Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Burn That Money!

I suspect I joined the ranks of the 'sufficiently wealthy to not sweat the small stuff' when I stopped noticing petrol prices very much. I would be vaguely aware of the total dollar amount when I filled up, but the choice of which petrol station to go to was largely dictated by 'do I need petrol right now?', rather than 'is this place 5 cents cheaper than the other place?'.

This is fine, and I can totally rationalise this to myself - reducing the number of trips to the petrol station is worth the extra dollar or two I might pay.

But I can cement exactly when the 'careless rich' threshold was reached, and it was yesterday. I was driving home along a route I don't normally take, and the fuel light was on. There are two petrol stations right next to each other on the same side of the road, a Shell and a 76. As I was approaching deciding which one to go to, I actually thought 'I like the Shell Logo better, let's go there'. It was only when I passed the 76 that I realised that I actually had the chance to look at the signs and go to the cheaper option at zero cost, but it had been so long since I'd done that that the thought didn't actually occur to me in time.

At this point, I was sufficiently embarrassed at myself, that I got flustered and drove past both. This made me feel like even more of a lame-o. I went to one further up the road - I have no idea if it was cheaper or more expensive.

Ha. I guess there's a good reason they call it 'Overcoming Bias' and 'Less Wrong', not 'Perfect Rationality'.

Athenios periodically accuses me of being 'part of the 1%', in his hilarious attempts to ignite class war nonsense, and I have no doubt this post will be catnip to him.

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