As I write this, I’m on a flight back to Portland. I’ve spent the weekend with former GRS staff writer Adam Baker and his wife Courtney in Indianapolis, Indiana. Ostensibly, we were there to take part in GenCon, a huge gaming convention. We did play plenty of games, but we also had a lot of fun just hanging around and chatting. It was great to take a four-day break after months of being “on” all the time.
In my dream world, though, I wouldn’t be on a flight to Portland right now; I’d be on a flight to London instead.
In late June, I laid out plans for a five-week trip to England (and beyond). I was going to hike Hadrian’s Wall, take in an Everton football match (or two), visit Bath and Wells, and — best of all — spend time with GRS readers all across Great Britain. (And possibly in France and/or The Netherlands, as well.) On July 4th, I bought a one-way ticket to London, and was looking forward to having a series of small adventures.
That’s my dream world.
In the Real World, things didn’t go as planned:
- Mom got sick. My family is still wrestling with her situation. It looks like she’ll move from the “memory care unit” to a regular apartment in the assisted-living facility, but she’s not happy about being there. Plus, her finances are a mess. Of the family members, I’m the most logical person (and the only one with time) to untangle things.
- Meanwhile, my own house has problems. The roof is leaking. In most places, this isn’t an issue during the summer, but I live in Oregon. We’ve had some heavy rainstorms, and these have revealed a leak coming into the guest room upstairs. So, we’re trying to hire a roofer to begin work soon. Trying is the key word here. All of the roofers are flooded with work because it took so long for the rain to let up this year.
- I’ve received a jury summons for early September, right when I’d hoped to be in France and/or The Netherlands.
- Kris, who had thought she was okay with me being gone, isn’t quite ready for me travel on my own for an extended period. This may sound unimportant, but it isn’t. She needs to be comfortable with this too before I take off on my grand adventures. By delaying a couple of months, it gives her time to get adjusted to the idea.
There are other smaller problems, too. Taken together, these factors have forced me to admit that now is not a good time to make a solo trip to England. My adventures will have to wait.
Sunk costs
What does this all have to do with money? Well, I’m about to present an object lesson in sunk costs.
Kris and I talked long and hard about the decision. She was actually more in favor of me going than I was. “You’ve already bought the ticket,” she told me. “You shouldn’t let that go to waste.”
“I don’t want to waste it,” I said. “But it’s a sunk cost. It’s not a factor in the decision. That money has already been spent whether I go or not.”
I’ve tried to write about sunk costs twice before but without much success. (Here’s the first time and the second.) And whenever I mention sunk costs in passing, people misinterpret my meaning. For some reason, the popular (and incorrect) definition of “sunk cost” equates to something like “dumb spending” or “spending you shouldn’t have done”. But that’s not what the term means. Sunk costs are simply costs that have already been incurred and cannot be recovered.
Sunk costs are neither good nor bad. They just are. There’s no value associated with them at all. (In fact, it’s when we assign values to sunk costs that we make poor decisions.) Thus, sunk costs shouldn’t be considered when making a decision.
In my case, I tried to recover my costs. I contacted my friend Chris Guillebeau for his help. He explained how plane tickets work. “It’s all about the terms and conditions,” he told me. “If your ticket is refundable, you’re good. Even if it’s not, you can usually reschedule or get some sort of flight credit.”
So, I called around to see if I could get a refund or somehow reschedule my flight. For once, though, my frugal habits worked against me. I bought my one-way ticket to London for $900, a full $500 less than any other ticket I could find for the same itinerary. But one of the reasons my ticket was so cheap was that it was fixed — I couldn’t change anything about it. (I’ve never had to change a ticket before in my life, and I didn’t expect I’d have to change this one.)
Bottom line: I spent $900 on a plane ticket that had to be used or lost.
Last week, when it came time to decide whether I was actually going to London, I didn’t even consider the cost of the ticket. If I flew to England, I was out the $900. But if I stayed home, I was out the $900 too. This is the purest example of a sunk cost I can imagine! As a result, I was able to make my decision based solely on the pros and cons of each option.
Staying home
Leaving aside the money I spent to buy the ticket, it makes more sense for me to stay home. I hate doing it — I want to travel! — but it’s the best choice for my mother, my wife, and my house.
I don’t feel bad, though. I know there’s lots of travel in my future. It took days for me to decide to skip my trip to England, and during that time, Kris and I had some long talks. During these discussions, we agreed that in exchange for staying home now, my trip to Latin America in October is a sure thing. Nothing will stop that. I’m plotting other trips too, including a possible trip to Antarctica with Chris Guillebeau where I hope to make Your Money: The Missing Manual the second-best selling book on the continent.
Plus, by waiting eight weeks, I’ll have more time to tackle some other projects. I’ll be able to get my diet and fitness back on track. (They’ve taken a hit over the past month!) I’ll have an extra eight weeks to learn Spanish. (I’ve been taking classes for a couple of months now. Me gusta es mucho.) And, perhaps best of all, I’ll have extra time to purge the Stuff that’s been causing me so much consternation around here.
And you know what? Now, I’ll have more time to write here at Get Rich Slowly! Even though it feels like I’m wasting $900 by skipping my trip to London, I know it’s the smart decision.
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Nice post! You illustrate nicely the difference between “Do I own the plane ticket?” and “Does the plane ticket own me?”
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Did you not take out travel insurance, or does it not work the same way in the US? Certainly for the UK it will reimburse you for travel costs if you’re called for jury service.
I know travel insurance is a tricky one for some people and there’s the saying “Never insure for affordable losses”. Would be interested in your thoughts – maybe for future posts!
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I’m never been a fan of travel insurance. Kris likes it, so we get it for our long trips together, but we’ve never ever used it. Maybe I should take a closer look at it?
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To be honest if it was just for cancellation, I probably wouldn’t be so bothered about travel insurance either. My biggest fear when travelling is an accident that would land me in hospital = many £££ in medical bills. That’s simply not an affordable cost for me, and as I like to be quite active the chance of accident or injury is perhaps increased.
I’d be very happy if I never have to claim on travel insurance in my entire life, but don’t begrudge paying for it when an entirely possible accident would bankrupt me.
The cover for cancellation, lost baggage, personal liability and so on are all just welcome extras!
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I’m the same way! I get travel insurance for the health coverage — even if I’m only going to the U.S. for a day. (Imagine what a car accident could do!)
