Our refrigerator was failing to keep the food properly chilled. To bring the temperature down to something safe for food storage, I decided to get some dry ice and pack it around the food in the failing fridge. This would do until we found a more permanent solution.
Thankfully, we have a nearby store that carries dry ice. When I arrived in the store, I noticed a sign on the dry ice freezer that advertised $1.99. So, I requested 5, thinking $10.00 wasn’t a bad price compared to the value of the food that I would be saving from going bad.
However, when I checked out, I discovered that the $1.99 was the cost per pound. Each dry ice piece weighed approximately 5 pounds, so my total cost was a bit over $50.00, about 5 times what I had estimated.
The above reminded me, paradoxically, of how low costs can be dangerous to your financial well being. In the example above, it was simply my misreading of the cost, where I thought that it was something lower than it actually was.
Other times, you can read the cost correctly, but there are additional expenses. For example, you buy an air conditioner for your house, but the cost doesn’t end with the A/C purchase. Your electric bill goes up each summer as you cool your house.
As a final example, if you buy something on credit and pay it off with minimum payments, the interest alone can cost more than the item itself.
The lesson for me is that sometimes there’s more than just the low cost that you see (or think that you see).
This week’s blog is brought to you by the cur: query
Do you suffer from currency confusion? Does trying to work with multiple currencies have you all tied up in knots? Then you need the cur: query. With the cur: query, you can focus on just currency and ignore the others. Ask your plain text accountant if the cur: query would be right for you.
Note that cur: can cause narrowed vision of your finances. Do not use :cur if you are using proprietary accounting programs as unanticipated effects may occur.