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Why the 9/10 cent on posted fuel prices ????

Crazy Horse

Crazy Horse

Well-known Member
The fuel post below got me thinking about a question I've often wondered about. What is the rationale behind fuel prices being posted to a tenth of a cent? So maybe $2.35 9/10 per gallon in the US, or up here $1.17 9/10 per litre. Why not just $2.35/gallon or $1.17/litre ....... is there a sensible explanation? Surely it can't be because it sounds cheaper than rounding up to the next penny. By the way, not that it means anything but we don't even use cash pennies anymore north of the 49th. It has worked out quite well actually.
 

I agree that is totally useless and counter productive. However it will take a law to make it go away. Back when gas was 5 cents a gallon, maybe it made sense, but even then I look at it as a cheap attempt to dupe you into more hidden cost. Should have been outlawed then,,, and for sure now.

Next time your in, ask for your .1 cent refund.
 
(quoted from post at 08:41:03 04/24/18) The fuel post below got me thinking about a question I've often wondered about. What is the rationale behind fuel prices being posted to a tenth of a cent? So maybe $2.35 9/10 per gallon in the US, or up here $1.17 9/10 per litre. Why not just $2.35/gallon or $1.17/litre ....... is there a sensible explanation? Surely it can't be because it sounds cheaper than rounding up to the next penny. By the way, not that it means anything but we don't even use cash pennies anymore north of the 49th. It has worked out quite well actually.
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ell, it "surely" is....did you just fall off the turnip truck yesterday??
 
JMOR ...... have a bad day at work yesterday? Give your fellow workers a heads up that you're grumpy today !!!
 
Yep, blame it on the guvment. When they first started taxing gas, the tax was only a couple of cents, and it sounded like less if they had it at 1.9 cents rather than 2. Now with gas taxes about a half a buck a gallon, it doesn't make much sense, but then, that's not unusual in the halls of lawmakers.
 
All psych. Doesn't matter if it's the 99 cents added to some price or if it's 99 dollars added to some price. The mind alway's forgets either.
 
Gasoline and diesel is actually priced to the thousand of a cent.
So the price to the store might look like $2.25498

The tenth of a cent started when gas was .15 a gallon and the government added on a 3/10th of a cent tax.
Rather than eat the cost; raise the price a whole cent; and to show what the government tax was the store went to .15 3/10

Today it is just a tradition because $2.259 looks cheaper then $2.26
 
(quoted from post at 09:29:10 04/24/18) JMOR ...... have a bad day at work yesterday? Give your fellow workers a heads up that you're grumpy today !!!
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ust my way of pointing out that which is obvious to the rest of the world. $1.98, $5.97, $.99, etc.
 
In checking gasoline prices I add the portion in my thinking. Traveling with my brother looking for station he asked what price do you see. I replied adding the 1/10. He said I am only person in U.S. that thinks higher. He just omits the 9/10. Useless to point out he is 90 percent wrong while I am only 10 percent wrong. He is hard headed that way.
 
Another theory I have heard, back in the day when everything was cash, and no sales tax...

The merchants would use the one cent difference to discourage dishonest cashiers from pocketing the money. If the total didn't come out to an even dollar amount, the register would need to be opened to make change, therefore a record of the transaction was created.
 
(quoted from post at 11:06:23 04/24/18) Another theory I have heard, back in the day when everything was cash, and no sales tax...

The merchants would use the one cent difference to discourage dishonest cashiers from pocketing the money. If the total didn't come out to an even dollar amount, the register would need to be opened to make change, therefore a record of the transaction was created.
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ow days, the owner just leaves the register drawer open and makes change, with no record, for his "tax free" transactions. :?
 
The practice dates to the 1920s in most areas and by the 1940s, it was everywhere. There are 2 reasons.

In the 1920s, gas was averaging 10-12 cents per gallon. It was difficult to raise prices by 1 cent, because that would represent a 10% increase, which was a lot of money. Gas station owners and oil companies needed a finer pricing method that would allow smaller incremental movements either up or down. So they started the fractions.

