Value Of A Pound Vs The Value Of A Percent (A Lesson For Everyone)

I read the article on the Lovemoney website over a year ago. Admittedly, I’m not an avid reader of the website. Albeit, fate connected me with this particular article. It’s nothing amazing or ground breaking, but I liked how such a simple and practical idea was put across. It’s the simple things, right?

The article is quite long, and I only really liked one section of it (I didn’t dislike the other sections, but this one bit just stood-out), where the author explains the difference between the value of a pound and the value of a percentage, and how we get it wrong.

Let’s say you want a DVD. In the shop down your road it costs £20, but with a short drive into town you’ll have it for £10, saving a massive 50%. So you decide to drive into town.

The next day, you want a new TV. On your street it costs £1,000, and in town it’s £990. At £10 less, that’s just a 1% saving, so this time you don’t drive into town.

Somewhere, you’ve made a mistake. The saving in both cases is £10. So do you want that £10 or don’t you?

Love it! I want that £10! I just needed reminding.

Somewhere along the line we many of us forgot the real value of the pound, didn’t we?

I don’t like buying cheap junk, whether it’s for myself, or any of my buy-to-let properties. However, I do like the idea of saving money where it can be saved. I’m pretty sure if we put the value of a pound before the value of a percentage, overtime our balance sheets would look rather healthier.

This is probably a pointless blog post to most of you, but it’s a nice reminder to myself, so I thought I’d quickly jot it down. However, I hope it reminds at least one of you out there what the real value of a pound is, even when purchasing something as basic as bog-roll.