Last night my partner made dinner; spaghetti and meatballs. He used a bottle of Ragu Pasta sauce and added chopped green peppers, mushrooms and meatballs. But he also added water. It would have been an awesome meal except for the added water in the sauce. Instead of a lovely sauce that stuck to your noodles, the sauce instead was an almost tasteless soup that collected at the bottom of our plates.

When I asked my partner about it, he said he added the water because some of the thick sauce stuck to the bottom of the bottle and it was hard to get it out. The water made it soupy enough to get out. I was upset. The meal wasn’t appetizing so I felt we wasted money while trying to save a few pennies by getting the most sauce he could from the bottle.

Moral of the story? I guess my partner and I learned it’s not worth trying to save a few pennies at the risk of ruining a good deal (or meal in this case). This initial story might sound just a little bit silly but it reminds me of another. My relatives had an after-school tutor for their child to help her with Math. This tutor was wonderful, the kid liked him and her grades were improving, he got along with the parents and he came at a reasonable price. However, he was always 10 minutes late. Even when the family suggested that they bump the session times a bit later in the day, he still came 10 minutes late. After a few months, the parents fired him. They were not able to find another tutor that was as effective after that. They lost their good deal.

So, another moral might be, don’t be TOO anal about savings or getting your money’s worth. It might just bite you in the a$$.