Sometimes it’s well worth a trip to return small items to a store—or to question a bill—that may seem too minor to be bothered with. A penny saved, after all, is a penny earned…and pennies add up.

For a week or two, I’ve needed to return a jug of Costco’s “environmentally friendly” laundry detergent and trade it in on the “Free & Clear Ultra” version. Stupidly, I imagined that environmentally friendly meant “unadulterated by industrial perfumes.” Wrong! When I opened it I found it stinks of some allegedly “clean-smelling” chemical. I want my sheets to smell of the open air and my clothing to smell washed…not full of an odor that some industrial chemist imagines the Little Woman will imagine smells “clean.” Cheap perfume smells of cover-up, not of cleanliness.

In the interim since I’d bought that stuff, I’d also purchased a bag of scrumptious-looking frozen asparagus spears, proudly branded “organic.” Not until I was about to slice the bag open did I notice the label saying “Product of China.”

No, thank you. Couldn’t pay me to put a product of China in my mouth, not on purpose anyway. This is the country whose food producers poison dogs, cats, and babies in pursuit of profit.

And a couple of days ago I’d picked up a bag of sweet onions, all but one of which, when the bag was opened, proved to be spoiled.

Trekked the rejects back to Costco this noon and came away with a $26.79 credit. Bought a new container of laundry detergent for $15.15, netting $11.64.

Then it was off to Radio Shack, where some time back I’d noticed a double-charge on a receipt. Luckily, the old guy who manages the store—who sold me the goods for which I was accidentally double-billed—happened to be in. He promptly refunded the phantom charge: $16.23.

So: my net refund came to $27.87. For a dollar’s worth of gas and an hour of my time.

Yay! When added back into this month’s budget, it puts me firmly in the black, despite the beekeeper’s bill, which only came to $75, not the $125 he proposed to charge.
A$k and ye shall re¢eive.