Wise Bread Picks
The first time I drove across the country, my aunt gave me her old highway atlas. My finances were a bit tight at the time, so the gift, worth maybe $12, was very much appreciated. Flipping through the maps, I marveled at how cheap it was, compared to what it was worth. What would Lewis & Clark have paid for it?
What would Leonardo da Vinici have paid for a cheap student set of acrylic paints? Think of the great works of art he could have painted if he hadn't spent hours grinding his own pigments to make paints. He could have painted even more in the time he spent trying experimental paints--some of which turned out to be non-archival; there we lost not only his time, but also his work.
The first time I drove across the country, my aunt gave me her old highway atlas. My finances were a bit tight at the time, so the gift, worth maybe $12, was very much appreciated. Flipping through the maps, I marveled at how cheap it was, compared to what it was worth. What would Lewis & Clark have paid for it?
What would Leonardo da Vinici have paid for a cheap student set of acrylic paints? Think of the great works of art he could have painted if he hadn't spent hours grinding his own pigments to make paints. He could have painted even more in the time he spent trying experimental paints--some of which turned out to be non-archival; there we lost not only his time, but also his work.
Besides maps and art supplies, here are a few more things that today are cheap or free, but that until recently were very expensive.
Digital photographs
Just lately I've been taking more photos with my digital camera. (I took this one with the camera that's built into my cell phone.)
When I was a kid, an adequate camera was not too expensive, but the cost of film and developing made photography an expensive hobby.
Nowadays, you don't need film or developing. If you have a digital camera, you can take as many pictures as you want for free.
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Long-distance phone calls
When I was a kid, long distance phone calls were for special occasions only. A long distance phone call announced births and deaths, maybe engagements or new jobs. A few major holidays--Christmas, Mother's Day--justified a call to far-off relatives.
Nowadays, most calling plans include virtually unlimited long-distance calling.
Watches
Through much of the 1700s, there was a £20,000 prize for anyone who could make a watch that would keep accurate time. That's real money--adjusted for inflation, that would be well over $5 million today.
Nowadays, a digital watch that keeps vastly better time is so cheap they give them away in cereal boxes.
Pens
A really good fountain pen is an heirloom item costing hundreds of dollars. Like mechanical watches, fountain pens marked a pinnacle of human ingenuity. Like cheap digital watches, cheap ballpoint pens lack a little something in soul, but they make up for it in practicality.
Nowadays, you can buy them in quantity for about a dime apiece, or you can get a really nice gel pen for a few dollars.
Delight yourself
I doubt if any of these are a surprise to you--you know you can get all sorts of prefectly good stuff cheap. But don't just take it for granted. When you think about buying some cool new gizmo, compare it to a digital photo, or a phone call, or a pen, or a watch (worth $5 million). Try to adjust your sense of what things are really worth, using a sense of wonder to calibrate the scale. If da Vinci had the price of that item, would he buy it? Or would he buy a few more tubes of paint?
When you make a purchase, buy what fills you with delight.
