Ruler Perspective

Ruler Perspective

Sometimes, bring a
squirrel to measure. 

We've often talked about the power of changing your paradigm or perspective when it comes to making progress and traction toward intentionality throughout your life.  Sometimes, when we change the way we view our proverbial ruler, we get a better opportunity to find the motivation necessary to make a big change that can alter not only our life course but our family tree.  This week, we'll talk about the idea of converting or calculating the cost of something by stretching or shrinking our time horizon ruler.  We'll also talk about the perspective of opportunity costs and incremental gains.  We've got friends who skip over the small stuff since "it's too insignificant to matter," while also asking how we got where we got.  The answer is...doing the small stuff day in and day out for a long time.  

Sometimes
get the fold-y
ruler.

First off, let's chat about counting the cost with different units of measurement.  The oft quoted millenial avacado toast and coffee are ripe for this example.  Let's say the morning snack (for easy math) is $5 bucks...no big deal.  All of a sudden, that's $25/work week.  It becomes $100 a month and $1,200 a year.  Changing our ruler changes the idea.  Now, toss on the opportunity cost and incremental gains idea...that $1,200 a year in a decade is $12,000 under the mattress.  Toss this math problem in the Nerd Wallet (or your favorite) compound interest calculator over the course of a career...$378,228.85.  That example, or one like it, runs rampant through the finance space.  

Sometimes get 
a running 
head start.

Less quoted, but similar, let's look at one of the big three (housing, transportation, food).  The "guest" room that you bust your budget on in the new house over time is a powerful example.  With a little research, it seems like the average "extra" cost of a three bedroom vs four bedroom is about $30-60,000 on a $300,000 home.  At 6.5% mortgage rates over 30 years...that extra room costs you roughly $136,500 all in - interest, principal, etc.  Now divide that math backwards into the number of nights that you had guests who could use that house.  Not sure who keeps stats, but apparently 3-5 nights/year is an "average" amount.  Let's split the difference and say 4/year x 30 years is 120 nights, which comes out to $1,138/night.  When we change the perspective...maybe we should squeeze on the air mattress or buy Grandma a hotel room.  

Look closely.

Another ruler shift that can be eye-opening is playing with the "feels like" cost or perhaps what could be described as the "heat index" of finance.  Let's take your actual hourly rate when we have it fully loaded - commute cost, time, actual hours not at home, tax, benefits, etc., divided into your take-home pay.  When we crunch all that math, let's say it comes out to $20/hour.  Now, let's look at the all-in cost of dinner out or the new shoes.  For easy math's sake, that $100 expense becomes more than half a day of work.  What might've been a "sure, let's go out tonight" can change to "let's stay in and make popcorn for our home movie" can shift (and still be wonderful) when we look at "feels like" cost.  

Sometimes you
have to zoom in.

Another way to look at changing your ruler perspective is by breaking the cost down or changing it to cost per day/week/month/year/decade.  In other words, my such-and-such habit costs me $20/month.  That comes down to $240 in a year, $2,400 in a decade, $14,400 over an adulthood.  Maybe that's not so bad or so good...but allows us to think about it differently.  On the flip side, let's go backwards with a $50,000 new car (average in 2026), and the average (according to Google) time someone keeps it is 8 years.  That's $6,250/year...before title, taxes, maintenance, gas, tires, etc., which is estimated to be an average of a $1,000/month.  All in, $18,250 per year...or $50 bucks per day...every day of the year, whether you use it or not.  I'm not saying sell the car and ride the bus...but when we think through the cost of something through different lenses, we may make different decisions.  

Sometimes you
have to zoom out.

In this example, we wanted to look at the opportunity cost.  Sure, there's the "if I didn't spend my money on this, I could've invested it in that" with the traditional definition.  We wanted to think about the time cost.  I have a friend who has a cabin...he ends up with probably 4-6 weekends a year just in maintenance stuff.  When he was talking about plans for the coming summer, he listed out all sorts of stuff...and grudgingly said, "but I've got to go do this-and-that to the cabin."  It'd flipped from cool thing to say he had at the office parties...to a pain in the neck.  This is to say nothing of the amount of all in purchase and carrying cost divided per night slept up there, relaxing.  Spoiler alert...it was way higher than just staying at the nearby hotel and resort on a per-night basis.  And...another spoiler ruler alert...a few years ago, a big wildland fire was heading through, and though the cabin survived, he was beside himself.  Before you go all in on a new big toy...look at what you could/would/should do with the same level of time/cost/etc investment.  

Sometimes bring 
an alligator.  

Consider applying this ruler perspective conversation to your schedule, your budget, your diet, your exercise, your family focuses...or whatever other commodity you want to measure.  One cookie a day seems like no big deal...that's 10 boxes a year, all for you or 19,200 calories in a year...but really...how many of us can only eat just one?  (PS - that equates to about 5.5 pounds of body fat by itself...per year).  That activity that only takes two nights a week?  That's 28% of your evenings in a year.  The average (again, according to Google) that a dad spends with a kid per day is 1-1.8 hours/day.  We'll split the difference at 1.5...that means for 94% of the day...we're doing something other than hanging out with our kids.  I get it...We have jobs and busy schedules and sleep...but still 8 for work, 8 for sleep, still leave 33% available, and we use 6%.  

Sometimes get
closer.

As we wrap up, consider using this week as a jumping-off point to recalculating how we look at the most important things in our lives.  When we change our proverbial glasses, sometimes it helps us look at the way we count the cost a little differently.  Hopefully you can re-figure what and why you do some of the things you do and see if it still makes sense...or if you want to change it up.  Best of luck in the counting and measuring! 

With you in the arena, from ours to yours...Happy Trails!

Call to Action: 

• Pick out three parts of life that you want to recount this week.  Once you re-look carefully at how and why you've leaned in...does it still make sense to lean in?  Double down?  Back out?  
• 1 - ___________________ 
• 2 - ___________________
• 3 - ___________________
• Discussion: Consider what you/your family could/would/should (level of commitment) and start/stop/sustain (action) in terms of evaluating how you do life...and if it's the right way you want it to be?  

Further Reading, Motivation, and References:

-  Don't Measure Your Life with Someone Else's Ruler