The cost of entertainment shouldn't be too high. But it's also very easy to underestimate the real cost …
One of my longtime-favorite personal finance bloggers J. Money over at Budgets Are Sexy wrote a post on the “Buck an Hour” rule cost of entertainment, based on a prompting from one of his readers.
The premise of the rule is that you should get one hour of enjoyment for each dollar you spend (hence “buck an hour”).
By this measure, the $15 Spotify Premium subscription our family has should give us at least 15 hours of enjoyment per month (which it does). Our $60/month internet service gives us (at least) 60 hours of enjoyment between us.
Not all of our entertainment purchases have passed this test. Our cable television bill gave us next to no enjoyment because we hardly ever watch TV.
The cost of entertainment is more than money
Confession time: I'm a video game fiend. I'm fully capable of playing mindless phone (or computer) games for hours at a time.
I'm also highly reluctant to pay money for, or in, any of these games. I'll put up with ads and throttling of the gameplay if it means not actually spending any money.
So by the “Buck an Hour” rule, I'm cleaning up, right? Paying nothing per hour has got to be better than paying $1 per hour, right?
It is better — up until the point that I look back at all the time I spent and have nothing to show for it!
The cost of entertainment isn't just the money. It's also the productive things you didn't do while you were being entertained.
I do get some productive things done, but after I do an entertainment binge I do kick myself over how much more I could get done if I hadn't gotten sucked into the games for as long as I did.
That doesn't sound like “free” to me. Time is worth far, far more than money!
A buck an hour cost of entertainment = expensive
In this light, for some things, “passing” the buck an hour test is a great reason not to get it.
Let's use another video game example since that is my weakness.
As I write this, Sony will be releasing Tetris® Effect for its PlayStation 4 sometime next month.
Now, I already own two separate Tetris games for my Nintendo Wii: Tetris Party and Tetris Party Deluxe. (I can't play Minecraft to save my life, but I'm pretty good at Tetris.)
But Tetris Effect: Oh. My. Gosh. It is a beautiful-looking game that I know would be a delight to play.
In addition, it's compatible with PlayStation VR, which is a separate headset that enables virtual reality playing.
Counting the cost of a buck-an-hour entertainment
What would be the real cost of this buck-an-hour VR PlayStation 4 Tetris fantasy of mine?
The PS4 retails for about $300. The game will be about $40. The VR headset retails for another $220 or so.
So that's $560, meaning I'd need to immerse myself in Tetris for two hours a day, every day, for nine solid months to break $1/hour!
That's a lot of time to spend playing Tetris. Put that amount of time into pretty much anything productive and I'd be pretty good at it at the end!
In other words, the initial outlay for the entertainment is just the start, and it's an ongoing cost of time long after that.
Entertainment in moderation, like anything
This isn't to say that the “buck-an-hour” rule isn't a good one. It's a great rule of thumb for getting you to think about the cost of stuff.
This also isn't to suggest going without entertainment is the answer, either. That's a bit of a miserable existence.
Like anything, it's a matter of not overdoing things! Don't pay too much — either in money, or time!
John I have a 2009 5$BILL fwH38 with serial numbers JJ11115555A
With J10 under the top left serial number. At the bottom left next to the big 5 H3 could you possibly tell me what’s it worth it’s in almost great condition.
I guess I’m not known for much more now than fancy serial numbers! LOL
Nice bill … Check out the FAQ or just join the Facebook group and post a pic.
Nice post John! Love the thought on $/hour spent. Time is our most valuable asset and eventually runs to 0. We have to do everything we can to optimize our time.
Absolutely. Thanks for stopping by!
We found we were paying about $180 per month on all of our entertainment and actually used J Money’s thumb rule to get rid of some of them. But the problem with convenience (it’s easy to watch a show on Netflix or Hulu on the go) is that for every other show, I have to sign up for a new streaming service. Not all shows are available everywhere. Which automatically hikes the monthly payout. Now we are at around $130 of spends and that includes the internet fee but the kids have had to let go of a few shows. Which is okay, I guess.
Jack, thankfully we haven’t found any shows that are absolute must-sees. My daughter is perfectly content watching Dude Perfect videos on her phone and those are all “free” with our internet connection. I’ve heard what you’re describing called the “Balkanization” of media.