Does plain text accounting interest me because I am often searching for value?
And what do I mean by value? For me, value is good divided by cost. Therefore, large value would come from something of great good at a very small cost. Conversely, something that costs a lot but brings little good into your life has minuscule value.
My usual mode of thinking about value is for smaller things. Take for example a recent visit to a local ice cream stand. This particular establishment has the classic look of a place that opened in the 1950s and has stayed almost exactly the same over the years.
Except for the prices. My vanilla ice cream with peanuts and chocolate sauce came to much more than I would have expected. Naturally, I checked in case there had been a mistake in the billing.
There was no error, but I did notice how expensive the toppings were. Worse, the peanuts were not the kind that I wanted. They were the tiny pieces of crushed peanuts, rather than the whole ones that I much prefer. Therefore, in terms of the peanuts, per the above definition of value, I was getting little value (paying a lot for something that I didn’t consider that great).
It occurred to me that next time I could bring my own peanuts from home, and just order the ice cream and chocolate sauce from the stand. I would add the peanuts myself and I have a better result for less money — more value!
The next thought was that I sometimes make a chocolate sauce at home that I like because it is less sweet. (OK, it’s downright bitter, but when you add it to ice cream, the sweetness from the ice cream ameliorates much of the bad taste.) In addition to bringing the peanuts from home, I could bring some chocolate sauce and just order the vanilla ice cream from the stand. Once I got my ice cream, I could add my own toppings.
In terms of value, I would be even more ahead as I now have two toppings that I prefer, ones that cost much less to bring from home.
I don’t know where the next thought came from, but suddenly in my head was the idea that I could also bring the ice cream from home along with the peanuts and chocolate sauce. Just for a second, I pictured myself sitting down at one of the outside tables by the ice cream stand creating my own sundae from home brought ingredients. After a moment’s reflection, though, I realized “Why bother? Just eat the ice cream at home and save yourself the trip.” But for a split second it seemed like an appealing idea.