Only $40 a Month!
Are you fooled when you go to buy a car and the salesman says “We can arrange easy financing, it’s only $389 a month”. No, you’re smart enough to know that no matter how they break it down that new car is $30,000.
But we outsmart ourselves with that sometimes. Those pay channels are only $40 a month! That personal trainer is just $35 a week. It’s only about $20 for drinks after work with the guys on Friday.
But if we do the math, it’s (roughly) $500 a year for those pay channels, $1,800 for the personal trainer and $1,000 for those drinks. Now really do the math. Over 10 years the personal trainer, the pay channels and the drinks cost $33,000. And then we wonder why it’s hard to save money.
The lesson here is to be very cautious about making ongoing expense commitments. It’s not that you’re not entitled to enjoy the fruits of your hard labor. Life is not a business. But choose very carefully with ongoing expenses. It may cost a lot more than it seems.