"Value: To rate according to relative estimate of worth or desirability."
My nephew (1 of 6) went yesterday and bought a new mattress. There are some things that are fun to spend money on, and then there are mattresses. He came back and told me I need to go look at a $5400 bed that does everything except fly. He said he couldn't afford anything like that, but I could. And boy was it cool.
I told him I was indeed born in the morning, but not this morning, and I would not be spending one-tenth of that much money on a mattress, even though I do need a new one.
Then I got to thinking about all of the things I don't spend very much money on and about the value that these things really add to my life. For example:
I spend around $45/month on my cell phone, which typically rings three times in any given billing cycle (excluding calls I'd just as soon not receive and telemarketing crap). That works out to $15 per call, $540 per year. Assuming a mattress lasts only eight years, I will pay $4,320 for a cell phone during the life of a new mattress.
I spend $85/month on cable TV, which works out to around $42.50 per hour of actual TV viewing. Gulp! If (and I'm not) I bought a new bed for $5400, and it lasted eight years, and I used it 330 nights/year for 7 hours/night. Let's see. $5400 divided by eight years, divided by 330 nights, divided by seven hours, comes to $0.29 per hour.
Obviously, the value of the bed increases dramatically if I have someone to share it with (other than my Jack Russell) and/or if it lasts longer than eight years. (I've had my current mattress since 1991.) In the same eight years, at current prices I'll spend over $8,000 on cable TV.
And to think that I consider $9.50 to see a two hour movie is a rip-off!
I have a very reasonable gym membership that only costs $42/month, or $4,032 over the eight year life of a new bed. And the actual value received from the gym membership? It cannot be determined since we're not allowed to divide by zero.
Well, I'm still not spending $5400 on a bed. But it might be in my best interest to spend $600, cancel the cell phone, cable TV and unused gym membership and save
$4320+$8160+$4032-$600=$15,912.