The Cost of Ownership

I think there are three different costs associated with ownership.
The first is the cost of purchase. This includes not only the dollar cost of the item, but also the cost of time to find the item and also the cost of transportation to go get the item and to bring it back home.

The second is the cost of storage. If it is a big item, you may need to rent a place to keep it (like a boat). But even if it is a small item that goes in your house, there are still costs involved. Each bit of space in your house has value and can only be filled once. If the space is filled with one thing, it cannot hold something else. So there are opportunity costs involved in keeping things inside your house.

The third is the cost of using an item. The cost of using an item has two components. The pleasure of using something to meet our needs: Pleasure comes from how well (beautifully) our needs are met. And deducted from that pleasure is the cost to care for the item. Items are designed to be easy to care for (wash and wear clothes) so that the cost to care for an item does not cause a significant reduction to the pleasuure of using the item. Hopefully, the balance between the positive cost to use and the negative cost to care for yields a positive result which, over time, balances out the costs of purchase and storage before the item wears out or looses its usefullness.

Sadly, there are times when we make a mistake in our purchases and buy something that is too small or in some other way does not meet our needs. Sometimes, we purchase something with a low purchase price because we are unsure of how well it will meet our needs. However, it still has the same cost to find, store and maintain. And sometimes, the purchase price is less because the maintence costs are high.

Or possibly our needs or tastes change. In that case, maybe it is no longer pleasant to use an item. Admitting that you no longer find joy in using an item is the first step to making space for an item you may find more joy in using.

I have noticed that sometimes people do not take ownership of their stuff. They do not take care of it. They act like it is not theirs. I believe this is more likely to happen if they were not involved in paying the other costs. If they did not pick out the item, or pay for it, and worse, if the item does not fit or bring pleasure in it's use, they never take ownership of it. This happens alot with gifts. Either the gift is not accepted (or is returned) or it lays around and no one does anything with it.

I think we should analyze the cost of owning our stuff. Too often the stuff that is put away in our closets and storage sheds has a negative balance. Maybe we seldom use the items (so there is a low positive cost of use) and they are taking valuable space that could be filled with the stuff that meets our needs. Or, maybe we keep something that has a low positive cost of use (becasue it is wearing out) simply to avoid incuring additional purchasing costs (including the time necessary to find just the right item to replace the old item).

The best thing to do with an item that is not worth the costs of ownership is to get rid of it. If it is truely worn out, then we can put it in the trash (but remember, there is also a cost to dispose of something). Otherwise, if something is still useful, then we should make it available to someone who will cover the costs of using it. But probably not as a gift unless they are willing to pay some of the the purchasing costs through either money or effort.