How Much?

"There is nothing free in this world, but the grace of God."

Today, I want to talk about cost.

But not in the way you might be thinking.

Because sometimes, the most expensive things in our lives are free.

That is, they cost us the most.

The free things.

Now, some free things are cheap.

Some are priceless.

And some are worse than any loan you could ever sign.

In the business world, they talk about opportunity cost.

It's a fancy way of saying "Is this the best use of X? What do we lose out on by putting it here?"

In this case, X is money.

But X can be anything.

For if you put money here, you can't put it there.

Thus, there is lost.

That's the opportunity cost. You can't put it there, because you put it here.

It's a fine model.

One you should apply to your entire life, not just finances.

At what cost?

Is there a better place to put this (time, attention, energy)?

The answer is almost always a resounding "YES!"

You know what to do here.

And double down on all the times you say "No."

Do more of that.

They say if you have to ask how much it costs, you can't afford it.

But I say, like lots of things, they don't know what the fudge they talking about.

If you can afford it, always ask how much it costs.

You can't afford not to.