As a kid, half my life was spent thirsting for the next toy or video game. I could occasionally save up my allowance to buy nice or expensive things, but I would often have to rely on the luck of Christmas or my birthday for the those much more expensive things, especially video game consoles.
Now, I think it’s important that we don’t downplay all forms of consumption. My Legos and video games brought with them many fond memories. But as a kid, you are largely sheltered from the true costs of living, so you almost naturally start life from a consumerist perspective, and consequently, it becomes all too easy later in life to continue thinking this way.
My dad and I used to thirst over fishing and outdoor gear. When I was in college, I was home for the summer and had gone with Dad to the store, where we saw these inflatable pontoon boats that I had always thought were cool. They cost about $300 each, which was about as much as I had spent the past semester on books alone, not to mention the cost of the classes themselves. I lamented how those classes could easily have afforded me one of those boats instead. Granted, those are one of those things you use once or twice in your life and then they end up sitting in the garage forever after, so I’m kind of glad I never bought one, but it’s interesting how the prices of consumer goods become a proxy for value, and become our default for comparison. “That car repair costs as much as an iPhone!”, etc.
But it’s interesting to me how the total cost of all of my possessions pails in comparison to the price I’ve paid for owning a car over the past 10+ years, or even rent over the past 5 years. I bought a new “fancy” couch for $800 when I first moved into my apartment, and that was expensive for me at the time. Years before, I had needed the rear main seal on my trashy old Honda replaced, and that was also $800 (and it wasn’t just a small leak). Kind of puts things in perspective, huh?
But I think there’s a danger here, too. There are only so many consumer goods that provide value. Furniture, when handled properly, becomes something of a fixed cost that ideally lasts a long time. There are only so many video games you can play in your free time. Only so many trinkets that can fit in your house.
I would even go so far as to say that your consumer goods SHOULD be one of the cheaper things in your life. How many of these things do you need, or use on a regular basis? Not very many. At a certain point we ultimately “tap-out”, except for people who are addicted to the process of spending, and of course we all have our own weaknesses and preferences when it comes to spending.
I think about this with the hesitance people have in fixing their cars. I mean, your car is only a multi-thousand pound beast of a machine that’s composed of about a dozen interconnected systems, and this car has the ability to drive you from one side of the United States to another over the course of several days, something absolutely unimaginable 150 years ago. But if the mechanic quotes $500 to change the ball joints, what’s the standard response? “Bullshit!” [I’m not saying that everything the mechanic suggests is either truthful or necessary, only that sometimes they are being very truthful and the repairs are very necessary, and some people simply put their hands over their ears]
And again. It’s easy. It’s easy to think what that $500 could buy you in consumer goods. But consumer goods are cheap. The luxury of being able to drive across the United States in your own personal motorized chariot is not.
Now, this isn’t to say there isn’t value in comparison. I think comparison is a great way to assess opportunity cost. Maybe that $500 buys you a new gaming system you’ve wanted for years, or maybe it pays for two months of groceries. Maybe it buys you some piece of equipment you need for your small business. Maybe it pays your utilities for 3 or 4 months. There are different ways to look at these figures. But I think one thing is for certain: refusing to take care of more important things in your life based on a comparison to luxuries is DUMB. And I’m sure I’ve done this from time to time. Neglecting your health because you don’t want to pay $100 to see a doctor, when you otherwise have $100 to spare and need to see a doctor, is a good example.
I guess the real struggle is learning how to properly value the various things in your life. When you’re a kid, you have your whole life in front of you, and you aren’t typically thinking much about the more meaningful things. All of your spending is concentrated on consumption and fun. But then when responsibilities increase, some people never grow out of the consumerist mentality.
I feel like this topic could be expanded in many ways, but I’ll leave with a question: are you assigning the correct values to the various aspects of your life?