OK, so I leave work about 2:30 to get some things done before I had to go to a Dr’s appointment. I come home and check the mail… In it is a check from the City of Greer paying me back for the 4 hours I spent at Jury Duty more than a month ago. I was expecting something like $20 for it, but had really forgotten by this point that I’d even gone.
I quickly open the envelope to check and see how much I’d made for wasting my day off. I was shocked. Inside was a check for $5.00. That’s right, you heard me… 5 lousy dollars. So, with my disappointment, I started doing that really dangerous thing I do occasionally… Thinking…
I was joking with my mom that with gas prices as high as they are these days, it’s barely worth me going to the bank to deposit the worthless check. After dinner, I quickly ran through some rough calculations, and here they are:
-
Mailing Envelope – $0.05
Staples – 500 for $23.78 -
Postage – $0.37
USPS – Ripoff for standard mailing -
Labor – $0.50
This assumed a total of 5 minutes to: Enter Data into Accounting Program, Print Check, Fold Check/Envelope and then Mail Check. I assumed an average secretarial salary of $6/hour (mainly just to make myself feel better about my salary). -
Gas to Bank – $0.35
The nearest Bank of America is approximately 2 miles away (4 round trip). Since they’re like CVS these days, it couldn’t be too much more than that anywhere. Gas prices in the Upstate of South Carolina currently sit somewhere around $2.15/gallon for Regular Unleaded. I assumed an average car got somewhere around 25 mpg (mine gets around 40, trucks get around 15, seemed safe). -
Time to Bank – $1.70
Here’s where I assumed more along the lines of me personally dropping off the check on company time. I assumed an average salary of around $10/hour (yeah, now we’re getting depressing). I also assumed a total of about 10 minutes to not only fill out the deposit slip, but also to drive to the bank and back. Had I planned for this during my lunch break, I probably could have wasted the entire hour trying to get to either of the banks nearby. -
Deposit Envelope – $0.05
I used the same numbers as for the mailing envelope above. These are special envelopes, so they probably actually cost a bit more. - Total Cost: $3.02
- Total Remaining Value: $1.98
Welp, there you have it. Nice to know it was worth all the effort. I swear, if I hadn’t had this other check from my last contracting job still in my wallet since early March, I wouldn’t waste my time… Thank you Greer City for providing me the funds to feed… no one.
Yah man, Sphinx on Butler road had Premium at $2.36 cents a gallon. Finally I’m at a point in my life where “m making real money and it all goes to gas
Yeah, there was a time when I bought premium… Back a couple years ago when regular was down around 90 cents a gallon, and premium was just topping $1.00 a gallon, I’d throw in every other tank-full of premium… Now I’ve got a car that gets about 10 miles to the gallon better than the one I had then, and I still can barely afford regular.
If I pick up an extra contracting job once every month or two and make a couple extra bucks unexpectedly, I’ll treat myself to a couple gallons of plus-grade… Is this what my life has come down to?