Extended cost or cumulative cost, how much do we spend on small things over a month or year? How much are you really spending on coffee at starbucks, drinks at the bar, or cigarettes. How much are we spending on our habits?
Let’s start with coffee drinkers. According to http://www.e-importz.com/Support/specialty_coffee.htm “Over 50% of Americans over 18 years of age drink coffee every day. This represents over 150 million daily drinkers. 30 million American adults drink specialty coffee beverages daily; which include a mocha, latte, espresso, café mocha, cappuccino, frozen/iced coffee beverages, etc.” Let’s say you’re one of those 30 million, and you buy a grande mocha from starbucks every day. In Seattle that will now run you a whopping $3.91. After buying one every day for a week, you’re looking at a cost of $27.37. By the end of the month you would have spent $109.48 and by the end of the year your total would have risen to $1313.76. That’s a lot of money.
Ok then how about smokers. In a 2003 survey smokers age 12 and up smoked an average of 13 cigarettes a day on the days they smoked and the same age range of smokers, smoked an average of 23 out of the last 30 days. 13 cigarettes every day for 23 days is 299 cigarettes. In the US, a pack of cigarettes has to be at least 20. So at 20 per pack, the average smoker will smoke about 20 packs in a month. Tobacco Free Kids.org lists the average pack price at $5.26. Multiplied by 20 packs a month and you find you will be spending $105.2 per month and by extension $1262.4 every year on your habit.
God forbid you smoke and drink coffee daily, at which point you would be spending about $2500 annually on your habits.
Next, going to the bar? Let’s assume you go out on the town on Friday nights and drink moderately, having only 2 to 3 drinks. If you like mixed drinks you’re paying at least $4 and probably closer to $6 for a drink, so one night on the town will run you $12-18. Though I expect that’s probably on the low end. If you go out every Friday for a month, you’ve now spent $48-72 and if you go every Friday all year long, $624-936. Not as bad as coffee either but this is assuming you drink moderately.
How about other monthly expenditures, like cable tv, or Netflix? Comcast’s digital preferred service is $39.99 for the first 6 months, after which it jumps to $56 a month, so a year of cable TV costs $576. Netflix basic subscription of 3 movies at a time runs $16.99 a month or $203.88 a year. A movie once a month at $7 a ticket, $84 a year.
Fast food lunch every day, at minimum $5 a meal each day of a 5 day work week, $25 a week, $100 a month, $1300 a year. Gym membership at 24 hour fitness to work off the weight you put on by eating fast food every day, $30 a month, $360 a year.
So what you say? Everything you choose to do, eat or drink costs money. Not exactly a new idea, but each of those expenses means you have to make more money to support your lifestyle. This may mean working more hours or working harder, which in turn means you are tired when you get home. If you’re working hard to pay for entertainment, but are too tired to enjoy that same entertainment is it worth the cost? How much do you value your free time, time with family and friends? What is time worth to you? Is it worth a cup of coffee or, your cigarette? And this analysis isn’t even considering the physical effects that some of these habits have on your body. Time has value and is becoming a commodity in our increasingly busy lives. Take some time to think about the choices you are making and the extended costs of things in your life.
Showing posts with label self analysis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self analysis. Show all posts
Monday, April 12, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Soft People
A topic I've been mulling over for a while is the idea that we as Americans are soft. I can't speak for other countries as I don't have much experience with them, but here in America, we're soft. We spend most of our lives trying to avoid or minimize pain and suffering. On the whole I'm not saying this is bad, but I think we may have gone too far.
Pain is the body's way of telling you something is wrong. Pain is meant to be a good thing. It tells us we're still alive and it's trying to keep us that way. Pain tells you when you've put your hand down on a hot stove, pain tells you when you've miss stepped or stubbed your toe. Pain is a great teacher. But we ignore it.
Take the painkiller commercials for example. Have back pain? Take Tylenol so the pain goes away and you can continue to lift those heavy boxes that are straining your back.
But it's not just physical pain, it's emotional pain too. We avoid real commitment and relationships because we don't want to get hurt. People don't put themselves out there because they don't want to be rejected.
Instead we cocoon ourselves away behind social media and texting. God forbid we actually have to interact with someone face to face. But it's more systemic then that. We don't want to feel even the least bit uncomfortable. We live in climate controlled houses, and go to work at climate controlled buildings in climate controlled cars, lest we ever be cold or hot. Lest we be uncomfortable and maybe even perspire. We don't work out, because we don't want to be sore and we are constantly eating because we never want to feel hungry.