One thing to watch is the loopholes though. If I remember correctly, most policies don’t cover acts of war, civil unrest, terrorism or pre-existing conditions (like if you bought travel insurance when there’s a travel warning for that country or a hurricane warning, etc.) Most companies also won’t cover you if something happens while you’re intoxicated, but most people don’t know that!
A “cancel for any reason” policy is also more expensive than ones with more conditions.
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Travel insurance for medical coverage is something people from Britain usually get because their health at home is covered through a national health care system that only works when they’re in the country.
In the US, health insurance is through private companies and generally (if you have a decent plan) you will be covered even when you are traveling. You may have to pay out of pocket in a foreign country and then submit bills for reimbursement, for instance.
I notice this is a big difference between me and my British friends. For Americans, there are a lot fewer reasons to get travel insurance–mostly to cover costs of having to change air tickets, etc. but it may not be worth it for such small things like that.
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Sorry about this, JD. Just one quick question though – did you try calling the travel agent and/or airline directly? I don’t know if it will help, but it’s worth a shot.
We had a similar situation recently. The cost of the ticket was $1600+, which to me is a lot to just let go. It was booked through Orbitz. We thought it was a non-refundable ticket. But I called Orbitz anyway. The first agent was not very helpful. Instead of trying to reason with her, I just hung up and called again. The second agent was awesome! She dug through the terms and found a clause that if the ticket holder cannot travel to do a medical condition that can be supported by a doctor’s letter the ticket can be (partially) refunded. We faxed the doctor’s letter. There was a $250 penalty, but Orbitz worked with the airline to get even that refunded (we have received an email from the airlines that the full amount of the ticket will be applied back to the card, but it will take up to 2 billing cycles to show up….).
Since this post is about ‘sunk costs’, here’s my theory on sunk costs – “It is not a ‘sunk cost’ until you give up on it”. Sometimes, if the cost is low, and the time spent on trying to recover it is not worth it, I just let it go. At other times (like this one), if the cost is big, I try my best to recover as much of it as I can, so the “sunk” part stays small (In this case, I was able to make the “sunk” part 0 – my husband had actually given up and would have taken the $1600 hit)
Good Luck to you!
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I forgot to mention – we didn’t have any travelers insurance either. Just keep calling until you find one agent/representative that can sympathize with your situation, and you may be able to recover at least some of the cost.
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I would like to weigh in on travel insurance. I realize it’s a personal choice, but we never buy it any more and as we travel frequently we have now saved the equivalent cost of a very expensive trip….. as it ain’t cheap.
Our medical insurance would reimburse us for any related expenses so that is not a factor.
And we always joke that if we are in a bad accident right before a cruise we’d rather recuperate on ship board than at home in bed.
To each his own.
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This may well be a US/UK difference. Does the health cover you need to buy anyway typically cover you outside the US also? If so, I can understand why travel insurance isn’t such a priority.
I must admit I’ve made more or less the same decision having travelled in Europe without insurance as that’s covered under EHIC (https://www.ehic.org.uk/Internet/home.do) Anywhere outside Europe though, no way.
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Travel insurance is worth it (in my opinion) in two situations:
1) medical costs in a foreign country – not an issues if you have other insurance. I wouldn’t include EHIC in this unless I’d checked carefully what it covered in my destination country (it varies)
2) repatriation of you or your remains
Both situations are rare but potentially astronomically expensive. I had a friend (from the UK) fall ill in the Netherlands with chicken pox. Minor illness, needing next to no treatment, but because he was infectious, he couldn’t fly charter, and no hotel would take him. It cost thousands to medi-vac him home. Without insurance, he could have been in deep.
Like all insurance, the risk you take is that you will have to cover the cost if something happens. It’s a trade-off. I like the security. I can understand if others are prepared to take the risk, but they should also be prepared to take the hit.
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I’d say it worked out in your favor. London’s on fire (literally and figuratively) right now, you know; probably not the best place for a vacation at the moment, unless you want to Get Rich Quickly by looting electronics stores with the teenagers.
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Hey, when my American boyfriend came to visit in December, I took him to see the sights- the students being kettled were in Westminster just across the river from the aquarium! He got his photo taken with a riot cop, and we played a game to see who could get a shot of Big Ben with 3 or more helicopters in the shot.
I like to think he saw a true representation of an angry little island demonstrating their democratic right to protest.
But yeah, you’re right. Now is not a good time to go wander round London unless you’re a photojournalist. Most of the places hit are just the dumps, but you wouldn’t be able to move freely or go to Camden or chill out where you wanted to.
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We’re leaving for London in one week, the first part of a very expensive trip in preparation for a year. It’s set in stone.
I just found out about the rioting/looting this morning and joked with my husband that we might come home with an extra DVR.
But seriously, that is a week away and I don’t consider Great Britain a war zone and my feelings about travel have always been that if you can’t roll with the punches then you ought not to travel. There are constant surprises in life.
That being said, I hope peace has broken out by next Wednesday.
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You’ll be fine. Things, as usual, are being massively overblown by the media. The majority of the country is fine, people are getting about their lives with business as usual.
My town is less than 15miles from Ealing, which had some bad stuff go down. We also have a large population of the kind of people being blamed for the riots. Total damage? Starbucks had a brick thrown at the window.
Travel is about adventure, and I think you’ve got the right attitude
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You know what? I’m glad you’re delaying this. Mostly because that’s what’s right for you, but also because now is really not the time to be a tourist in London, and I wouldn’t want you to get caught up in everything that’s going on there on top of what’s going on at home.
I’ve spend the last 24 hours regularly checking on my friends by social network, and was up until late last night with a friend who was staying with me on the way to London. Her hotel was a bit too close to some of the trouble for comfort, and the car park didn’t look particularly secure. Amazingly, she was able to cancel it without penalty, and we rebooked a room in a safer area with a more secure car park, and for less than her original room!
If anyone reading this is in London, stay safe. Others, please spare a thought / prayer for both those whose lives and livelihoods are being destroyed by the rioting, and for those who feel so dispossessed that they see rioting and destruction as a solution to their problems.
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Hi JD,
I’m an avid reader of your blog! One of the few that I keep reading!
I agree with your definition of sunken costs, but I think that what you are missing are the opportunity costs.
From what I read you will be going back to Europe sooner or later, which means you’ll have to spend those 900$ again (more or less) on your trip there.
So, you basically postponed a thing you will do in the future at the expense of 900$.
So, in my humble perspective, you “lost” 900$ to face your other personal aspects of your life.
Having this said, I personally believe that family comes first, so I think I would do the same. But the flight ticket money would be a though thing to go over
Keep the good work!
