[jay_kyburz]

Here is another take, when I compare two things on price, I take the price difference and apply 5% compound interest on it for 30 years. That about how much I would save if I put the money on my mortgage instead. Or when the mortgage was paid off how much it would earn in my retirement savings.

Also, now I have two kids, I always think how much its going to cost my kids. Sure I could buy a $1000 phone now, or I could leave my kids $10,000 extra in the Will. :)

[gen220]

From what I recall, Warren Buffet thinks about things in the same way, which is one reason he’s famously stingy.

It’s a blessing and a curse, because it leads to wealth but can end up in some weird end states. Like having an uncomfortable lifestyle that the money-controller can tolerate, but other members of the family chafe at.

Be careful to value the compounding interest in your own happiness and the compounding value of the happiness of those around you. Through that lens, a marginal $10k (on top of an already secure retirement fund) might be worth far less than a marginal $1k investment in the happiness of yourself or your friends and family.

Money is not a goal in itself after all, it exists to further our true goals in life. In this day and age it’s all to easy to get distracted by the money game, and forget what our true goals are.

[kqr]

This is a good point raised also by Deming early on in one of his books. The cost of any investment is not just the money spent, but also the risk-free rate compounded on that money over the time the investment is in use.

In periods when the risk-free rate is 2 %, that is what any investment costs you in addition to the principal, as Deming put it poetically, "every day, rain or shine, even on Sundays."

[rufus_foreman]

I would have hated for my parents to not buy something so that they could leave me money. I mean not that they had that problem, they died pretty much broke, but still. They taught me how to make my own money.