On Christmas Day, it snowed close to 16 inches.  I had rented a Blue-Ray DVD (Death Race) the day before.  I had to return it before 5 pm or I would have been charged $5.   I asked a few of my friends what they would do.  A resounding 9 out of 10 people said just return it the next day and take the $5.

This is what is scary to me.  To the average person, it might only seem like $5 but if you apply this concept to more things, it will add up.  One of these concepts is the local library late fees.  It is $0.15 late charge per day per book.  For example, if you had 10 books checked out, that is $1.50 ($0.15 * 10) per day.  Let’s say you went on vacation and forgot about the books for 30 days, that ends up being $45.

Now the question is what can $45 buy:

1.  One and a half month’s of gym membership.
2.  45 rentals on Tuesdays and Thursdays.   It is $1 to rent a DVD (Blue-Ray! included) on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
3.  Close to two weeks of groceries for me.

I can go on and on but you get the point.  So next time when you can thinking of not returning something the day it is due, just think of the impact it will have on your finances.

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