The Value of a Dollar

My husband loved the idea of the video boxes when they first started popping up.  Blockbuster Express and Redbox boxes made it possible to touch a screen and out popped a video for a $1.00 /night plus tax. 

It was even nicer once our Blockbusters and Hollywood Videos started to close.

Who cares if the movies come out later than in regular video stores?  We're lucky we get to see movies at all anymore so there is always something we haven't seen yet in the boxes.

We had tried the online services but there was something about being able to go get what you wanted when you wanted that we both missed. Updating our queue online was even a pain since my husband never did it and I would have to remind him what was coming out.  Otherwise, we only got movies I was interested in seeing.

Unfortunately, I have the mentality of "Oh, I'll return it tomorrow" with the video boxes. "It's only another $1."  By the time I do return it my charges are about what they would have been had I rented it at a regular video store, if not more.

There is always On Demand but then I think of how much cheaper it is to rent from those bright, eye catching boxes when I am at the grocery store and I get sucked right back in. Cheaper is always better, right? Even if it isn't really cheaper in the end.

Case in point: I have You Again (which my husband has no desire to see) in my purse where it has remained for the last week since I haven't had a chance to watch it.  It was supposed to be my motivation for putting laundry away upstairs after the girls were in bed.  I could watch it in our bedroom as I folded clothes and gave my husband time to relax and unwind in our living room, watching his shows recorded on the DVR.  That was the plan.  That hasn't happened yet.  By the time the kids are in bed, I am exhausted and ready to collapse into a heap and ...zzzzz. 

See how quickly my plans get derailed?

So I should return it...but I really want to see the darn movie...

And I keep telling myself, tonight will be different.  Then, I wake up the next morning thinking "shoot, I should have stayed awake and watched the darn movie.  I'm going to return it today."

I wonder how much of the money coming into those video boxes is from people like myself who do this? 

But in reality, it isn't just the videos.  My "it's only a dollar" mentality extends to the grocery store or any kind of shopping at all.  Even though I tell myself that I am not going to buy any more stuff  from the dollar bins at Michael's or those dollar bins at Target I find myself doing it again and again because it's only a dollar.  This is why my craft bins, gift bins, and party bins are overflowing with "stuff". 

Are you guilty of the "it's only a dollar" mentality to?  Or do you ever keep telling yourself to do something and you have the best intentions of doing it but at the same time are just fooling yourself because chances are you probably aren't going to do it?