Getting Your Money’s Worth

Posted on | December 2, 2007 |

Today’s been a nice, restful, quiet Sunday for my family.  I’ve spent the afternoon puttering and pondering.  Right in the middle of folding laundry, at the end of a convoluted train-of-thought, I heard myself think the phrase getting your money’s worth and my brain did a little double-take.  Getting your money’s worth — what exactly does that mean?  How do I measure whether or not I’ve gotten my money’s worth on a purchase or expenditure?

After some thought I’ve come to a few conclusions:

First, the determination is completely subjective.  Purchases and experiences that meet my money’s worth criteria might completely fail if subjected to The Husband’s (or The Daughter’s or The Son’s or your) criteria.

Second, the determination criteria is not static.  A purchase that would resoundingly meet my money’s worth criteria today could very well fail next week’s criteria simply because my criteria might be different next week.  Most certainly things that I considered worth my money 20 years ago aren’t even on the radar today — and vice versa.

Third, the amount of money spent has little or nothing to do with money’s worth.  I’ve made purchases for under a dollar that were definitely not worth my money.  Conversely, I’ve spent thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars (in the case of our house) on items on which I feel very confidently that I’ve gotten my money’s worth.

Fourth, degree of pleasure derived is only a small percentage of overall money’s worth criteria.  I was surprised at how little the issue of “did it bring me pleasure” played into my consideration.  I would not consider myself a pleasure-seeker, still I expected pleasure derived to play a much larger part in my judging process.

Fifth, time is a very important factor.  A product has to survive the “honeymoon” period before it can truly be deemed worth the money.  And a purchase can lose it’s worth the money designation at any point if something goes wrong.

As I look around my house, I’m looking at things with a fresh pair of eyes.  What have I bought or done lately that has been worth my money?  Are there any mistakes I’m making over and over again?  The next time I’m shopping, I’m going ask myself some tough questions.  Maybe I can raise my money-spent to money’s-worth ratio.

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