Cheers,
Nuno, The Netherlands
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Thanks for clarifying this! I knew the fact that he would eventually be taking this trip had to factor in somehow, but I didn’t think of opportunity costs. I guess in this specific scenario, the $900 is a sunk cost, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s more complicated than that.
JD, if you bought the tickets with a credit card, check to see if the credit card company can take care of it. American Express in particular is great about that. One big pro of credit cards!
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I was thinking about this and it’s really hard to figure. Given the length of the trip it’s likely if JD goes at a different time, e.g. next year, it will take the place of some other trip he might have taken. That will push the next trip out and the one after that etc until eventually there is some trip he doesn’t go on because he is no longer traveling for whatever reason. (Certainly once he eventually dies he will stop traveling
So not going is, in effect, skipping a trip, even if it’s not this particular trip he skips.
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JD now a days few of the costs being mentioned in GRS is way beyond imagination and still being called as cheap or frugal cost.
You say $900 for one way ticket to London in cheap. I guess this is not business class ticket, in that case its a still for $900,
If its not business or first class, then one ticket to London shouldn’t have costed you that much.
Don’t you use comparison fare tools like Orbitz, Kayak priceline etc?
After reading your post I gave a search on orbitz, Cheapest NYC to London ticket one way for 31 Aug is $446 + tax.
Any way every body’s concept of ‘cheap’ is different. I do believe whatever happens, happens for good. Your trip cancellation is for your own good. Better luck for Latin america and Antarctica trips.
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SB, JD lives in Portland . . . on the other side of the country from NYC. Flying to England from the West Coast is expensive, and JD’s ticket sounds like a decent price to me.
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He’s flying from Oregon, not NYC.
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still its costly, Sep 31 flight from PDX to LHR one way is 665+ tax = approx $720. I am pretty sure JD booked a couple month in advance
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That’s out of the summer travel season. Totally different than flying in early August.
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Err, a ticket for September 31? Any money spent on that would definitely be a waste!
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Of course I’m using these tools, but I wasn’t looking for fares from NYC on August 31st. On July 4th, I was looking for tickets from Indianapolis on August 8th. (I also looked at fares from Portland.) I spent two hours trying to find a good deal on a ticket. Nearly all of them were $1400. As I recall, there were a couple at $1200. I only found one below $1000, and that’s the one I bought.
Airfares fluctuate all the time, and for a variety of reasons. Don’t assume that just because a flight to London from your hometown today is cheap means that the same was true for me when I booked my ticket. I’m shopping around. I promise!
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This is a GREAT article. It explains Sunk Costs perfectly, something I’ve tried to explain to my girlfriend but haven’t been able to do. I’ll definitely be forwarding the article along to her.
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Sunk costs are a concept that few people understand. And there are two types – money and time. I see the latter all the time with bad relationships. People (esp women) figure they’v spent 2 years, don’t want to start over at 31, etc, but it’s irrelevant. If it’s not going to work out, you’ll just end up wasting more time later. Or when people say things like, “I can’t go back to school. I’ll be 37 when I get out!” Well, you’re going to turn 37 anyway, God willing, so you might as well turn 37 with your degree! With respect to money, the old adage sums it up best: don’t throw good money after bad.
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Thank you! I needed to read that. I’m wrestling with returning to school, and I really will be 37 when I’m done and that’s been driving me crazy. But I’ll be 37 in 3 years anyway, so why not? Don’t know why I’ve not thought about it that way before.
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Being 37 is actually quite relevant to that decision (even if the speaker in your story doesn’t realize it). The older you are when you get a degree, the less time you have earning money with said degree. Would you advise a 53 year old to go to college for a degree, when they would graduate at 57 and have only 10 years to earn it back? The could spend those 4 years working instead, and invest the money they would have spent on the degree, and at 67 end up with more money than if they went back to school. At 37 there may still be time for a decent ROI but it’s certainly worth considering the alternatives.
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Ha! Good luck with your book sales in Antarctica. It also sounds like a very good decision, even though it was difficult to make.
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Good post. It sounds like you made the right call.
But I think this isn’t really the definition of sunk cost as you still intend to go on this trip and will have to buy that ticket again. A good example of sunk cost is seeing a bad movie in the theater – the money’s already gone so is your time better spent elsewhere?
Here the question really is whether staying home now is worth the price of a future plane ticket or the price of never taking this trip. For you it sounds like it is.
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I used to travel regularly for work and figured it was cheaper to always book the non-refundable train tickets to save money. I knew I’d probably waste a ticket once and a while, so the cost was built into my budget. I still saved a lot of money overall.
$900 is a lot of money for some people to lose, but if you’re a frequent traveller I think it helps to budget for mishaps too.
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Excellent point. All the money saved over the years NOT buying the “cancellable” tickets has probably more than covered this one $900 ticket.
More to the point, the attitude is a good one. Don’t insure things that really don’t need insuring. Good grief.
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I’m trying not to think about the $900. When I think about it, it makes me antsy. That’s a lot of money to lose. But it seemed like the smart choice at the time. And, to be honest, I’d probably make the same choice today.
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Perhaps you can use this non-travel time to find $900 worth of Stuff to sell to make up for the expense!
It’s a bummer but it sounds like it was the right call. If you had gone on the trip a big chunk of your brain would have been preoccupied with stuff going on at home.
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Just think about the money you are saving – food, hotels, gear, gifts while traveling would have probably equaled at least $900 when all was said and done.
And you probably would have been distracted and not fully enjoying it the whole time you were there.
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Considering sunk costs as valueless is a bit of a fallacy. Saying that “sunk costs shouldn’t be considered when making a decision,” may make you feel better about it (not that you should feel bad – it sounds like you made the best of a bad situation), but at the end sunk costs *do* have a value. That value is an opportunity cost.
To use the same example, now, if you still want to travel to London, you have to:
* Carve out another slice of your life for the trip
* Buy another ticket
* Re-plan and re-book reservations, accommodations, transport, yadda yadda yadda
These all take extra time and money.
It is true that the $900 was already spent – there is no changing that – but what the VALUE of that sunk cost amounted to was the *FUTURE* opportunity cost of a potential replacement (which I can’t say what it would be. Perhaps $900, perhaps less), or the lost benefit of going (in the event that elect to not replace it).
Once again, it sounds like you made a good choice, but don’t falsely attribute what you made of your circumstances to sunk costs being valueless.
