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One of the biggest fees on consumers across the nation today is the convenience fee, placed on everything from coffee to meals to services.  This fee is generally hidden inside the total cost of the item, but is easy to spot because the items that are more convenient for the consumer often cost more than the other products.  People across the nation spend billions of dollars every year on convenience fees without ever realizing that they are paying for something that they could easily do themselves.

Fees On Foods

If you would really like to tally the cost of a convenience fee, there are no better examples than the ones in the food services industry.  With these businesses, the convenience fees added to the price of the product can double or triple the overall cost of the item.  Take a large iced tea drink into consideration – typically close to $2 per cup regardless of what business you go to.  If this iced tea drink was made at home, it would cost around $0.04 for the tea bag, less than $0.01 for the water, about $0.02 for the electricity to heat the water, and $0.16 for the sugar used to sweeten it – a total cost of $0.30 for a savings of $1.70 per large serving.  Drinking 3 large iced teas in a week would result in a savings of $265 over the course of a year, simply by making the iced tea instead of purchasing it pre-made.

Another example would be to calculate the difference between making a steak dinner at home versus purchasing a steak dinner at a mid-tier restaurant.  A dinner of an 8oz. steak, broccoli, and a baked potato would cost close to $20.00 at a restaurant, but at the grocery store, the broccoli would cost about $1.00, the baked potato would cost about $1.50 for all of the ingredients, and the steak would cost close to $5.00.  This means that a $20.00 steak dinner would cost you about $7.50 if you made it yourself.

Fees On Services

The hidden convenience fees on the services that we use on a regular basis can also be a budget killer.  The cost having the car washed quadruples when you compare doing it yourself at home with a bucket, soap, and rags to going through one of the automated machines at your local gas station.  There are also convenience fees for parking the car in a crowded lot (valet service), for using the closest ATM instead of going out of your way to find one that is branded for your bank, and for paying your bills by any method other than a check in the mail. 

In most cases, these fees could be avoided if the person simply slowed down and took the time to do these things for themselves.  People that have tried to cut convenience fees out of their lives end up saving thousands of dollars each year by simply not allowing others to do things for them that they are perfectly capable of doing for themselves.