In the 1930s there were various state and federal taxes imposed on gasoline sales. Again, because 1 cent would have been a HUGE tax back then, they needed to tax in fractional cent increments. Some of these taxes are still on the books in fractional increments.

Obviously, the practice is completely obsolete today, but it goes to show once you set a "standard" way of doing things, like railroad tracks being 4 feet 8 and 1/2 inches apart, no matter how odd or obsolete the logic was to derive it, it persists forever.

Grouse
 
A seller can use even numbers if he/she wants. I worked at a Mobil station on Route 17 in New Jersey back late 60s. We sold gas for awhile at an even 25 cents a gallon with a big sign "four gallons for a buck."
 
It's about as goofy as a house priced at $499,999.99, or a car at $29,999.99. When I take over one of my first rules will make it illegal to put a 9 any where near the end of a price on anything. TDF
 
Maybe it's why I'm poor, but I never got excited over saving pennies. Folks get all pumped up for $0.10 cents off gas from their grocery store and go out of their way to get to that pump. My little Fiesta has a 12 gallon tank and I figure, okay, so I'll save $1.20. Sure it adds up... to like $25 a year. I seriously can't think of anything that would motivate me less.

I heard on the radio (a source even lower than Wikipedia, I know), that you shouldn't pick up pennies on ground because over a lifetime you have a greater chance of hurting your back or knees once that will cause medical bills higher than all the pennies you'd ever pick up. Sorta makes sense actually.
 
(quoted from post at 20:03:43 04/24/18) Maybe it's why I'm poor, but I never got excited over saving pennies. Folks get all pumped up for $0.10 cents off gas from their grocery store and go out of their way to get to that pump. My little Fiesta has a 12 gallon tank and I figure, okay, so I'll save $1.20. Sure it adds up... to like $25 a year. I seriously can't think of anything that would motivate me less.

I heard on the radio (a source even lower than Wikipedia, I know), that you shouldn't pick up pennies on ground because over a lifetime you have a greater chance of hurting your back or knees once that will cause medical bills higher than all the pennies you'd ever pick up. Sorta makes sense actually.
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can't help it! I have even stopped to pickup a piece of copper pipe or even re-bar. Came by it honestly, as Dad would stop to pick up a red shop towel.. I quit that when I noticed some mechanics used them as snot rags!
 
My Dad was born in 1912. And I think his first car was a motel A Ford. And he talked about using drip gas for everyday fuel. Any way, when they went to unleaded gas he laughed, I asked him what was funny, He said they didn't take the .9 of a cent a gallon back, because they added it in the first place for the lead additive they put in the gas! I have no reason to dough him, and can't ask him because he's past away a number of years ago. Their were several other things that made him laugh, both about life and also some of the things I did when I was a teenager.
 
Back in '65 I encountered gas at 38.5 a gallon in Wyoming which was high, but shocking to see point five at the end of the price.
 
(quoted from post at 06:29:10 04/24/18) JMOR ...... have a bad day at work yesterday? Give your fellow workers a heads up that you're grumpy today !!!
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Crazy horse, it is not just today.
 
Probably the same reason as everything is priced $XX.99.99.99.99

It's because of human perception. Merchants at the highest levels know that your eyeball transmits one message to your brain at $4.00 for something and an entirely different message at $3.99. The eyeball captures the 3 vs 4 and disregards the rest. Ever notice that an item on sale is priced at $xx.99 but the SALE tag says SAVE $5.00, not SAVE $4.99?

It's like my sister, a professional, advanced degreed, artist does a charcoal of something, like an elephant I have and deliberately leaves part of it incomplete...like the edge of an ear. She says that the eyeball transmits the signal "ear" to the brain and the brain fills in the line for you in your mind.

Tell me this....why is the stupid (clad copper these days) penny still in circulation? To make a case for $3.99 vs $4?
 
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