When I was young, my grandfather would take me to the grocery store. Among the habits and activities from those trips, there is something that has remained with me. It is something that taught me lessons about personal responsibility.

My grandfather taught me to return the grocery carts when we were finished shopping.

What I have learned about this practice as I have grown older, though, is how personal responsibility applies to active capitalism.

I should mention that I was raised in large part by my grandparents. They lived in a large house in southwestern Pennsylvania, directly behind a Catholic church/school and a shopping center. At the back of this school was a heavily wooded hill. The foot of this hill, for what were probably a myriad of reasons, became a dumping ground for shopping carts from the nearby plaza.

For a while, my friends and I would be able to make a little extra money by returning these carts to the stores from which they had "wandered off". Eventually, however, the payouts stopped . . . again, probably for a myriad of reasons.

Anyway . . . back to the lesson . . .

The reason my grandfather returned the carts when we were done loading the car was simply because the carts did not belong to him. As with using anything that does not belong to you, you return it when you are finished. Simple moral, ethical behavior.

But, let's look at the practical cost of behavior that is less moral, although clearly not immoral.

My neighborhood Winn-Dixie grocery store is open from 7AM-10PM, seven days a week. During those business hours, there is constantly an employee in the parking lot ruslting and returning shopping carts. Minimum wage in my state is $7.25 per hour. There are about 550 Winn-Dixie stores remaining in operation. And let's assume all the Winn-Dixie stores keep the same hours; open for 15 hours a day (closed for Easter and Christmas, we'll say).

Assuming these numbers are valid estimates, which by and large, they are, then the annual cost to Winn-Dixie for maintaining an employee in the parking lot for the purpose of returning grocery carts is $21,711,937.50 . . . or $39,476.25 per store annually.

Almost $22 million a year. To return shopping carts. And that's for one grocery chain - and a medium-sized one, at that.

And this cost only factors the hourly wage of the employee; it does not include worker's compensation insurance, liability, benefit costs or any other associated employer expenses.

Winn-Dixie projects 2009 annual revenues of $7.4 billion. The $22 million per year that Winn-Dixie spends picking up after our grocery carts is about 1/4-of-a-percent (.25%) of their annual revenue.

The Department of Labor estimates that an American family of four spends $8,513 per year on groceries. It should be noted that food prices rose 4% last year and projections by the Commerce and Labor departments predict a similar increase for 2009.

Using those numbers, if Winn-Dixie didn't have to spend $22 million a year on getting grocery carts back to the racks, a family of four would have $21.28 at the end of the year that they won't have currently.

Is $21.28 a year worth walking back across the parking lot?

The bottom line, again as I was taught by my grandfather, is that there is a result to every behavior. Sometimes that result is beneficial and creates value; sometimes that result is detrimental and costs value. Every choice we make, every action we take, has an outcome.

There are circumstances in everyone's lives where leaving the cart in the parking lot will be worth a few cents or so. For you, it may be everytime.

At least now you know how much the monetary tab comes to in the end.