To further illustrate my point, you say “[i]n fact, it’s when we assign values to sunk costs that we make poor decisions,” but I believe you’re simply applying selection bias – you aren’t taking into account all of the *GOOD* decisions you make with your sunk costs, because, well, that’s easy to forget. It’s the bad ones that stand out.
People don’t have a predilection for valuing sunk costs because we are superstitious or foolish – valuing sunk costs may bite us, but doing so benefits us on the bias. That is to say, peoples that rely on their past decisions have tended (in general) to fare pretty well, whereas societies that constantly evaluate their current and future decisions in a path-independent manner *don’t last long* (admittedly, this is perhaps a bit “post hoc, ergo propter hoc” of me, but really, if you throw out the baby every time the bathwater needs changing, then there are no more babies, amirite?).
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No, sunk costs have no value by definition. However, a corollary of the definition is that whatever you’ve sunk your money into is effectively free.
So J.D. currently has a choice between a free flight now, when it’s no longer convenient, or paying for a later flight once things have calmed down. That free flight is mighty tempting, but sunk costs are still sunk.
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I think you may be confusing “having no value” with “having no value for decision making.” I could find no definitive reference that said sunk costs had no value (if you could supply one, I would appreciate it) – in fact, almost every definition referred to them as an “asset”, which by definition *has value*. Amusingly, the highest ranked result I found (in a few minutes of googling) claiming that sunk costs have no value was this very article.
The real issue with sunk costs, and the sunk cost fallacy, is that people disproportionately weigh past decisions when they evaluate present and future choices. This is to be avoided, as it statistically leads you to make poor choices. However, the fact of the world is that you *have* made those choices – your current world is in fact a *result* of you having made those choices – and so they influence future costs, which are what you have to weigh. This is, of course, hard to do, so people fall back on their sunk costs (because that is known, and easy).
That $900 ticket has value. That value is real (to provide an example that is more direct: in a world where tickets were transferable, he could even liquidate the ticket to realize that value). He just can’t use the fact that he spent $900 on a plane ticket in an argument about whether he should take that trip or not. Although you have to use the facts of the world and your future costs to make that decision, that doesn’t mean sunk costs are valueless.
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Isn’t your use of “asset” the same as his use of “free flight”?
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I like the way you put this re: lost cost of a future replacement. My boyfriend and I have discussed this and your point is the one I always try to make (but have failed). For example, he says there is doesn’t matter if you accidentally leave a takeout container with leftovers at a restaurant because it is a sunk cost. I say that it does matter because now you’ll have to find and pay for something else to eat for a meal in the future, so you’re losing out on some money (which you term the cost of a future replacement).
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Thanks, Nate. Your points are good. I like the differentiation between “no value” and “no value for decision making”. The latter is what I’m trying to get at.
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I’m not sure that’s it either. It isn’t that it has *no value* but simply that people attribute the face value. A simplistic example of this might be a savings bond. It has a face value, but that isn’t it’s true value. Many people would look at it and think “Deciding to stay home will cost me $900.” which isn’t true. But deciding to stay home will only cost you nothing in the event that you have no need to replace what you are walking away from. In this case, since you plan to go in the future, isn’t so.
Therefore the *cost* of walking away from your ticket isn’t the face value of $900, but the future replacement value which could be significantly more or less than $900.
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I agree. This is my issue when people imply that a sunk cost has no value (either monetarily or for a decision). If you will spend money in the future (travel to London) because you don’t now, you have to factor that additional cost that you wouldn’t pay if you went now. Sunk cost doesn’t mean that it’s irrelevant.
As much as I love to travel, I understand when you have to stay home and take care of family stuff instead.
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Not to pry, but has your mom had a tox report done? From her symptoms, she sounds like she’s being poisoned by something at her house that’s causing her memory to go (i.e. she gets better when she’s away)
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Almost all of us can point to a place in time where we kept walking even though we knew we should turn around.
Not only are sunk costs something that are hard for us to think about rationally, there is also definite tendency to stick with decisions already made regardless of new information.
I wonder how many have stood at the alter and said, “I do” even though the knew they didn’t.
Congratulations on making a reasoned decision against the odds.
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What happen to your 100k BA miles?
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Ha. The 100,000 BA miles are in-process. On July 4th, when I booked the ticket, I didn’t have any of them. Now I have 50,000 of them. If I understand the terms of the deal correctly, I should have the full 100,000 in about a month. BA is running a deal right now where they’re offering half “price” fares when you use miles, so it’s tempting to book a flight with my miles. We’ll see…
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I’m sorry you’re out the $900, but staying home really sounds like the best thing for everybody.
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Yep, you definitely need more time to practice your Spanish. “Me gusta es mucho” should be “me gusta ESTO mucho.
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Ha! I knew I was venturing into dangerous territory by trying to include Spanish in the post.
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Perdona pero así suena raro. No se dice “me gusta esto mucho”, se diría “esto me gusta mucho” o “me gusta mucho esto”, si es que usas el pronombre. “Mucho” es adverbio de “me gusta”, no de “esto”. Pero el pronombre ni siquiera es necesario en este caso. “Me gusta mucho” basta y sobra, porque JD viene de decir que esta aprendiendo español, y se sobreentiende que a ello se refiere al decir “me gusta”.
For those who didn’t get that: “me gusta esto mucho” is an odd construction. “Mucho” is the adverb for “me gusta,” therefore it should be uttered next to the verb it modifies rather than the pronoun (“esto”). Moreover, the pronoun in unnecessary in this case, as the verb already indicates the third person. It’s like saying “I like it, this”. You don’t need the “this,” we already know that “it” is what you like.
My gringo friends: I’ll teach you, if the money is good.
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So the “it” is just implied because of the third-person ending?
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Short answer: yes.
Medium answer: the “me” also indicates that you are the object of the verb. The “it” (learning spanish) does the gustar to you.
Long answer: I said if the money is good!
ha ha, “gustar” is such a freak verb, it confuses everyone, even native speakers can’t explain it.
While I’m an enemy of translating one language to another, look at this mysterious disappearance:
arm – disarm
connect – disconnect
trust -distrust
??? – disgust
where did “gust” go??
that “missing” english verb would be the functional equivalent of gustar. “like” is something you do, “gustar” is something that is done to you.
you don’t say: “i disgust margarine,” you say “margarine disgusts me”, right? if the verb “gust” existed you wouldn’t say “i gust pizza”, you’d say “pizza gusts me”. you see? gustar is like that.
me gusta la pizza
me disgusta el tofú
so instead of thinking “like=gustar” think “[dis]gust=[dis]gustar”. ha ha, yes, it’s a made up word but it should clarify how the verb works to the english-speaking mind.
we have both gustar and disgustar. you only have disgust. our “disgustar” also means to annoy, make angry, etc. so when someone is “disgustado” it usually means they are mad at someone, rather than grossed out.
all of these explanations may help you clarify some things (or give you a migraine), but language works mostly at a subconscious level. while explanations help relieve anxiety, the only way to learn is to practice in the right context (with people who speak correctly rather than reinforce mistakes).
