Opportunity Cost…Revised…
I’ve written about opportunity cost of eating out last year, and re-wrote the post with a brand new recipe for my newspaper food column this week…
Before we had children, my husband and I used to eat out no fewer than 3 times a week. Our evenings wouldn’t even start until Seinfeld ended, and it wouldn’t be uncommon for us to have dinner reservations at 10pm. We’d easily spend $300 in an evening for just the two of us, because that’s just the kind of thing that irresponsible yuppies living large during the dot-com boom did. I’m not ashamed of the thousands of dollars that we threw in the entertainment bucket, because short of stumbling upon a long lost millionaire father, this kind of lavishness won’t come around for another 15 years, 4 months and 27 days. And that’s only if my youngest graduates high school on time.
I love my 2 chubby-cheeked dumplings very much, but the truth is, the financial responsibilities of parenthood suck. Date night with husband is now a very different reality. It’s the expense of dinner plus gas plus cost of babysitter. Cha-ching! $190 is easily spent in just a few hours, and really, was the trio of fancy flatbreads, gelato, so-so service and 2 glasses of house wine really worth it?
In case you recall high school economics, let’s calculate my opportunity cost: For $190 I could have bought: each kid a pair of new sneakers, 2 killer shredded pork burritos from the Burrito Stand, a frozen CPK barbeque chicken pizza, a pair of summer flip flops for each of us, a quart of pistachio gelato, fresh roasted coffee beans shipped from Caffe Roma in SF, a trip to the library, giant bottle of Bariani olive oil, a week’s supply of organic vegetables from the farmer’s market, gummy bear vitamins, 2 McDonald’s Happy Meals, a day pass to Sarasota’s Jungle Gardens and a bucket of worms. These are all favorite things that we cherish, make us giggle with delight and gladly fork over hard-earned money for.
As for the fancy flatbreads that I had ordered at the restaurant, it was easily duplicated at home. Sure, I didn’t have an inattentive waiter at my beck and call, but the joy of a spontaneous pizza dough sling-fest in the middle of the kitchen with the kids was definitely priceless.
