When I was setting up our surround sound system, I noted that the wire that was supplied was not long enough to reach one of the speakers. So, I headed to Meijer’s (regional grocery chain) to get 50 feet of speaker wire.

A quick scan of the electronic section revealed that yes indeed they did have speaker wire. (Meijers’ is kind of hit or miss when it comes to these sorts of things) I could buy a 50 foot spool of 16ga speaker wire for $20.

That’s $0.40 a foot which is a bit pricey. But, I needed the wire and didn’t feel like driving to GR so I put it in my cart.

As I started to leave the isle, I noticed that there was another 50 foot package of 16ga speaker wire for $10. Same size wire, same manufacturer. The only difference was that the $10 wire was just loosely coiled and not on a spool.

Well, the $10 package was a lot more attractive than the $20 package so I put the $20 package back and took the $10 one instead. Besides, I wouldn’t know what to do with the $10 spool once the $10s worth of wire was gone.