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Yes. You conjugate gustar based on the thing you are liking, as opposed to based on the person who is doing the liking. That’s why you throw the pronoun on the beginning, where you don’t with a lot of other verbs. “Me gustan las mujeres = I like the women.” You used the plural third person form of gustar and the plural of woman.
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Okay, you guys are cracking me up with the Spanish grammar lessons. Thanks!
Actually, though, I understand the subject/object stuff with gustar. The thing that’s tripping me up is leaving the subject off. I understand that it’s me gusta, but I don’t know why I’m not using a subject. Nerdo seems to be saying that if I leave the subject off, it’s an implied “it”. How to express the subject in the sentence “I like it” or “It pleases me” is what I’m after. I know how to say A mi me gustan libros. (Although, who knows, maybe I have that sentence wrong too!)
Right now, I’m working on past tense. I’ve actually been reading the first chapter of Harry Potter, and it’s fun. I get most of it. And I’m learning new words — like mientras (as/while) and la lechuza (owl).
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Leaving the subject off is a frequent thing in Spanish, since the conjugation (declension) already implies subject. You learn this in elementary school as sujeto tácito.
You say “Me llamo JD” not “Yo me llamo JD”
You say “Estamos reunidos” (we are gathered) not “Nosotros estamos reunidos”.
You say “Vine, ví, y vencí.” not “Yo vine, yo ví, y yo vencí”
You ask “¿Quieres bailar?” not “¿Tú quieres bailar?”
These sentences have a subject and a verb even if the subject is not spelled out. It’s tácito.
If you’re talking about the lechuza, you could say something like this:
“La lechuza se echó a volar. Desapareció en la oscuridad y después de unos minutos regresó con un ratón en las garras. El ratón no daba señales de vida, y la lechuza lo depositó en su nido.”
You don’t have to say “la lechuza” or substitute for a pronoun every time. As long as you are on the subject of la lechuza, you can just imply the subject. Once you introduce another subject though, you have to clarify who did what to whom. In the example above, if you were to say “lo depositó en su nido” without naming the lechuza, it would be grammatically confusing if it was the mouse of the owl that carried out the action.
In English you always need the noun or pronoun because the verb conjugation lacks specificity.
Tu factura está en camino! Y con descuento!
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Thank goodness someone speaks Spanish!
JD, you can also think of “gustar” as “to please.” So “me gustan manzanas” becomes “apples please me.” It’s the same sentence construction.
It’s similar in Japanese, so knowing that has helped me here!! (where “suki” = “pleasing,” for those interested)
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A great example of why sunk costs are irrelevant. It’s tough to read about that $900, but I’m sure it was even harder to walk the talk on sunk costs.
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I think it’s quite impressive that you and Kris are so comfortable with each other that you were able to plan a trip like this. In reading about it, it kind of sounds like a vacation; I realize it will likely net you many articles and good connections for later, making it business-like. Still, I could see how that could be a tense situation with you leaving and her feeling regret of not going as well (I’d feel regret…they places you list sound awesome!).
As for your decision, it was a good example of sunk cost, but was just a rational decision as well. And the decision of a provider, a la Jimmy Stewart in It’s A Wonderful Life. I’m sure your family, friends and spouse all love you for it (as do readers! I like your articles best of the writers here). Just be sure to get back out there before the ol’ Savings and Loan gets too be too much
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I’m just wondering: Does the question of whether or not you still plan to go to London someday affect whether or not this is a sunk cost?
By that I mean, if you decide not to go, and let this ticket go to waste, but then nothing else in your life changes, then sure, it’s a sunk cost.
But if you still want to go to London, then by NOT going right now, you’re basically setting yourself up for an additional expense at some point down the road. That additional expense could be avoided if you take the trip now (since you’ll have already been to London, and thus won’t need to go again). So taking the trip now will save you $900 in the future, but skipping the trip will cost you $900 more someday.
Does that additional cost enter into the equation at all? Does that change whether or not it is a sunk cost?
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JD, thanks for an well-reasoned insight into this type of decision.
But one thing jumped out at me – when you said Kris’ discomfort with you traveling solo “may sound unimportant, but it isn’t.” I’m surprised you felt the need to qualify that; why WOULDN’T your wife’s feelings about your extended travel be important? If anything, I think they need to be considered just as seriously as your commitment to your mom during this difficult time. I’m glad you are taking her concerns seriously; no need to explain that decision!
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Karen, it kind of blows my mind that we’re this deep into the comments before ANYONE mentioned this little throwaway line. “It may sound unimportant”… to WHO? Someone without a spouse whose opinion and respect actually mean something to them? Sheesh.
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Hm. This was a massive failure at me attempting to make light of the conversation from June. Back then, GRS readers gave me a lot of crap because they thought I wasn’t taking Kris’s wishes into account, that I was treating her as if she weren’t important. This isn’t (and wasn’t the case). So here I was trying to make a little joke. I didn’t do a very good job.
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He said it MIGHT SEEM unimportant, not that it WAS unimportant – in fact, his sentence implies exactly the opposite.
JD, from that sentence I got:
1) It was important to YOU even if not to others, and
2) in the past, you (and the many readers who didn’t join in our discussion in the comments) may not have thought much about discussing your wife’s feelings, but now you have.
Personally, I felt proud of you for mentioning it, and I think the commenters above need to TAKE A BREATH.
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Actually Kris’s nervousness about JD traveling alone do sound like the least important of the reasons to cancel the trip. I don’t mean that one shouldn’t take one’s spouse’s feeling into account of course! Just that the time for her to object was before the ticket was booked.
In a hypothetical world that was the only reason for canceling, the best response might be to seek ways to reassure her/make her more comfortable with the idea, not cancel the trip.
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Well, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Some things are just more important than others and have to get done. Might be good to get a refundable or transferable ticket next time though.
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Refundable tickets are usually expensive enough that they’re not worth it unless you have a fairly high probability of your plans changing.
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A little point about your Spanish: it is “me gusta mucho”, “me gusta es mucho” has no sense
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Yes!
