{"id":544,"date":"2011-07-27T19:03:14","date_gmt":"2011-07-28T00:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/?p=544"},"modified":"2011-07-27T09:18:11","modified_gmt":"2011-07-27T14:18:11","slug":"the-cost-of-an-item","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/2011\/07\/the-cost-of-an-item\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cost of an Item"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Something weird has been happening to me \u2013 and it\u2019s reached a new height.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want more stuff.\u00a0 Now, some of you might be rolling your eyes at me \u2013 yet until just recently I always wanted some book or CD (usually several of each) at any given moment.\u00a0 Media is where I tend to collect, despite some women collecting shoes, purses, or jewelry \u2013 I\u2019ve had a hard time resisting another book or three. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>I mentioned a while back my husband inspiring me to consider purging most of my cassette tapes, which then led to my examining my movie collection.\u00a0 Meanwhile, he and I are currently going through our CD collection.\u00a0 There\u2019s a local place that is frequently a temptation for me \u2013 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hpb.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Half Price Books<\/a> \u2013 where they specialize in media: books, music, and movies, oh my! I enter the store sporadically, sometimes because I just don\u2019t want to be tempted and sometimes because I\u2019ve been disappointed at not finding something to bring home.<\/p>\n<p>Movies have been one of the media I\u2019ve collected \u2013 not that my collection ever approached the number of CD\u2019s, let alone books that I have; yet I had over 300 movies at one point.\u00a0 I still peruse the movies they have \u2013 especially the clearance area of the movies \u2013 since they\u2019re all between $1-3.\u00a0 This is how I achieved the original number of movies \u2013 used and sometimes clearance.<\/p>\n<p>Yet now when I look through those movies, I pull something interesting off the shelf and look at it \u2013 the idea of paying $2.00 for those, it isn\u2019t worth it.\u00a0 This is truly a little mind-boggling for me.\u00a0 Really.\u00a0 And I can\u2019t say it\u2019s about saving that two dollars plus tax.<\/p>\n<p>What it does seem to be about for me is the greater cost:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the cost of space in my home<\/li>\n<li>the cost of my time if I was to watch it (except I wouldn\u2019t watch it much)<\/li>\n<li>the cost of spending money for something that I won\u2019t truly appreciate<\/li>\n<li>the cost, potentially\/probably, of feeling bad at owning it when I next purge (and never having appreciated it)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are other factors to consider as well:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>how much of what you have are you currently appreciating? (I still have over 100 movies and watch maybe 10% of those.\u00a0 Now the movie needs to be pretty special to come home.)<\/li>\n<li>do you have the time or even the inclination to appreciate this new item? (Most movies that come home with me, I usually don\u2019t manage to watch for more than 6 months!)<\/li>\n<li>if you avoided spending on this and that over time, is there something else you\u2019d deeply appreciate?\u00a0 (I\u2019ve been drawn to experiences lately, so I\u2019m inclined to avoid spending on \u201cminor\u201d items and feel good about going for a horseback ride.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There\u2019s also a joy in buying only what you need or are going to appreciate.\u00a0 I was touched to arrive at a client\u2019s and she looked at me and said, \u201cIt\u2019s amazing how light and free I feel not buying just stuff and in turn also getting exactly what I need.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>My reasons for not spending $2.00 on a movie aren\u2019t going to match yours.\u00a0 On any item.\u00a0 Yet, is there a way for you to consider the value for yourself of what you buy?\u00a0 With any purchase, the cost is more than financial.\u00a0 I know this isn\u2019t something I thought much about until recently.\u00a0 I was focused almost exclusively on just the financial part \u2013 hence why a $2.00 movie with a great actor or a good plot would usually come home with me. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<p>I continue to find this perspective to be unnerving \u2013 it\u2019s still relatively new for me.\u00a0 Yet, it\u2019s also tremendously freeing.\u00a0 I wish I could share the internal space I\u2019m in with everyone, just so they could know what it feels like.\u00a0 I encourage you to examine the temptations, the random \u201cunnecessary\u201d items that come into your home, and see if you can find those other \u201ccosts\u201d as they apply for you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An odd phenomena has been occurring for me \u2013 I\u2019ve found a reluctance to bring more things home, at least when the other, non-financial cost is too high.  For every item we purchase, there\u2019s more than the financial cost and we need to consider those before buying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,8,19,25,17],"class_list":["post-544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-organizing","tag-behavior","tag-discipline","tag-hoarding","tag-postaweek2011","tag-spaces"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7p82c-8M","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":548,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544\/revisions\/548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jenniferlinnig.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}