Everything Must Be Paid for Twice

One financial lesson they should teach in school is that most of the things we buy have to be paid for twice.

There’s the first price, usually paid in dollars, just to gain possession of the desired thing, whatever it is: a book, a budgeting app, a unicycle, a bundle of kale.

But then, in order to make use of the thing, you must also pay a second price. This is the effort and initiative required to gain its benefits, and it can be much higher than the first price.

I’ve lost count of the number of things I’ve bought over the year only to eventually sell them on or throw them away because I never got around to using them. In a few case, the items themselves are now unusable because I no longer have the hardware or software they need to function. In the last few years I’ve gotten better at managing that urge to Buy More Stuff, and instead put more effort into getting full use out of what I have here and now.