. Governments could incentivize banks to do so by picking up part of the check for reduced debt.
- JustSomeNobody 9y ago>...catastrophic consequences of spending $9 per month on dish soap when you could have spent $7.20 instead. Indeed, for the poor, it doesn't take too many of these $1.80 differences to add up to catastrophe.
- CompelTechnic 9y agoI feel like a lot of people don't realize how much small changes can add up. For a lot of people living paycheck to paycheck, they would be broke regardless of whether they earned $1500/ month or $2000/ month, because their spending adjusts upward any chance they get. If you optimize your purchases on the margin, you can escape this trap much easier.
- sjg007 9y agoIf you can plan, purchase and store in bulk then you can save money on essentials. That's about it. Then you have to get rid of as many subscription based items you can.
- vkou 9y ago> Especially when you consider that most supermarket labels will also include the "price per unit weight" or "price per unit volume" My local grocery does this. Whenever it stocks multiple items, though, they are never in the same units of measurement. So, you get one brand of any given priced in $/ounce, and another priced in $/pound, or heaven help me, $/serving. I have no doubt that they pull this bullshit on purpose, to make comparing prices more difficult.