I buy a car once every 10 years or so, so it's not much overhead to research and negotiate that sale when you amortize it over the life of the car. For most other things, I pretty much pay the price I'm presented if I think it's acceptable.
I do my grocery shopping at one grocery store. I know I'm paying a bit more for some items (and much more for a few), but it's worth it to me because it means I don't have to make extra trips to Target and Trader Joe's, plus I don't have to remember what the prices are at all three stores so that I buy the right items at the right store. The vast majority of my spending falls into this category.
In fact, car and salary are the only two things I can think of that I actually negotiate at all. Even my house I didn't really negotiate. I made an offer slightly below asking and accepted the sellers counter in the middle.
As a non-FAANG software engineer in the bay area, I definitely don't consider myself super rich. (NB: I didn't buy a house in the bay area, but where I plan to eventually retire. For now it's just a vacation home. I'll never make enough to afford a house in the bay.)
> plus I don't have to remember what the prices are at all three [grocery] stores
I take your point that only the big things are worth sweating, but I feel like local comparison shopping is the sort of thing technology should make easy, and it still seems really hard. User uploaded systems, like GasBuddy, probably wouldn't work on so many items, unless uploading the price data could be automated somehow.
If we could kill paper receipts and instead get per-item sales data pumped to our feed of choice (Mint? Email?), then it'd be much easier to build a system on top of that that would run weekly local price comparisons. If you really wanted only one trip, maybe it could compare your total shopping list.
I know a lot of stores offer emailed receipts as an option now, it'd be a little more seamless if your payment system communicated your receipt preferences automatically, and if Mint or something like it was ready to catch that data.
I do my grocery shopping at one grocery store. I know I'm paying a bit more for some items (and much more for a few), but it's worth it to me because it means I don't have to make extra trips to Target and Trader Joe's, plus I don't have to remember what the prices are at all three stores so that I buy the right items at the right store. The vast majority of my spending falls into this category.
In fact, car and salary are the only two things I can think of that I actually negotiate at all. Even my house I didn't really negotiate. I made an offer slightly below asking and accepted the sellers counter in the middle.
As a non-FAANG software engineer in the bay area, I definitely don't consider myself super rich. (NB: I didn't buy a house in the bay area, but where I plan to eventually retire. For now it's just a vacation home. I'll never make enough to afford a house in the bay.)