Benefit v. Cost
By: Leeks
So i am taking a macroeconomics course right now. One of the main points of economics is cost v. beneift. What you give up to obtain something else is the opportunity cost of that item. If you want to go to the movies, you have to give up either spending time with your family or the money it costs. When determining this, you must decide if the benefit you receive is worth the cost of the things you are giving up.
This has made me think about playing baseball. On the outside, signing a contract, getting paid to play baseball, do something you love etc is all benefit and no cost. I will disagree with this statement everytime. Now I understand I was lucky, got to do something I love etc, but the cost of acheiving this dream well surpassed the benefit. When I started I was 23 and when I stopped I was 27. During this time I was making anywhere from 800-1000 a month and when the season was over, I had a hard time trying to find a job and workout at the same time.
So there I was, a college grad with 40,000 in student loans and living below poverty level. Whereas my friends were able to get jobs right away, start paying off their debt and start down the road to financial freedom. I am 30 and have only had a real job for 2 years, whereas my friends have had real jobs for 7 years. Not hard to figure out who wins financially and long term with that one.
Second, playing baseball totally affected by credit history. Imagine making 800 a month, paying 300 in rent and trying to eat and having 300 a month payments in student loans. Now I was able to defer most of my loans, but one would not work with me any longer and I was forced to do the worst thing you can possibly do. So Wells Fargo can go to hell. Notwithstanding that, the loans i deferred accrued interest and now instead of being 5000 are 8000. Totally worth playing baseball for?
So here I set, ready to start a family and if I had been not good at baseball, probably would be a better situation. The cost of playing baseball far outweighed any benefit I received from it.
This entry was posted on Monday, October 1st, 2007 at 3:30 pmand is filed under Daily Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
“Benefit v. Cost”
October 1st, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Not a day goes by that I don’t think about the what ifs in that same situation. But for me playing baseball isn’t about the cost or the benefit, it’s about the experience and what I learned from doing that.
I like to believe that baseball taught me a lot about teamwork, achieving goals, competition, and then once in pro ball about individualism. I think I took a lot away from baseball, especially my drive to succeed in other things. I want to believe that my will and determination to be successful outside of baseball will pay off one day.
I have preached about this book before but it sounds like you’d like “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”. It’ll make you think twice before buying that Saves The Day t-shirt.