It Was All Relative To The Cost Of Beer!

A long time ago I was sitting in Calculus class. The instructor handed us a test back and I had made a fair grade. I was confused about question #10 on the test. So I asked the teacher about the question. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Where did question #10 come from?
Instructor: That one came right out of the book. Did you not study that part of the chapter?
Me: I don’t even have the book!
Instructor: Why did you not buy the book?
Me: Well, it cost $80 and I did not want to spend that much money. Do you know how many beers you can buy with $80?
Instructor: But you have to have the book!

That was my thinking way back in college. First of all the book contained 3 classes. I knew I was not going to be able to pass all three calculus classes. So it would have been a waste of money to buy the book. I figured if I would pass any of the classes without the book it would be the first one. I did not need the book to pass that class. I would have been taking away from my beer drinking money and I could not do that.

Back then everything I did was all relative to the cost of beer. Let’s just say beer was my “benchmark”. Any purchase had to pass the beer test. Let’s look at some examples: (beer cost 50 cents in those days)

It’s Thursday night and I have $10. How did I handle that? Well, if I had enough food in the refrigerator I had no problem. I would eat at home and then go out and drink 20 beers. If I had to eat I had a bit of a decision to make. I would have taken $5 and gotten a Big Mac, fries, and a drink. The other $5 would have gotten me 10 beers.

It’s time to go home; an hour’s drive. I have $4. I could have used the money to buy gas for the car. It would have gotten me about 11 gallons back then. I could have driven home and back easily for $4. Nope. That’s not what I would have done. I would have used $2 to buy gas for the car. I would have been able to get home one way. I would have bought 4 beers which would have been one drink every 15 minutes. My Mom would have filled my car up for me to get back to school.

I am at the grocery store. I have $40. Groceries for the week including a case of beer would cost me about $45. The problem is 24 beers won’t last the whole week. I need two cases of beer. No problem. I buy two cases of beer and cut down on the food. I figure I can drink my dinner for a couple of nights.

So as you can see by these examples everything I did back then was relative to the cost of beer. I still do that somewhat today. If you don’t use this system try it. It’s makes good economic sense.