Value
(Note: the following was written pre-Seattle)
Sometimes I think I have some very strange ideas about things’ value. We’ve all heard people complain about our consumption-driven throw-away society and I used to think they were just screaming at the rain but lately I’ve begun to see their point. It seems the amount of use I get out of something tends to be much more than the average.
Granted having a kid makes my observations slightly suspect what with the constant growing out of things but even then I think some careful planning could mitigate that a bit.
Take clothes. Do people really only wear garments for a single season and then toss them? Are people constantly buying clothes? The last bit of clothing I bought was a pair of swimming shorts a month ago but they’re for Orlando and I paid with a gift card from a returned Christmas gift so I don’t think they count. I wouldn’t have bought them if the gift card wasn’t set to expire.
Before that was a pair of dress pants for work and even that had the added purpose of a job interview. Oh and I got them on sale. Granted they are Ralph Lauren but at least I admit to being a brand whore. But that was 3 months ago, haven’t bought a bit of clothing with my own money since.
Prior to that all I’d purchased in the way of clothes this year were some dress socks for work on sale. Oh and a t-shirt at the BNL concert. But that’s it for the year. Most of those were just good planning or taking advantage of a unique opportunity. The one item of necessity was the pants. So the total cost of all that I put at about $85 (pants $50, shorts $10, t-shirt $20, socks $5).
That’s in 6 and a half months. That averages out to $13 per month and that’s actually rather high for me. If it hadn’t been for the concert, the interview, and the gift card I just would have got the socks. Let’s leave just the socks and the pants on the list and that’s $55 or $8.50 a month. Now that’s more common for me. I can only imagine what the rest of you spend.
Now take objects. For the purposes here I’ll define them as non-food non-gift items bought for your own enjoyment. This would include DVDs but not light bulbs. So far this year I bought a video game off ebay for $16 including tax and shipping. It hasn’t arrived yet but this represents a huge indulgence for me. I got a Transformers toy yesterday at BK for $1.50. A few Star Trek books total say $50.
I think that’s it. Call it $70 or $11 a month.
So what do I spend the rest of my time doing if I’m not shopping? Extracting value and enjoyment from what I already have.
