One of the first things we noticed with my wife’s new hairdo is that making it work costs money and time. My wife, who never used any type of ‘after shower’ hair products now has 3 new ‘goops’. She’s also purchased 2 new brushes (we started with only one, but we have an 9 year old daughter and items such as brushes tend to go missing on a regular basis). And she now regularly uses my hair dryer. No immediate out-of-pocket expense for that, since she was able to leverage resources already on hand, but seeing as how I generally have to buy a new one for myself every 18-24 months, I’m guessing this rate will increase.
For something as simple as a new hairdo, these aren’t horrendous expenses, but the point is this: the great majority of solutions require costs beyond the initial implementation, and we need to make sure we keep our eyes open for them. Ever see someone go thru the effort of securing a car loan to buy the car that they want, then not be able to purchase the car because they can’t afford the insurance? Or ever watch someone try to put a new shower enclosure into their bathroom, only to have to tear out the entire floor because they found that the floors were rotting? It happens. Ever looked longingly at that $89 Mac OS X upgrade for your Mac, but refuse to buy it because of the $1000 you’d have to spend on updating your Adobe suite? I’ve seen reasonable cost overruns add up into the thousands. These are generally items you can anticipate if you ask questions up front from your vendor or salesman, or if its possible, talk to people who have gone thru the process before you.
