Born For This

The Whole Foods near me redid their juice bar long about a year ago, and I have restrained myself from pouring my paycheck into their coffers…until this week.

See, they have this juice that has red peppers and cilantro and jalapeno with cucumber and celery, and I am in love.

(There would be a picture of a green juice here if I were less selfish with my juice guzzling.)

Practical me says, “$4.75 can’ t possibly be a reasonable price for a juice. I should buy a juicer and save money!”

But practical me watched as the juicer swallowed up two cucumbers, two stalks of celery, a whole red pepper, half a jalapeno, and handfuls of cilantro.

And practical me did what practical me does and ran the numbers.

The Numbers

(a tiny, blog-friendly cost benefit analysis)

		2 cucumbers	2
		2 stalks celery	0.25
		.5 jalapeno	0.05
		1 red pepper	1
		parsley	0.5
		cilantro	0.5
Pre-Made Juice	4.75	Ingredients for one homemade juice	4.3

The Whole Foods juice costs a whopping 0.45 more than my homemade juice would. (Must be nice to buy organic produce without the huge markup – I am sure their costs are way lower than my retail costs, but alas I am not a grocery store.)

The juicer costs $220.  I could definitely buy a cheaper juicer, but I want a masticating juicer.   I have owned several varieties of cheaper juicers, including the popular:

• Leaky McLeakerson
• Cleaning this juicer basket proves that Satan exists
• Seriously, an apple only produces a teaspoon of juice?
• Why don’t you come over here and crank the wheatgrass through for an hour??

So anyhow, any future juicers will be of the nutrition-preserving, thoroughly-extracting, non-wall-staining, masticating variety.

After one more calculation (cost of the juicer ÷ the difference in cost-per-juice, for those playing along at home), I saw that it would take me 488.89 juices until the difference in cost-per-juice paid for the price of the juicer.  After 489 juices, my juicer would be “paid for” and I’d finally be seeing the cost savings from having purchased my own juicer!

In other words, if I were to juice 3 times a week without fail, I would break even in 3.13 years.  If the juicer lasts that long.

Let alone my juice motivation.

The Non-Numbers

Pros of the juice bar:

• I don’t have to wash any produce (or a juicer
• The industrial juicer is way more powerful than the $220 home model I’ve scoped out
• I can change my mind about my juice and not have to go buy ingredients

And the cons:

• I don’t have total control over what goes in my juice
• It’s not actually in my house (though it is within a 2 minute drive or a 10 minute walk)

The Final-ish Outcome

There is no way I will juice three times a week for the next 3 years.  I’d like to think that will happen, but I look back at the past few months of working late late late when I haven’t even been making time for 20 minute workouts and know that life will still get in the way for me for a long while.

When this project that has been keeping me chained to my desk is done (in two weeks, PRAISE BE) there will be another project, and in a few months there will be the whirlwind of fall and winter holidays (not to mention a dearth of fresh, local produce – those cucumbers will rocket up in price, for example).

Bottom line: there’s no significant cost savings, and the opportunity cost of taking so much freaking time to juice, wash a juicer, etc. might cost me my job, because it’s hard enough to be on time when I’ve been up working past the first round of House Hunters International reruns.  No juicer for me unless I move away from convenient juice bar access!

But I want more cost benefit analyses!

I might not think a $220 juicer is a good value, but I might soon drop $$$ on a personal trainer for the next few months.

I’m not crazy; $1200 of personal training is just more worth it than the $220 juicer because….

There are certain fitness goals that I have been trying to achieve, with varying degrees of effort and consistency, for the past 10 years.  10 years.  More than 1/3 of my life.

Clearly, I am not going to get there – and stay there – on my own.  I have accepted that, superhuman as I am, I have a finite amount of discipline.  I can’t be:

• awesome at work with extended hours AND
• awesome at eating superhealthy foods even when 2.5 meals have to be packed for work AND
• awesome at keeping on top of financial goals AND
• awesome at being a girlfriend and friend (maybe semi-awesome at being a friend, sorry y’all) AND
• awesome at keeping the house clean AND
• still have the motivation and energy to get myself into the gym the way I need to right now.

I know it will be up to me to maintain any results I achieve with a trainer, but I also know that once I’m over the hump with some of the goals that I have it will be nearly impossible to backslide since my previous health issues are done and gone.

So, if I meet with the trainer weekly for a $75 session for 4 months, I’ll be paying $1200 for:

• His expertise – I have done my research and tried on my own, but I’m just not getting there, and I don’t know what to correct
• His motivation – I am much more likely to burn myself out at this point (I’m really good at that!)
• Accountability – I am so low on discipline that, in a very uncharacteristic scenario, I have only made it to one of my “SERIOUSLY I am working out every day this week” workouts…out of the four I should have completed so far.  25% success.

The actual CBA here is a bit trickier than the one for the juicer; I’m not a business, and results like my happiness are difficult to quantify in the same way that the juice prices can be delineated. Get ready for crazy overanalysis….

Quantifications of my happiness:

• Happier = less stress, which means improved health, which means lower healthcare costs (hard to say by how much since it’s an assumption and I’m still young…)
• Happier = less stress and more confidence, which means not doing things like impulse-buying dresses, shoes, etc. to cheer myself up (let’s put that down at about $1,000 per year, and we’ll pretend like that’s not grossly below the actual number)
• Happier = less stress, which means that my relationships will be stronger (and that we won’t end up spending $30 over our takeout budget every week because who would want to cook for you anyway?!, a yearly savings of $1562)
• Happier = more confidence, which means that new doors might be open to me (potential future career moves, friendships that lead to more happiness, etc.)
• Happier = more confidence, which means living my best, most authentic life

Now, it’s not like I’m a teeth-gnashing, miserable stressball; my life is pretty great as far as I’m concerned.  I am, however, focusing on improving my happiness and confidence because are the weakest, highest-risk areas of my life right now, they are completely my responsibility, and they are what will shape so much of my future.

Also, I doubt that I’m going to find a magic bullet for my specific fitness/health goals that I haven’t been able to reach for 10 years on my own.

Zo, ze numbers:

For one year…

		Retail Therapy	1000
		Take-Out overage	1562
		Missed Opportunities	???
Personal Training (4 months)	1200	Total Cost	2562

And for 10 years?  I am not going to write the gigantic numbers down, but…you get the idea. I could capture more of the intangibles with quality scores, but the basic finance is compelling on its own.

It’s not foolproof, but with a potential savings of 1362 this year and the full 2500 in upcoming years, it’s a no-brainer financially.  Personally, it’s been a no-brainer for a long time, but I had to come to terms with the fact that I can’t be perfect at everything all the time.  (Only most things most of the time.) (Kidding.)

So, that’s my fun with cost benefit analyses for the day. Maybe I’ll post the one that explains why I don’t own a car next!