Car Owner Thought They Were Being A Savvy Spender, 5 Years Later Realize That They Fumbled

Every human being messes up at some point in their life; it’s simply in our nature! Wardrobe malfunctions, autocorrect fails, kitchen disasters, mistaking strangers for your pals and waving hello to them like an idiot – what haven’t we done? 

Sometimes, though, to accept the blunder and finally move on, we need to vent, and this is exactly what this Redditor did; however, their so-called slip-up also happened to cost them a whopping $600.

Local gas station has a promotion where if you buy a car wash, the gas price is reduced by $0.10

Every time the person’s car needed cleaning, they’d buy discounted gas and get a wash from the cashier

“TIFU by not realizing I was paying twice the price to wash my car” – this internet user took to one of Reddit’s communities to tell its members a tale of how they accidentally spent $600 on car washes over the course of 5 years. The post managed to garner 9.3K upvotes as well as 431 comments discussing the situation. 

We all love a little bargain. It’s no secret! 

Black Friday, clearance sales, coupon codes, buy-one-get-one-free deals, bundles, membership discounts, student discounts, end-of-season sales, free samples, cashback offers, Groupon steals – as long as it saves a penny or two, we want it. 

Besides, we live in such an unpredictable world where none of us know what tomorrow will bring, so saving up and being careful with our spending are the two things most of us have been religiously concerned about at some point in our lives.  

However, despite all the incredibly beneficial aspects that owning a piggy bank offers, with all the sky-high prices, being thrifty is not something that comes easily. Just think about it: the lifestyle inflation, debt, emergency expenses, temptations in the form of the 9th iced caramel macchiato in a week – it’s all very conflicting.  

But to give you a more illustrative example and perhaps ease the stress regarding your savings account (or lack of it), take a look at this piece from Gitnux! The publisher suggests that “the majority of Americans have less than $1,000 in savings (69%), with 34% having zero savings and 22% saving less than 5% of their income.”

So, if you also struggle to put some money aside, just know that you’re not the only one! At the end of the day, you can’t guard yourself from everything, and it’s the thought that counts, eh? 

The star of today’s article, for example, also thought they’d been saving themselves some bucks – but it turns out they’d actually been overpaying for the last half a decade, resulting in them blowing $600 at their local gas station. 

Years later, their pal points out that the machine charges you at the pump, meaning that they’d been paying double

The tale is pretty straightforward, yet it definitely serves as a great example of how we should check our receipts more often… And perhaps ask for clarification when needed. 

u/tingbudongma’s local gas station offers a deal where the gas price gets reduced by $0.10/gallon if you buy a car wash with your gas purchase. The way it works is when you pay, a prompt pops up asking whether you’d like a car wash, and if you press “yes,” the gas price goes down. 

So, that’s exactly what the OP would do whenever their car needed some cleaning; however, they did admit to wondering how the place ensured that folks actually purchased the car wash and didn’t just bolt after getting cheaper gas. 

Anywho, the same routine continued for the next five years, where the author would press “yes,” pump their discounted gas, and then go to the employee and purchase a car wash. 

But recently, their pal tagged along, and upon almost completing their usual ritual, the OP was stopped and essentially told that the machine charges you for the car wash and that all they had to do was take the receipt and show it to the cashier to authorize! 

Oops, I guess?  

Fellow online users shared their thoughts and opinions on the situation