It’s occurred to me recently that our ideas of “waste” are frequently more a matter of subjective opinion than objective truth.
A wife looks at a new power saw that her husband just bought, and it’s easy to say “you didn’t need that! Why would you waste $100 when you already have a perfectly-good power saw?”
And the same husband looks at two new pairs of fabric shears his wife just bought, and thinks “you didn’t need that! Why would you waste $40 on scissors, of all things, when we have a perfectly good pair in the kitchen!”
And here’s the thing – they’re both right, and they’re both wrong.
The odds of either spouse being able to argue “need” when it comes to a new power saw or fabric shears is pretty minimal.
Even for the people who have a visceral reaction in the moment (“of course I need a new pair of shears! I can’t use kitchen shears for fabric!”), on some level, once you calm them down, you can usually get them to admit that “need” is probably a strong word.
But the question of “do you really need that?” is a poor question most of the time, because most of our lives are beyond saturated with things that we absolutely don’t need. Since we’ve already failed the “need” test, we need better questions.
There are two questions that are much better – let’s talk about that saw as an illustration.
Budget-Wise, Is The Expenditure Reasonable?
I don’t necessarily mean “did we get the best deal on the saw?” That’s a perfectly valid question, and it never hurts to shop around, but throw that line of thinking out for a minute.
Do we have the money to make the purchase?
If we have an extra $500 per month beyond what’s formally budgeted, we’re probably fine. If we only have an extra $25 per month, however, that $100 will require us to either save up or do without.
And by the way, this is cumulative. One $100 power tool may be reasonable for the people who have an extra $500. But four $100 power tools is pushing the budget!
Is Enjoyment/Utility Derived In Proportion To The Expenditure?
Utility is basically a way of saying “usefulness”. If buying the saw enables us to build the bookcases our families have always wanted for the family room, that’s utility. And if it’s a lot of bookcases, it’s probably $100 worth of utility.
Enjoyment is just what it sounds like – something we enjoy. If the reason you don’t do wood projects more often is that you need a bigger circular saw to cut the size of lumber you’re working with, and we actually use the new saw all the time to do fun wood projects, we probably get enough enjoyment from it to make it worth spending $100 on.
The Arbiters Of The Questions
The problem a lot of us have is that we ask the two questions of the wrong people.
- The first question needs to be decided on by anybody who’s a financial stakeholder in the purchase.
- The second question needs to be decided on by the people who will be using and/or enjoying the purchase.
My wife, for example, is an artist. The other day she decided she wanted to try something that requires ultra-fine-point markers. She explained the situation to me, and asked if we could pick some up next time we were by the hobby store.
I asked two follow-up questions.
“How much will it cost if you like it?” and “How much will it cost us to find out if you like it?”
The answers to those questions were “about $25” and “about $5”, respectively. The $5 was for one marker, and that was the low end. She figured that she could give it a try with the one marker and see how it went, and if she liked it we could get the bigger set.
Now don’t miss this next point.
I know there are people out there who are thinking “$5 for one marker?!?!?!?! That’s such a waste of money! Nobody needs a $5 marker!” I get it. I’ve been known to do that too.
But here’s the thing – it’s not my job to determine what my wife does or doesn’t need to do her art.
That doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes bring up question #2 in a very intentional way, to ensure that she’s answered it in her own mind – but once she has her final answer, it’s not my job to second-guess it.
She believes she’s going to get $5 worth of enjoyment out of this thing, and if she likes it she’s going to want another $25 or so to get the bigger set. My job is solely to be involved in figuring out whether or not $30 (or so) is budgetarily reasonable for us.
Yes? I’ve answered question #1 properly, and I have to trust her to answer question #2.
No? Then we can’t afford it, and the answer to question #2 doesn’t matter.
The Ultimate Waste
As I said, I’ve been on the wrong side of this one before. And being on the wrong side, like many things, means that rather than trusting the other person we wind up sending clear, unmistakable signals that we don’t trust them at all.
That means we can effectively choose one thing to waste – some money, or the relationship.
Ultimately, which is more valuable?