My daughter was so excited when she saw that Starbucks was having a Buy One Get One (BOGO) offer and she wanted to go and get 2 drinks for the price of 1. I said that’s great and give your brother the second one. Luckily, Starbucks is walking distance from us so she went to get the deal. She came back and said I have something to tell you.

Ok, my first question was going to be what drink did you get? But she started explaining that the BOGO offer didn’t work. She ordered 2 Tall drinks and it came out to full price. She told me that the BOGO was on Grande drinks but she decided not to say anything and just pay for the 2 Tall drinks instead of getting 2 Grandes for 1. I asked her why didn’t you say something, cancel the order, or ask the barista?

This feels like de ja vous because it is. I wrote about a similar experience about another Starbucks lesson. This is great because it gives me an opportunity to give her another financial lesson. Here’s what I taught her and hope she learns from this.

Know What You’re Buying

I told her that before you pay for anything, it’s very important to know what you’re buying. When you know what you’re buying, you know what you should be paying. When an order doesn’t look right, take a moment to reassess your order. Maybe there’s some clause that voids any discounts or deals.

Ask Questions

Don’t be shy to ask questions. It’s your money that you’ll be spending so ask away. If it still doesn’t make sense, doesn’t look right, or you’re just not comfortable going through with the purchase, don’t go through it. But definitely ask.

Walk Away

If you’re not comfortable with the purchase, walk away. Sometimes it’s better to walk away and think about what just happened. This gives you time to re-think things. In my example, it was just a Starbucks drink so the financial damage wasn’t big. What if it was a big purchase? If you’re not comfortable, walk away. This reminds me of the times I’ve sat through timeshare talks. There’s so much pressure and it’s such a huge financial commitment, that they don’t give you much time to think about it. The more you think about that something isn’t right, it probably isn’t.

Every transaction has a direct impact on your financials. Make sure you know what you’re buying, how much you intend to spend, and if you’re not sure about the purchase, ask questions or simply walk away. Whether it’s buying a cup of coffee or buying a house, you need to be sure. I hope this was a good lesson for my daughter and I hope this is something you can relate to as well. If you are interested in following my journey, email subscribe to get alerts of latest posts or follow me on Facebook.