Is it normal to be surprised by prices of things you’ve never bought before?

14 Comments

As a kid my parents were hesitant to buy anything new. We weren’t poor, but my father would often comment that to replace our 90s lawnmower would put us back thousands of dollars. He uses the same one to this day. My mother was the same about the vacuum. Once I started adulting I would often echo these sentiments to my roommates if anything broke down. This led to many weird conversations which would end in me looking up prices of appliances, supplies, and even food and being dumbfounded by how attainable common essentials are. I haven’t learned my lesson and still every time I find myself needing to buy something I hadn’t before I groan and woe to very confused peers. I can’t be alone in this. IIN?

No, I could be a winning contestant on The Price Is Right. 4
Yes, I tend to greatly overestimate. 1
Yes, I tend to somewhat overestimate. 2
Yes, I tend to somewhat underestimate (inflation counts). 3
Yes, I tend to greatly underestimate. 1
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Comments ( 14 )
  • raisinbran
    3 years ago

    The fact that the word "adulting" exists concerns me greatly for your generation.

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    • NoMalarkey
      3 years ago

      It should. The word exists because it happens at different ages for different people. In my case I was a late bloomer...

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    • Boojum
      3 years ago

      "My little Emma is so amazing. She was just born with a natural talent for childing."

      "Please don't be too hard on Lucas. He's still working on his adolescenting skills."

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  • donteatstuffoffthesidewalk
    3 years ago

    people in my family would acquire used crap that didnt work and try ro fix it but they sucked at it and would take it out on me

    fuck you family i can fuckin fix anythin and i mean anythin now and make a decent livin at it

    also i buy broken down junk for a steep discount while pretendin to be a clueless rube whos gonna pay someone else to fix it

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    • NoMalarkey
      3 years ago

      Good on you!! May your hard work turn good profits.

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  • LloydAsher
    3 years ago

    Shit is not built like it used to. Also generally people dont know how to do even basic maintenance on equipment so for the average millenial do they throw out their lawnmower when it doesnt cut anymore or do they check to see if the blade needs sharpening or if peice needs a replacement. Basic maintenance can make your tools go far beyond a normal lifespan. Heck my father uses a table saw from the 50s, still runs extremely well. Just needed its parts replaced every now and again.

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    • raisinbran
      3 years ago

      The newer stuff is built so you can't even repair it anymore if you wanted to. Pretty soon we'll bring cars to the scrap yard because they ran out of gas.

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      • LloydAsher
        3 years ago

        Depends on what you buy. I dont know shit about electronics, so if that's the problem I got to take it in for repairs. But if it's a mechanical problem, I can take it apart and replace it. If I cant take it apart well, then I'm screwed.

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  • Meowypowers
    3 years ago

    I am like that and i'm not that old lol. I am 28. I think it comes from growing up in Soviet communist culture where you have to fix everything. Realizing you can afford and it is more practicle to replace broken stuff with new stuff is a luxury that is hard to learn.

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  • Mammal-lover
    3 years ago

    My parents were similar. They enjoyed telling us they paid like 50 bucks for something from the dollar store then you get to real items. Lawn mowers for example.

    Yours sound like they are from a day in age when things weren't so easily obtained and they haven't caught up with time

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    • NoMalarkey
      3 years ago

      Agreed, and I saw another comment with a Russian perspective that I found interesting on here. My parents had goals to finish college but well when a man and a woman love each other very much life can get interrupted in huge ways. Then the 2007 recession, lord help me there was talk of growing cauliflower in the dirt out back to be our food for the winter

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  • Boojum
    3 years ago

    Most kids have little conception of how much stuff costs and how that relates to what its reasonable to expect to earn. If you were insulated from these facts of life until you were in your late teens, it's not surprising that this just isn't information you make an effort to retain and so you're continually surprised. Unless you have some form of dyscalculia, the numbers will probably sink in sooner or later.

    As for fixing things rather than throwing them away and buying new when something goes wrong, I think this is an excellent approach. Our economy is based on the concept of constantly increasing production and consumption, but most people don't have unlimited financial resources, and in the grand scale of things, our steadily increasing consumption of the world's finite natural resources just isn't sustainable indefinitely.

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  • Somenormie
    3 years ago

    Yes and I always think it is cheaper.

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  • Blipblorpbing
    3 years ago

    I personally overestimate and underestimate for food I over estimate and on things like home ownership oh god I underestimate.

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