How Much Is A Quarter Worth?

These days it is difficult to buy anything with just one Quarter.  Sometimes you can still get a gum ball from a candy machine or maybe one of those little chocolate, after dinner mints at a restaurant (I love those mints!).  25 cents just isn’t worth much.

Last night I went grocery shopping at ALDI.  Long ago ALDI found a way to get their customers to always bring their grocery cart back and put it back with the other carts at the front of the store.  They attached a locking chain mechanism to each cart that lock all the carts together at the front of the store.  If you want a cart, you have to insert a Quarter into the mechanism on the cart.  This releases the chain from the cart and you are free to shop.  When you are done you return the cart back to the cart stop and re-insert the chain and you get your Quarter back.

This got me thinking about the worth of that Quarter.  When I go to ALDI, the Quarter is no longer worth just 25 cents.  That Quarter is now the magic key that unlocks the cart so I don’t have to lug the milk, eggs and cereal around the store in my arms.

Also, we now keep a Quarter in each of our vehicles specifically for the ALDI cart.  There would be heck to pay if I even thought of using the last Quarter out of the car!

It is not about 25 cents.  It is about freedom to shop with a cart to carry the loot!

This Quarter also provides a means for people to show extraordinary generosity.  It can create immense satisfaction, after you have unloaded your cart, to hand the cart to someone entering the store so that they do not have to use their precious Quarter.  They always offer to give you the Quarter they have ready to unlock the cart but you get to say, “No thanks, you can keep it!”

I also thought about how much that Quarter is worth to the ALDI company.  For them it nearly eliminates the need to have an employee go out and retrieve shopping carts from every corner of the parking lot.  I never see a cart in the parking lot at ALDI.  The customers always take the cart back so they can get their magic key back.

Hypothetically, if ALDI had to hire a part time person at minimum wage just to bring carts back, how much would that cost?  20 hours per week at $7.25 = $145 per week.  With about 1,000 ALDI stores in 29 states, the weekly total for all stores would be $145,000.  Multiply that by 50 weeks for a year and the grand total for one year is, $7,250,000.

For me, a Quarter is my nearly priceless magic key for grocery shopping freedom.  For ALDI, a Quarter is worth 7.25 Million Dollars Per Year (hypothetically)!

How much is a Quarter worth to you?