If we do something that's hard, or pushes us beyond our comfort level, we give up, we quit. We are a generation that doesn't know what we are capable of because we are too afraid to try, because it's not comfortable.
I've had the pleasure to facilitate rock climbing outings, and mountain hikes. I'm not talking a short walk in the hills, I'm talking 20 miles in one day with heavy elevation gain. And this is what I see. I see people who get halfway up a rock face and want to quite, because it's too hard, and their muscles have begun to ache. I hear complaints of I can't do it, but you know what I've found? It's a lie. 90% of the time, it's not that they can't, it's that they don't know they can. They've never challenged themselves, they don't know their limits and what they are capable of.
On rare occasions I have seen something else though, I've seen someone achieve far beyond what they thought possible, because they dared to say, No, I don't care what I think I can do, I don't care that it hurts, I will do this. Too often we stop, or give up at the first sign of adversity or pain, when we can accomplish so much more, more then we ever imagine, if we are just willing to push. To go beyond what we think we can do, what we are comfortable with.
It's like building a muscle. You exercise and there is pain, because the muscle is breaking down. But the miracle of the human body is that when it heals, it does so stronger. Pain can be a good thing, it's telling you your pushing your limits. But you don't have to stop. Don't ignore the pain, don't shut it out, or dull it with drugs. Listen to it. Know your body.
There is no growth without pain. Without pain we are lepers, destined to repeat the same mistakes, to continue re-injuring the same wounds, till our fingers fall off.
I would rather push myself, past the pain, to the limit and learn. Learn who I am, and what I'm capable of. We need to stop ignoring or avoiding pain and discomfort, I think it's time we embraced the pain.
Embrace the pain and live a little.
Pain is the body's way of telling you something is wrong. Pain is meant to be a good thing. It tells us we're still alive and it's trying to keep us that way. Pain tells you when you've put your hand down on a hot stove, pain tells you when you've miss stepped or stubbed your toe. Pain is a great teacher. But we ignore it.
Take the painkiller commercials for example. Have back pain? Take Tylenol so the pain goes away and you can continue to lift those heavy boxes that are straining your back.
But it's not just physical pain, it's emotional pain too. We avoid real commitment and relationships because we don't want to get hurt. People don't put themselves out there because they don't want to be rejected.
Instead we cocoon ourselves away behind social media and texting. God forbid we actually have to interact with someone face to face. But it's more systemic then that. We don't want to feel even the least bit uncomfortable. We live in climate controlled houses, and go to work at climate controlled buildings in climate controlled cars, lest we ever be cold or hot. Lest we be uncomfortable and maybe even perspire. We don't work out, because we don't want to be sore and we are constantly eating because we never want to feel hungry.
If we do something that's hard, or pushes us beyond our comfort level, we give up, we quit. We are a generation that doesn't know what we are capable of because we are too afraid to try, because it's not comfortable.
I've had the pleasure to facilitate rock climbing outings, and mountain hikes. I'm not talking a short walk in the hills, I'm talking 20 miles in one day with heavy elevation gain. And this is what I see. I see people who get halfway up a rock face and want to quite, because it's too hard, and their muscles have begun to ache. I hear complaints of I can't do it, but you know what I've found? It's a lie. 90% of the time, it's not that they can't, it's that they don't know they can. They've never challenged themselves, they don't know their limits and what they are capable of.
On rare occasions I have seen something else though, I've seen someone achieve far beyond what they thought possible, because they dared to say, No, I don't care what I think I can do, I don't care that it hurts, I will do this. Too often we stop, or give up at the first sign of adversity or pain, when we can accomplish so much more, more then we ever imagine, if we are just willing to push. To go beyond what we think we can do, what we are comfortable with.
It's like building a muscle. You exercise and there is pain, because the muscle is breaking down. But the miracle of the human body is that when it heals, it does so stronger. Pain can be a good thing, it's telling you your pushing your limits. But you don't have to stop. Don't ignore the pain, don't shut it out, or dull it with drugs. Listen to it. Know your body.
There is no growth without pain. Without pain we are lepers, destined to repeat the same mistakes, to continue re-injuring the same wounds, till our fingers fall off.
I would rather push myself, past the pain, to the limit and learn. Learn who I am, and what I'm capable of. We need to stop ignoring or avoiding pain and discomfort, I think it's time we embraced the pain.
Embrace the pain and live a little.
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