Does Anything Get Cheaper?
Does Anything Get Cheaper?
Costs only seem to rise
As they’re beginning to dig our pool, I can’t help but think back to when we built our home five years ago.
We had plans to do a pool at that time. But if you’ve ever built a house you know that you always spend more than you’re projecting. Upgrade to this, add that and soon the budget is out the window. The pool idea was one of the things that we said we’d put off and do later.
Well, here we are five years later and the pool cost is 109% more to do now than when we built. More than double.
We also made the same decision to hold off on a whole house generator. Like the pool, the cost of putting in a generator went up. From when we built to when we installed it last year, the cost exactly doubled for the same generator and installation.
I went back and looked at my records from our first home that we built in 2010. The entire cost of the pool and landscaping when it’s all done will cost the same as it cost to build that entire home in 2010. For what that home cost to build in 2010, I could have built three of them for what that same home would cost today.
I had our current home that we built in 2018 figured if we built it again. As you would guess, the cost is almost double five years later. That’s just for the construction, not taking into account interest rates which are now double on a mortgage.
A few friends of mine said that they’re waiting for prices to come down in the housing market before building. They keep telling me that lumber is high and the cost to build is still too high.
Well in waiting lumber has come crashing down. It’s now down to a three year low. Great!
But mortgage rates have spiked. Almost tripling from the low of the last few years. With an increase in mortgage rates, the monthly payment and how much home you can afford has changed drastically. This has now led to no inventory of homes for sale. The real estate market has come to a standstill.
So much is out of your control. There are too many variables to consider when trying to determine the best time to do that home improvement, build or make that buy. Waiting increases the odds that it just becomes more expensive. I’ve learned if you can afford it, do it now and don’t wait. It’s likely you’ll only pay more by waiting.
One way the price of waiting comes in is the loss of purchasing power in the value of a dollar. We’ve all heard that the dollar just doesn’t go as far as it used to. This shows just that in a nice visual.
How many times over the past few years have you thought to yourself, does anything ever get any cheaper? It seems the price of literally everything continues to rise. Most of what goes into making a product or providing services has increased.
Or have there been some things that have actually gone down in price? This excellent visual below shows the price changes of consumer goods and services since January 2000.
Then as
who writes , illustrates below that the price increases are actually higher for services over goods. I found that interesting.
That brings us to the legendary Costco hot dog. If you adjusted for inflation the Costco hot dog would cost $4.91. Instead it still only costs $1.50. The same price it has been since 1985.
Not up, not down, just the same. I guess there is something that doesn’t change in price.
The Coffee Table ☕
It had been a while since I’ve read the iconic post from Kevin Kelly called 1,000 True Fans. I’ve read this numerous times since he wrote it in 2008 and decided to revisit it again. I love to read this as I think it’s one of the best business related blog posts ever written. The first paragraph sums up what follows so well.
To be a successful creator you don’t need millions. You don’t need millions of dollars or millions of customers, millions of clients or millions of fans. To make a living as a craftsperson, photographer, musician, designer, author, animator, app maker, entrepreneur, or inventor you need only thousands of true fans.
I just finished the book, The Brand Gap: How to Bridge the Distance Between Business Strategy and Design by Marty Neumeier. It came as a recommendation upon listening to the head writer of
on a podcast with . Doomberg: Provocative Not Polarizing. This was a quick and easy read. If you're building a business or anything associated with a brand, this is a book that needs to be on your list. I picked up some good tips from it.
Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed Spilled Coffee, please subscribe.
Spilled Coffee grows through word of mouth. Please consider sharing this post with someone who might appreciate it.