How Much Is That?

When I was a kid I was really good at guessing the right prices on the TV show The Price Is Right. One of Bob Barker’s beauties would wave her arm model style in from of a new Amana Radar Range and I almost always guessed the price better than any contestant on the show. This was the case from the time I was about nine or ten. I was good at guessing the value of everything from a bottle of Windex to the total of the better of the two showcase showdowns.

I had no reason to have bought any of the items featured on the show. I can’t ever remember doing any appliance shopping although I did help my mother with grocery shopping. I must have just picked up the cost of items from watching other games shows that told the values, like Let’s Make a Deal. I also ran errands every Saturday with my father and I always was interested in how much things cost.

Today Carter’s advisory went to the Habitat ReStore to do their community service time. As one of the mother’s who has a more flexible schedule I drove half the class to and from the store.

Since I had never actually been in the ReStore I went inside to retrieve the kids at the pick up time.   I encountered Carter and her friend Amelia wearing blue habitat vests with a price tag gun, hanging hardware on a pegboard.

“What work did you do today?” I asked.

“Mom, we did the craziest thing,” Carter said. “We priced things.”

“Was it fun?” I asked.

“It was scary. We did not have any guidelines about how much things should cost and they told us just to price stuff.”

Then another classmate came up and basically reiterated the same thing. “I had no idea how much this giant window was worth, so I just put $200 on it.”

It made me chuckle. These kids have most certainly never strolled the aisles of Home Depot studying the prices of new doorknobs or kitchen sinks, how in the world would they know any value for a used door or ceiling fan? I doubt any of them had ever watched the price is right. Understanding the value of money, goods and services is a long-term study that starts with understanding how hard it is to earn the money in the first place.

Carter did say the volunteer supervisor did say at the end they had made the prices of some cabinet knobs too low at .50¢, they should have been $1. Seems like that was info she could have told them up front. I guess if you are in the market for some underpriced used hardware now is the time to visit the Durham Habitat store. With teenage pricing schemes I’m sure you can find a deal.