Why is this the answer?

The answer is numbers because this riddle is a clever word puzzle that tricks your brain! When you first read the riddle, it sounds like a math problem about buying normal things at a hardware store. You might try to add up how many hammers or screws he bought, but that is not the secret to the riddle. The trick is how the store decided on the price for each item. The cost of the item is not based on how many things the man was buying, but instead on how many single numerals or digits were used to write that number. Think of it like this: each single number, like the '1' or the '2', costs 25 cents. Let us look at the examples in the riddle. If he wanted to buy the number '1', that item only has one digit, the single number one. So, it costs $0.25. If he decided to buy the item labeled '12', that number has two separate digits, the one and the two. So, you pay 25 cents two times, which is 50 cents. Then the riddle says '122' costs 75 cents. This is the big clue! The number '122' is made up of three single digits: the one, the two, and the other two. When you multiply 25 cents by three digits, you get $0.75. The riddle tells us that the man spent a total of $0.75 when he left the store. This means he bought something that cost 75 cents. The only item that cost $0.75 was the one represented by three digits, which is the '122'. He was buying the actual numbers themselves, like those you would put on the front of your house to show your address. The riddle plays a fantastic trick on your mind because it makes you think about the quantity of objects instead of the count of the numbers written down. It is a super fun puzzle!