10 Tiny Price Increases that Drive Us Crazy

Price increases can be irritating. It is frustrating enough to receive percentage increases on your household utility bills or an interest hike on your credit card, but it seems like the most frustrating price increases are often those that are the most small. Somehow, these are the ones we feel like we have the least control over.

For example, a specific price increase that many of us find consistently exasperating is the daily change in gas prices. Some of us will even go so far as to wake up bright and early in the morning, before the rooster crows, to drive to the station and fill up our tanks since gas costs ever-so-slightly-less per gallon when it is cold that in the afternoon when it has heated up. If gas rises 10 cents per gallon at the end of the day, it's enough of a setback to fuel an argument once we get back home in the evening.

We're almost ready to jump off a bridge over just 10 cents.

And that's not the only thing that can feel like the economy is in a tailspin. Consider how many people have a gripe about the price of a stamp going up. It's a minuscule price increase that gets us feeling like the world has lost its innocence. And just imagine the outcry that would be raised if a 99 cent burger jumped to $1.09. A lot of us would probably begin to question whether we should start growing our own food instead of eating out.

Authorities seem to be aware of the pain these tiny price increases can produce in a citizen, and they impose them prudently, keeping most of society obedient as a result. Don't believe me? Think of just three tiny examples: library fines, tolls, and parking meter fines. Library fines frustrate us for two reasons: they are easy to be charged with if we simply overlook the due date of the item, and they are rarely reversible. Just a few cents of a library fine is enough to make you feel taken advantage of. Tolls work on a different premise; they are small charges that are often imposed for your ultimate benefit, but unless you regularly keep attuned to the fine details of your local government, you will probably feel like you didn't have a say in whether or not they were going to be taken from your pocket. Parking meter fines, on the other hand, are something you agree to as soon as you choose to take your parking place. However, if you somehow overestimate how long the few cents you put in the meter will protect you, and you do end up getting issued a citation from the police, you can bet that you are going to be kicking yourself because you hadn't just put in an extra 10 or 20 cents into the meter in the first place.

If you ever find yourself feeling miserable that you're having to be charged more than 10 cents a minute to make a long distance phone call or send a text message, just try to keep things in perspective. A dollar movie can still be enjoyable even if you have to pay $1.25, and a candy bar will be a tasty snack even if you have to pay 45 cents for it instead of 35. And don't waste time making haggling with your neighbor over whether or not you will need to pay an extra 50 cents for a garage sale trinket. It's not worth it.

Just remember that happiness cannot be measured in pennies and cents, even if unhappiness so often can be.