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See, this is why I need the Spanish lessons.
Actually, my current plan for my time in Latin America is to spend time at a language school. I hear they’re a great way to learn. (I also hear, though, that you can get just as much out of going out and talking to the natives in whichever town you visit.)
I’m a beginner, but I’m loving the process so far.
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Don’t go to a language school when you’re visiting a country in which that language is spoken! Spend your time trying to understand – and communicate with – those around you instead. You’ll learn faster and have more fun.
The best language schools have immersion course which are designed to REPLICATE the experience of being in a foreign country. If you’re already there, don’t hole yourself up with others who can’t speak the language either! You can do that anywhere!
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I agree with your choice, but would have tried to negotiate with the airline over the ticket. Sometimes you can negotiate a non-transferable ticket and either book a new flight or pay to get it transferable and then sell it on a travel website. Of course, that’s not always the case but simply trying to negotiate makes you feel better about losing the money.
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I did try to get something for the ticket, but no go. I think if I’d had more time to work on it, I could have managed to get a credit or something. But as it is, we made the decision so late that I only had time to hound the folks at the airport, and they really didn’t have any power to do anything.
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I probably would have been sure Kris was 100% on board before I bought a ticket, but this is a sensative topic. I applaud you delaying until she’s ready for it, but be prepared for her not to be ready for you travelling by yourself for extended periods indefinitely too!
I am surprised with the EXTREME market drop in the last week that no posts have been made about it. Despite this being a plan ahead blog, I’m turning to you guys in the PF blog-o-sphere for a “hold the course, don’t panic” post and not finding it. All my index funds are low MER, regular deposit dealies, and I’m not selling, but it really sucks watching thousands of dollars of net worth vanish every day with nothing to show for it.
Let’s hope this is just a blip.
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Hold the course! Don’t panic!
We’ve got a couple of posts in the works, Adam. But you already know what we’re going to say, right? You just said it yourself.
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Thanks, you (and Leah below) make me feel better. It helps to hear it from people.
I have anywhere from 20 to 30 years before retirement (I’m 35) so I know to expect these kind of fluctuations. It’s just I was hoping March 2009 was the last such ‘correction’ I would see for a good decade or so. Foolish me!
I’m buying every time I get paid into my DC plan then another $5k on January 1st as soon as I’m allowed to dump more in my TFSA (Roth IRA in Canada).
Please keep us updated on your mother’s situation JD. I know it’s not readily PF related but many of us will be dealing with ageing parents and there isn’t nearly as much knowledge/sharing out there about this thing as there should be.
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Adam, this can’t be the only pf blog you read?
Quite a few of the Canadian pf blogs have written about the markets this week as have a lot of American ones.
It’s pretty much all over the internet in fact.
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I read a few others but mostly GRS and SD daily, they both have all ignored it. Which…seeing as the S&P 500 closed up nearly 5% today…maybe they are on to something. A few weeks of gains and we’ll be almost back to were we started in 2011.
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I bought this week. Definitely hold the course and don’t panic. Two options:
1. The stock market will go back up. You’ll recover. You will look great if you invest more when it’s low.
2. The economy will collapse and cash will be worthless. Doesn’t matter how much you saved/didn’t lose by selling now.
I suppose there are some middle ground options wherein the stock market dithers around. But, ultimately, it will either go one way or the other. As long as you have a decent chunk of time until retirement, I wouldn’t worry about the market too much. Heck, my dad has an ideal 5 years until retirement, and he’s 90% stocks or so. He threw it all in when stocks were super low a few years ago, and he’s enjoyed the great gains. He figures 5 more years will give him time for a nice rebound.
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Breathe! It may not be a blip, but it’s not the end of the world either. Just try to remember you haven’t “lost” anything – unless you panic and sell low.
Hang in there.
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Maybe if you hit Gen Con again, a small meetup or coffee could be arranged!
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Sorry for the tangent, but how was your one way ticket $900? Even flying from Portland, that is way too expensive. I’m seeing tickets for $400-500 from Portland to London.
Last year I flew roundtrip from Houston-> Barcelona, Rome->Houston for $800.
I’m just curious.
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Kristin, where are you seeing $400 tickets from Portland to London? The cheapest fare I see right now is $922. I’d love to know how you guys are finding these cheap flights.
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This is highly dependent on when you fly and when you book. JD was buying a ticket for August during July – peek travel time. The rates you see today are not the rates that were available a month ago.
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Came here to say basically that. It depends entirely on when you are booking, and when you are flying. We priced out tickets in I believe February for travel to London from BOSTON for June and the price was just north of $1K per person for coach. Airline pricing is exceedingly strange.
And beware the ticket codes on some of the cheap flight sites–if I had to guess, JD’s ticket was probably one of that category, I don’t know the technical term but it’s sort of a ticket consolidation thing. Those are the tickets that are absolutely non-refundable, no exceptions. They aren’t really being sold by the airlines–I think there was an article on the WSJ Middle Seat blog that went over this in detail. Here’s the explanation for booking codes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travel_class#Airline_booking_codes
Note that “Heavily discounted fares, commonly O, T, Q or W, will not permit cabin upgrades, refunds, or reservation changes, may restrict frequent flyer program eligibility, and/or impose other restrictions.”
It depends on the level of risk one is comfortable with–that’s all!
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I know (at least in Canada) I can find “cheap fare” for under $500 to Europe. However, the taxes always work out to about another $500 making the total cost closer to $1000.
When people are posting about these cheap fares you are finding, are you including all the final costs?
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Depends on when you fly and from where. Flights out of Houston are generally much cheaper than out of Portland for a variety of reasons. Consequently, I looked at flights from Houston to the UK a few months ago and they were all upwards of $1000 for round trip. Not unlikely for a one-way to be high and even that high from Portland. I seriously doubt that JD didn’t do the research, so I’m surprised by all the comments on the flight price. Years ago, I booked a flight from Houston to Ireland for about $850 four months ahead of my travel date. Much to my chagrin, two months later the prices were slashed in half. Airline pricing can be tricky and best price is all kinds of relative.
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Oh man, this would kill me, but it sounds like you made the right decision. Is there really no way to change the ticket, even with a fee? A few hundred dollars fee is still cheaper than buying a whole new ticket if you can push it out 6 months or so.
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Make this the third time you’ve tried to write about sunk costs and a bunch of people don’t get it and/or quibble about the definition…
I heard about sunk costs a few years ago and once I got it, it really changed my life. I find myself dwelling too much on the past and it was a concept that helped me stop beating myself up for past mistakes and choices and look to the future and what makes sense now.
