Opportunity Cost

Post date: Apr 18, 2016 10:30:28 AM

So much of our days are focussed on cost, from the moment we wake, breakfast, the right look, travel, socialising, credit, debt and planning for the future! I can’t be the only person who seems to dedicate half of my brain power to some constant thought about saving or cost cutting or putting more away.

Money can be all encompassing, we are after all a society that is based on consumerism and I am afraid to say that I have been completely consumed by it. My desire to try and break onto the housing ladder and have an acceptable car, clothes, lifestyle sometimes surprises even myself. Recently I have been given the ‘opportunity’ to see things differently. The kind of moment that makes yesterday’s stresses seem so trivial. We are so highly strung that we manage to let the wrong things control our lives and thus our true value… not cost… happiness.

I was taking to a friend about a generation of people not being able to access affordable housing and we came to an interesting conclusion. Although we started with the “not fairs” and jibes at other friends who have been gifted the blessed deposit from family, but we quickly came round to a more interesting topic. Over half of my ‘old’ friends now own houses so surely they must be happier, more content, more self-assured of their future. No! They are at least as worried about their debt with a small helping of feeling tied down and the pressure of things going wrong.

It turns out that we are all giving up the same opportunities: To meet up more regularly, to take the one you love for a spontaneous trip out, to do that hobby we always talk about but have never got round to. At the end we really can’t take it with us and the stuff that matters is all those memories. Obviously careful planning can assist in the creation of memories but it should be just that - an assistance.

I used to try to find different ways to explain opportunity cost during my sessions and I would regularly struggle to get the groups to completely understand. Now I focus on a much more simple explanation. We all have the opportunity to be happy, to make a success of our lives and to live it to the full. When the choice is take the extra shift at work to save that extra cash or join your friends on a trip to the theme park. The calculation is simple what opportunities does each option bring to me. Both have value and merit. The only person that knows which one is right, is you.

Every opportunity has a value and therefore a cost. Our lives will ultimately be made up of lots of decisions, if you are better enabled to make the right decision hopefully we can all be happier and maybe a little less consumed.