Ghostwriting No. 12: The Buck Stops (being so variable) Here

You, and hundreds of other people, go to Big Company for their 20% off sale on a sales tax holiday weekend. Wow! You saved $12.56 on stuff you really needed. But let's stop and think for a moment. Where is the hypothetical $12.56?

Since the state didn't collect the sales tax, it has to slash the budget (threatening your job if you're employed by the university) or raise fees or taxes in some other area, possibly out of your wages through income taxes. No, of course your $4.13 isn't going to make the difference all by itself, but remember how many people were at the sale?

Besides that, Big Company didn't get full price for its goods, so it has to cut an expense or raise its prices, possibly hitting your wallet again. And you paid with a credit card, so Big Company lost another 2-5% of its income on your purchases, meaning Big Company has to up its prices another 5%.

But wait, you say. A lot of companies are slashing prices right now. On some of their goods, yes. All of them? Well, if they're really reducing prices everywhere, then where are they saving the money they aren't raising? Are they closing open stores and cutting employee hours? That's a quick way for an employer to save a lot of money. Or maybe they're cutting their services. They don't fix your toaster anymore; they just expect you to buy a new one. How much money are you going to end up spending on a new toaster? Not $50, but still, more than getting it repaired would have cost if Big Company still offered repair services.

Every time you save money, those savings have to come from somewhere. Out of someone's pocket. Including yours, in the long run. Sure, maybe you're one of the people who is really good at 'beating the game,' but the cost of your savings still comes back around to you somehow, at the very least by making it harder for someone to hire you, for you to take home all the money you earned, and for you to spend money in your local economy to keep a sustainable cycle going.

And isn't sustainability something we all want?

Here at the Haunted Bookshop, we're still charging about half of the original price of goods. We're still paying for books in proportion to purchase price and quality. We're putting the money right back into the community by spending as many dollars as we can locally, especially the money we give to local non-profit organizations. And because you've supported us over the years, we're able to continue playing this role on the local economy.

You can help us in two very important ways: Use cash, which we don't have to pay a 4% premium to get deposited in our bank account, and don't expect us to put on big sales. That way we don't have to raise our prices or cut our budget, which means you can buy a book when you want it - even if you want it on a day that isn't during a Giant Clearance Sale - at a reasonable price, from a well-staffed, full-service store.

Wouldn't you rather stop gambling, waiting, worrying about whether you forgot your coupons or are paying too much or have fallen for an alluring ad campaign? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to count on quality goods and services at stable, reasonable prices all the time? We think so.

The money we don't overcharge you to pay for the money you don't really save just cancels out, while the money we make stays in your community, and you don't even have to try to remember which weekend you get how much percent off if you have a logo tote back and a valid loyalty card thinger from the company that sold your name to a spam sender, and we don't have to put gooey stickers on books and pay you confusingly large or small amounts of money for your books based on varying upcoming deals or on how close we are to another confusing sale season.

Just simple value all the time. Like telling the truth, it's so much easier. That's what we believe, anyway.