10. Pre-cut vegetables and fruits: 40% mark-up
Like many of these overpriced products, pre-cut vegetables and fruits are a way to save time. But it's time you're paying for, sometimes as much as 40 percent more for. That's just one of the traps that grocery stores use to get you to spend more money. You'll likely get fresher fruit and veggies by buying them at the farmer's market or at the grocery store and cutting them up at home.
I guess it’s forgivable if you’re lazy.
9. Hotel in-room movies: 200% mark-up
In-room movies are another way for hotels to stick it to your wallet while you're stuck in a room with nothing to do. Why risk trying to find a local theatre or your laptop when you can pay 200% more for the ease of watching the movie in the safety of your room?
However, I believe the fad of watching movies in your hotel is dying, since everything’s now done with more mobile devices. Plus, I hardly remember the last time I watched the TV even.
8. Greeting cards: 200% mark-up
As they say, the best greeting cards are those made by your own hands. So why do people pay the 200% mark-up that stores put on greeting cards? For the convenience of course, and a little bit of the art as well (for the creatively challenged). Cards that you’d probably end up throwing away unless they were made by hands, where you then feel guilty and oblige to keep. It works.
7. Wine: 300% mark-up
It's not unheard of for a restaurant to pay $5 wholesale for a bottle of wine and charge a customer $25 for the same bottle. A glass of wine can have a higher mark-up because the bottle could be thrown away if all of it isn't used.
The San Francisco Chronicle's food critic says that a mark-up of 2.5 times the wholesale price of wine is fair at restaurants to cover the cost of stocking the wines, serving it and still reaping a healthy profit. A $10 wholesale bottle should cost the diner about $25, and about $15 retail. Forgivable.
6. Coffee: 300% mark-up
Thanks Starbucks. Nowadays, it's pretty common to pay a mark-up of 300% or more for coffee. Just keep in mind: That $3 cup of coffee (assuming you don't add shots, or buy some fancy concoction) you buy at the corner cafe can be made at home for a quarter.
But for fancy concoctions, definitely forgivable. Oh Java Chip ❤
5. Hotel minibar: 400% mark-up
A 1,300 percent markup on Gummy Bears at the Omni Berkshire Place in New York may be the high point of hotel minibars mark ups, but unfortunately it's not that outrageous. Mark-ups of 300 percent to 400 percent are common at hotel minibars.
Oyster.com found some crazy minibar charges in New York City, including $10 for a bottle of water and a $12 toothpaste kit. Do your wallet a favour and keep the fridge door closed.
4. Brand name drugs: 200% to 3,000% mark-up
Over-the-counter medications were at the top of a recent WalletPop list of products to always buy generic — and for good reason. Some estimates put the mark-up of brand name drugs at 600,000% when compared to the cost of active ingredients. But, on average, the mark-up (while still high) is much lower than that.
In the past year, the cost of brand name prescriptions has increased nearly 10 percent, while generics have dropped, according to American Association of Retired Persons. Between April 2009 and March 2010, the average annual drug cost for a person taking three generic medications decreased by $51, while someone taking three brand name prescription drugs saw their cost increase $706. It was the biggest brand drug price spike in eight years, the AARP said.
Generic drugs are often much cheaper than brand names, but even prices on generic drugs, such as generic Prozac, vary widely.
It’s just starting to get good now...
3. Movie cinema popcorn: 1,275% mark-up
When a movie is first released, most of the movie ticket proceeds go to the movie studios, not the cinema. Theatre owners try to make up the difference by selling more snacks such as popcorn. It's an effective method. When you pay $6 for a medium-sized bag of popcorn in cinemas, you're paying a 1,275 percent mark-up compared to the cost of buying three 3.5-ounce bags of microwaveable popcorn sold in a box for about $3 at the store.
The average movie cinema makes 40 percent of its profits from concessions. Owners try to keep ticket prices lower, knowing that higher ticket prices would stop you from going in, and buying a soda, candy bar or bag of popcorn. Smart!
2. Bottled water: 4,000% mark-up
When the business of bottled water has a documentary film made about it, you know something's awry. Estimates are all over the place for how much more bottled water costs than tap water from home. The web site Twilight Earth puts it at a 4,000 percent mark-up, partly based on the fact that it takes five bottles of water to make the plastic for one bottle of water. Blogger Jeff Berndt points out that water that is pre-packaged is more expensive than a gallon of gas.
Since about 40 percent of bottled water comes from municipal taps, you're better off refilling that plastic bottle at home and toting it around.
1. Text messages: 6,000% - 7,000% mark-up!
According to a story in the Chicago Tribune, outgoing 160-character text messages on a cell phone typically costs users 20 cents, while it only costs carriers three-tenths of a single cent to process. That's a 6,000 percent profit or more.
SMS texts are limited to 160 characters because they, in effect, piggyback on a secondary data channel necessary to coordinate voice communications. Even if you're paying 10 cents per text, that's nothing to LOL about.
"Six hundred text messages contain less data than one minute of a phone call," testified Consumers Union policy analyst Joel Kelsey at a hearing before Congress. If text data rates applied, he said, a brief cell conversation would cost customers $120.
Tip of the iceberg on the cost of consumerism, food for thought.
Related: WalletPop
Edited: Shawn
Edited: Shawn
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