[Avodah] How much for the mayo?

[Jonathan Dickson]

I am even more woefully ignorant of choshen mishpat than I am in the rest of shulchan aruch, so I have no source to back this up, but my instinctive answer would be, what is the cost to you of giving up that jar of mayo, to which the answer is $4 because, assuming you would otherwise have used it at some point, it will cost you $4 to replace it.

The amount you paid for it is irrelevant. Same if someone gave it to you as a gift.

However, if the special offer was still on and your friend could easily have gone to the supermarket herself, she could have spent $4 and got two jars of mayo. So maybe you should tell her about the special offer, and say she's welcome to your jar for $4, or she can go to the supermarket herself and get two jars for the same price.

kol tuv

Jonny

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Message: 13

Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2010 01:19:05 EDT

From: T613K at aol.com

To: avodah at lists.aishdas.org

Subject: [Avodah] How much for the mayo?

Message-ID: <38ac8.54280252.39f51bc9 at aol.com>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Here's a question of the type that I think Avodah-ites (Ovdim?) sometimes

like to discuss.

I bought a large jar of mayonnaise, and the lady at the checkout pointed

out that it was on special that week, "buy one, get one free," so I might

as well get a second jar -- which I did, even though I didn't need so much

mayo and now have extra mayo sitting on a shelf, not to be used probably for

many weeks.

The mayo cost, let's say, four dollars, something like that.

A few days later my neighbor asked me if I could spare a couple of spoons

of mayo for her kids' lunch, as she was out of mayo. I told her I could do

better, I had a whole extra unopened jar of mayonnaise on the shelf, which

I happily gave her. She asked me how much she owed me for it, and this

left me with a question.

1. The replacement cost of the mayo, weeks from now when I need some

more, will be $4 -- so I should charge her $4?

2. The actual cost of the mayo to me was zero -- since I only got that

second jar because it was "get one free." So I should charge her nothing? If

I charge her anything, I am stealing from her?

3. In reality, no matter how the store advertises it, what I got was two

jars of mayo for four dollars. So I should charge her two dollars for one

jar?

I will tell you what I did after you tell me what I should have done.

Thank you.

--Toby Katz

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