Calculating a 10% Discount

 

There are only a few things in life that are as easy as calculating a 10% discount.  I think I grasped the concept at about age 7.  Look at the total and move the decimal point one digit to the left to figure out what a 10% discount would be.  For example a $10.00 total would yield a $1 discount.  A $100.00 total would yield a $10 discount.  If you are out here surfing through personal finance websites, I’m sure you didn’t just learn something new.  If you happen to be Forest Gump, you also probably didn’t learn anything new here.

So why do the employees and managers at my local Mexican fast food restaurant struggle to calculate a 10% discount on my total EVERY time I go in there?  You see, I bought one of those discount cards from the neighbor who was selling them as a football fundraiser.  I wanted to support him and also noticed that my favorite Mexican fast food chain had a 10% off discount simply by flashing the card at them when I visit.  Anyway, every time I go in to the restaurant, the employee has to call over the manager, who then proceeds to struggle for a couple minutes trying to calculate the discount.  Usually they head to the calculator and crunch some numbers. (And they still manage to come up with the wrong answer most of the time).

The good news is that their complete lack of ability to calculate the appropriate 10% discount usually works in my favor.  Sometimes by a little bit, but most of the time the discount ends up being somewhat substantial.  Here are the details from my latest visit:

Ticket total before tax: $7.48

The discount I received: $2.51

Total cost after discount: $ $4.98

That means that, due to the managers inability to figure out a 10% discount, they instead gave me a 33% discount.  Why didn’t my math teach ever tell me I’d be the beneficiary of other people’s lack of math skills?