But How Much Does It Cost?
The world is thinking a lot about cost lately as the price of seemingly everything is steadily increasing, and the word “inflation” is somehow making its way into daily conversation.
As we shell out $7 for a “Congrats on the new baby” card, $8.50 for a latte from our local cafe, and Sky’s-The-Limit on rent and just the basic groceries, many of us are thinking more about the way we spend our money and just how much things cost.
While browsing the aisles, we look twice at the price tags. While considering home maintenance services or “luxury” personal expenses, we linger longer on the cost. When the kids’ express interest in a new extracurricular, we weigh more heavily the dollar signs attached.
And as we think more about the cost of things in terms of the financial spend, rarely do we think about cost beyond that. The truth is, cost is a multi-dimensional concept. One element is the dollar-spend, sure, but what about the time-spend? What about the emotional-spend, the labor-spend, the long-term vs short-term spend? What about the cost of not doing something?
What if we looked at money and prices more wholisticially?
When we pay for that $12 glass of wine, we’re also paying for the ambiance and mood of the restuarant. We’re paying for the type of conversation that follows that just doesn’t seem to happen on the couch at home.
When we pay for lawn-care services, we’re also paying for the feeling of pulling up to a freshly manicured lawn. We’re paying to not spend our Saturdays sweating.
When we pay $8 for coffee, we’re also paying for the subtle act of self-love of gifting ourselves what we can’t make at home.
And when we pay for “expensive” groceries, perhaps we’re also paying for a quick, clean, accessible experience compared to the one we might get if we shopped elsewhere. Perhaps we’re paying to not have to eat out and have the “What do you want for dinner” conversation later.
In other words, money buys us more than a product or service, and the “cost” of something is more than the dollar amount.
Consider the parable of Picasso:
A woman approached Picasso in a restaurant, asked him to scribble something on a napkin, and said she would be happy to pay whatever he felt it was worth. Picasso complied and then said, “That will be $10,000.”
“But you did that in thirty seconds,” the astonished woman replied.
“No,” Picasso said. “It has taken me forty years to do that.”
Cost is not only about money.
And while inflation is real, we’d be wise to expand the way we think about the money we spend (or don’t) regardless of the economy. Rising prices are mostly out of our control. How we spend our time, emotions, and experiences, however, is entirely within our control.