Monday, May 10, 2010

Individual Cheapness


I just read that Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)is proposing as part of financial reform that ATM fees be capped at 50 cents. Yes, that would please me, but paying $2 per transaction is not my particular gripe. I feel that to be able to get cash at the deli on my corner is worth the $2 it charges. This article says that ATM fees range from $1 to $7. Depending on my desperation, I think my objection would kick in at about the $3.75 level. I've never seen a $7 ATM fee.

However today I was cleaning out my purse in advance of my trip and a postage stamp had lost some of its backing, got stuck to another piece of paper and I couldn't salvage it and it damned near killed me to sacrifice a stamp.

I was joking with a friend of mine about reading about a man who uses the interior wax paper/plastic liner of a cereal box to pack his lunches and this friend said she makes file folders out of cereal boxes. Ok, so she's creative.

I saw something on line about how to make a little wallet out of a cereal box and emailed it to her as a joke. Sure enough, the next time I saw her, she presented me with two little wallets she had made for me out of cereal boxes. It had to have taken her a tremendous amount of time. They are a little bigger than a business card and she made the rubber band closure.

I still shudder when I think of pointing out to the barista at Starbucks that someone had left pennies on the counter, and he took his hand and swept them into a garbage can. I wanted to jump over the counter to retrieve them. So I guess I can't make fun of my cereal box friend.

I believe I have sorted out the comments enable-ing, so what's your individual cheapness? Will you pay for an ATM?

2 comments:

la pirata said...

I'm happy that harkins Is doing something. I probably average a hundred bucks at an ATM. Charging 3% to give me my money is absurd. I've seen it as high as fiv bucks-in high end hotels where they have you trapped.

la pirata said...

It's like the freaking mafia I tell you