I enjoyed this post and hope that someone else has a lightbulb moment with this concept as a result.
I also hope that you get your trip at some point in the future when you can truly enjoy it.
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RE:“I don’t want to waste it,” I said. “But it’s a sunk cost. It’s not a factor in the decision. That money has already been spent whether I go or not.”–BUT if you go, you’ve only spent (made up number ) $2,000 on the ticket and gotten a trip. If you don’t go now, the trip you take in the future will cost double: the $2,000 you already spent and the $2,000 you’ll have to spend to go. I say go. All those things will not have been resolved before you get back anyway. A copy of a purchased plane ticket will get you out of jury duty and Kris can research the roofers.
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lol. I would have said the opposite
Sometimes financial decisions aren’t about numbers at all. I’ve been on the receiving end of having to handle things while someone else is off “doing their thing”. (It isn’t fun.) True, I do regret some things I’ve given up — but I can live with that decision. I don’t think I could say the same about not being there for someone who needed me.
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JD,
Loved the note on sunk cost. As that goes, you want to be very careful on choosing the person to install your roof. As you can see by my email address I work for a large roofing company and the biggest issues customers have with their roof relates to how it is installed. Fully checkout your installer and his credentials. Why try to save $200 on something that protects your $200,000 investment?
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I rarely fly so if this isn’t possible, I get it. But can’t you sell that ticket at a major discount on Craigslist or something? You’d get at least a few dollars back. Can tickets be transferred in our New World Order post 9.11?
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I was wondering the same thing, but there is a note from J.D. in the comments that the ticket was “non-transferable” which I guess means it can’t be re-issued in another person’s name.
The other question I had was whether the ticket could somehow be donated to an organization. But I guess non-transferable means that the airline just gets to pocket the money and resell the seat.
Considering the extra money the airlines are raking in these days by pocketing the FAA fees, too, they should have some good profits this quarter. Quick, buy up some airline stock at a bargain!
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Airline tickets can never be transferred from one person to another, even if you buy the most expensive full-fare, fully-refundable ticket available. In fact, there is always a change fee (can be up to $150) imposed for something as simple as a travel agent mistyping the passenger’s name! And you could be denied boarding if your driver’s license says your last name is Smythe but the ticket says Smith, so you’d better get that ticket changed.
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Good explanation of sunk costs. The next step would be to think about all the marginal costs… you’re saving X, Y, and Z by not taking the trip (sanity being one of them).
Of course, by taking the trip in the future rather than now, that’s also marginal cost… but you can cross that bridge when/if you come to it.
That is definitely bizarre that you can’t pay a fee to change the ticket… I didn’t know airlines did that! Usually they’re more than happy to let you spend $150 plus the additional cost of the new ticket to make changes on flights that haven’t happened.
I wonder if this is a case in which “just asking” (escalating up to managers) could get you some marginal benefit… Then you’d convert some of that sunk cost to marginal benefit for a future flight.
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Regarding roof repairs:
If you have a visible leak and roofers are that far out I would suggest taking a look yourself to prevent further damage. If you know what to look for there is a very good chance you could find the leak and do a patch job. I am not a roofer, but over the years I have done more than my share of repairs.
Essentially you are looking for any break in the roofing material. It will likely be above, perhaps significantly the location of the leak inside. It might not be quite in line but water usually runs along the rafters, so it should be close. Especially look around protrusions like chimneys as they are often where breaks will occur and they impede water flow resulting in more water coming through holes in those locations.
Since you wouldn’t be looking to make it pretty you can usually patch it together with a bucket of tar or tar with mesh material. The mesh can be hard to find in handyman quantities but you could likely find some by calling a roofer and asking. Ours just handed us some when we asked. It’s messy but isn’t hard at all.
Oh, and make sure your roofer is properly insured. The reason there is a disparity in cost for roofers is often because the insurance is high and the corner cutters go without. If one of the workers falls off your roof and the contractor isn’t properly insured you are opening yourself to much badness.
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Thanks for being honest about your life, we go through real situations and it’s helpful to know that GRSbloggers do too! (At least I know I can put you on a pedestal). Also it’s cool that you cared more about your relationship with your wife than an adventure, my husband and I like to call those decisions the hardest easy decisions to make. Adventure is out there!
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I fly from Oregon to Heathrow a lot and I can vouch for the fact that $1200 roundtrip is a good average fare in the summer. You can get cheaper tickets, ie $800 roundtrip, but they require crazy things like waiting 12 hours to change planes in a German airport and the like. I needed to buy a one-way ticket for August this year, and the cheapest one-way I could find was $1400. (This was booking in April for an August flight.) So I booked a $1200 round-trip ticket, and I’ll use the unused half in the future. (I’m doing the first return by ship, and then I’ll go back by ship, and fly back.) But my sources tell me that you can inform the airline and just drop the unused half of the ticket. (They also tell me not to simply abandon the ticket once you’ve used the outward flight, as this gets you on the list of suspicious people.) Anyway, just to say that $900 for a PDX-LHR flight in July is a good fare.
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Agreed. Definitely Do Not abandon your second journey of a roundtrip ticket to save money instead of buying a one-way without making massive apologies to the airline.
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It is always tough to handle a change in plans. I hate it when life gets in the way. Now is not the time to be in England anyway.
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Nonsense. Current events are shocking & depressing, yes, but they are only affecting a tiny area of the UK, mainly in big city suburbs which travellers are unlikely to visit anyway. Whilst not wishing to play down the damage the riots have caused, as usual the media are making things seem worse than they actually are.
If anyone has plans to visit the UK, don’t even think about changing your mind – it’s lovely here. And not even raining too much at the moment either!
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Phew, thanks Jim for the assurance. To some of us the show must go on. Will touch down next week and hopefully by then, London would be back to normal.
~Somsiah
p/s Great article on sunk cost, JD, and excellent responses on the said topic well by GRS readers.
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Is anyone else wondering what the best selling book on the continent is?
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Omg THANK YOU. I can’t believe you’re the first person to mention that!!
I couldn’t tell if he meant the Bible or if this was an inside joke or if there really is an unbeatable bestseller on Antarctica, lol, idk like Livingston’s journals or something.
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I don’t know what the best-selling book on the continent is at the moment, but we’ll let it be Chris Guillebeau’s book next spring. I’ll settle for second best-selling. Or maybe if we’re there for more than a day, he can have the best-selling book one day, and I can have it the next.
