A lesson in Economics

A lesson in Economics

Last night as I was preparing for what I would wear the day after Christmas. It didn’t take long and I realized it was Friday and I needed to get out my Red. As I looked at my sweater I said to myself, I need a new red sweater this will not last until all the soldiers come home unless Obama calls them home right away. So I started to figure out how much it costs me to wear red daily. Basically, I wear either a red (summery) dress or a (wintery) red sweater. Each cost me about $25 or $26 and the calendar has about 52 Fridays so that is about a $1.00 per Friday. I don’t wear both at the same time because the reds don't go well together.

Then I got to thinking, what is the most expensive thing I wear. Shoes came to mind immediately. It costs me over $150.00 and you add a little shoe polish, and shoe strings besides tax and you soon have $175.00 invested and I usually wear them for dress the first year and the second year they are for every day. Well, since I have my wheels I now can wear a pair for good for 2 years and for every day for 2 years. So I have $350.00 invested in shoes over about 700 days. That would be about 50 cents a day.

Then I got to thinking, what is the oldest thing that I own? And immediately a blanket that I bought when I was in school in California came to mind. It was on sale for around $10.00 but add tax and I had to buy some satin ribbon to mend the top of it. Now we are probably over $12.00 invested and I have used it almost every day for about 30 years. It comes less than a pence per week. I just retired the blanket and plan to use it inside a quilt. I’d say that was a good investment.

Probably the cheapest thing that I wear is panties. I spent $2.50 each for a dozen and that included the tax, shipping and handling. I’m usually, use 6 panties out in one years time. Put that on a day cost and that’s about 4 cents a day to keep me covered.

It depends what kind of stockings I wear. If I wear real support hose that is big bucks. They run $30.00 a pair and I’m lucky if I get 3 months wear out of a pair. So that is easily 40-50 cents a day. If I wear cheap knee socks it runs only about 3 cents a day. Some times you get a pair and they last a long time and other times you put a pair on and they get a run the first day.

I bought 3 long blankets each $35.00 tax, shipping, handling included this past year. So that makes about 30 cents a day for all three and I use all three most days. That is if they only last one year but I expect them to last at least 10 years so that makes it go to 3 cents and if it last 30 years than we are down to only 1 cent a day. The moral of the story it take care of your stuff and you will not find your self in an economic crisis.

I sure didn't get much sleep that night thinking about the price of stuff.