The Financial Cost of Habitual Behaviour
We all buy things all the time and sometimes they are significant purchases that we notice but often we have habits and habitual behaviour that makes it all so common we hardly even notice. I have been looking at some figures for regular purchases and it starts to get scary when you look at them over long periods of time.
The habit might be a daily one like smoking which will cost perhaps £5 per day. Maybe that doesn’t sound so much. What if you look at it as £35 each week? Starting to notice it?£150 per month is enough to do something worthwhile with isn’t it? If you look at a whole year it comes out at £1825.00 which would pay for a decent holiday and over 40 years it comes to £73,000
- Daily Cost = £5.00
- Weekly Cost = £35.00
- Monthly Cost=£150.00
- Yearly Cos t= £1825.00
- 40 Year Cost=£73,000.00
It makes you think doesn’t it and I am not picking on smokers here. It’s all about regular habitual purchases and the same cost might apply to having a coffee and a cake or a couple of pints down the pub.
It applies to buying newspapers, magazines, bags of crisps, gym memberships and anything else you do on a regular basis.
How long do you have to work for the annual cost of any of these things. A regular smoker or a drinker might be working one hour in every day to pay for the habit. If you enjoy it and feel it is worth the cost then fine. I am not picking on any particular habit here but understanding how regular payments mount up and seeing the numbers should make you look at them and question if that is really how you want to spend your money.
Quit a daily habit and it might pay for your holiday or allow you to have another holiday. It might enable you to make an extra payment on your mortgage each year and cut the overall cost and length of your mortgage term quite significantly. We tend to focus on money on a day by day basis but looking at costs over the long term can give a broader perspective that might make you question some of those daily incidental expenses.
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