Cost Per Use-Tuesday Tip

You know there is a rule of thumb on whether or not you can afford to buy the kewl thingy there in Ikea that you just have to have.

It is called cost-per-use. You figure out how many times you will use the item and divide that into the cost if the item to figure your cost for a year--as an example...

I had to have a fancy delux vacuum that all the young girls in the ward were talking about. So, it cost me (because I got the really fancy one) about $500. I vacuum about 150 times a year. If I have the vacuum one year, it costs me $3 each time I use it. If I keep it for 5 years, it costs me 66¢, now that makes it a bargain.

However, here is a good one, you want a new blouse, it costs $50. You may wear it 10 times in a year, less if you have lots of cloths. At $5 a pop, that is an expensive blouse when you could go to a discount store like Ross and get a perfectly good blouse for maybe $10 and have that cost go down to $1 per use.

If the item is not something you "use" rather something you will just enjoy such as a picture on the wall, you can say cost-per-enjoyment. Now, that's my favorite, 'cause I can really enjoy something----a lot.

And finally, the cost per use on boxes or bottles of consumable products is something you should pay attention to. It used to be that bigger was cheaper. A larger box of cereal cost less per ounce than a smaller box of cereal, but not anymore. One example I have seen is a popular brand of shampoo at a cost like this:

15.0 ounce bottle 90¢ cost 06¢ per ounce
22.5 ounce bottle $1.47 cost 06.5¢ per ounce

Watch out for that, most price labels have the cost per unit on them, do some comparison and save yourself some money. That may not seem like a lot of money, but when you realize it is 8.9% more for the larger bottle, you might want to give it some serious thought. How would you feel if the store charged you 8.9% more for everything you bought. Yikes.