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Are you going to post about Antarctica on your travel blog as you plan it? I want to go too! I just got back from Australia which was my 5th continent visited. (Has anyone noticed that almost all the continents start and end with A?)
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By definition, sunk costs are retrospective (past) costs that have already been incurred and cannot be recovered. What JD may or may not spend in the future for the same item (a rescheduled trip to Europe) isn’t relevant today. The cost has already been expended, it cannot be recovered, and whether he will expend additional costs in the future is unknown. That “unknown” cost could, at best, be construed as marginal cost, where marginal cost by definition is the change in total cost that arises when the quantity produced changes by one unit. So, by changing the date and time of travel, additional cost will be incurred. Regardless, the sunk cost is still sunk cost.
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Yes, the sunk cost is gone, and you articulated it well. But I think the disagreement stems from the concept of it having no bearing on the discussion. The COST has no bearing, but the VALUE does.
If we instead thought of it as a *free* ticket, say he won it in a raffle or something, I believe it has bearing on the discussion/decision if it is something he would replace in the future. In this context the decision is between using the ticket and paying in convenience now, or paying for a ticket for a convenient trip in the future.
Perhaps I am using the wrong terms, but I think that is the confusion lay people have when trying to talk about sunk costs. The money is gone and should not be associated with the current value (JD’s point), but the costs being sunk also doesn’t mean the item has zero value (which seems to be what JD said). The current value needs to be understood on its own.
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So, by removing the expended costs from the equation (which really only serve to complicate the decision making process), you are weighing the value of what you receive from the ticket against the value of family and other obligations. When faced with those choices, irrespective of the sunk costs, JD decided there was greater value in his other obligations.
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Or should I say, “greater value in attending to his other (unexpected) obligations.”
(What happened to the edit feature?)
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I think part of the problem is that it can be really hard to figure out the value of something. “How much I paid for it” is a convenient number, and it’s hard to get past the anchoring effect it causes.
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JD,
There are violent riots taking place in London as I type.
It’s probably a good thing that you are NOT there right now anyway…
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*sigh* See my reply @74. There’s virtually no increased risk & no reason not to visit the UK. Well, it might rain next week…
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I just started reading “I Will Teach You to be Rich” as a personal finance refresher and Ramit mentions that most credit cards already have travel insurance, up to a certain amount. I’ve never had to look into this so I have no clue if this would help you recoup some of that $900 but if you booked with a card, perhaps it’s worth investigating.
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“This may sound unimportant…”
Not to married people it doesn’t.
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Kris must be a saint. If I said my wife’s discomfort at me being away for months “may sound unimportant,” I’d probably have to deal with some medical costs of my own.
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I no sunken costs. I pay the race fee and buy airfare – and get injured, or meet with a family crisis. Choice just have to be made. Most of the time I can recoup a cost of the ticket as a hold for future flight on the same airline with about $150 change fee within a year. I never buy traveler’s insurance because they refund for medical reasons – like hospital or close to it. And I try to look at it from this perspective: money is spent, I can’t go, if I go regardless the circumstances, I will have to spend on car rental, hotel, food, gas…if I stay, I lost ticket cost, but that’s it, paid for in full, lets move on. It is hard, it doesn’t happen too often (every other year), but such is life.
Best to you dealing with what you have at hands.
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Sunk costs are sunk costs, but here a couple of ideas:
1) You should be able to get out of this for jury duty. Here’s from Continental Airlines, might apply to others:
The other thing is a slightly bizarre idea: you could search on Intellius for people with your name who could either:
a) buy your ticket at a discount
b) accept it as a gift so it doesn’t go to waste
(I just did an Intellius search and found 5 people with your initials and last name in Oregon– spooky!). Unless your first name is highly unusual, you should be able to find potential matches.
And since you’re a public figure, the chance to come across as a stalker/scammer is highly reduced.
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The jury loophole will probably only apply if he’s been called and selected, and is already serving on the date the ticket would have been used.
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It would probably be easier to get the jury duty postponed temporarily. I can’t imagine they make people serve when they have vacations planned.
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Just wanted to make a comment about the airline costs. Due to fuel and increased taxes, $900 in Peak Season (N. Hemisphere May – End of August) OW to London sounds extremely cheap (because OW fares are often higher than round-trip fares).
I use Kayak.com to look for most of my flights because they include the taxes in the totals that they show in the results, so you really know what you are going to pay for tickets. If you are on most airline websites, you can see fares for $450 each way but that’s before the taxes…which will take you right up to $900.
JD – good comment on sunk costs, once I understood them, it made sense to ignore them when making decisions. One thing I might check is to see when you rebook your flight, to see if they will allow you to use some portion of the ticket as a credit (usually up to one year). They MIGHT have a $250 change fee to change the date of the ticket…it can’t hurt to check but if you didn’t cancel the flight before it was supposed to take off, I don’t think you’ll be able to get the $$ as a credit. Airlines call this a “no-show” and if an agency doesn’t cancel the booking they can get fined by the carrier. However, if the flight has not yet departed, it would be worth it to cancel the reservation and then see if it could be used later.
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Hi JD,
I’m a regular GRS reader but I don’t write in much–but I just wanted to say–I am *sure* that you made the right decision on this one. Especially since Kris was uncomfortable with it–that is a hugely important reason! You’ll be happier with yourself in the end when you put family first. Good luck with your roof and with your mom’s situation, too.
Meg
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The sunk cost principle is really important and is a cornerstone of avoiding common finance mistakes.
However, your example is horrible and views marital advice in terms of financial terms, which….is yucky! I’d suggest that when Kris says “you’ve already bought the ticket” that she may not be talking about the financial aspects of of something akin to protecting an investment (for which the sunk costs argument would be a good response), but is probably talking like a person who cares about you and saying things like “despite all this crap going on, you should still think about your wants and dreams”. I’d suggest saying “thank you for caring so much” and not “let me tell you about sunk costs”
But…that aside, very good to bring up sunk costs, but I’d go for an example where people pile on more cash to spent cash in an effort to make-better money already “sunk”. Thanks for the great site. Good luck with Kris
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Thanks for your honesty JD.
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I have been reading all the new comments to your post “A place for Mom” I think a permanent blog is really necessary for this subject. Can you find someone to start one? I am at a loss to figure all this out even though I am more than half way into the whole process. I just hate insurance companies.
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But we have the best health care in the world and we don’t deny it to anyone! Yes???
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I agree 100% with AnnW’s post. This is a nightmare that requires a support group.
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Actually going through similar things in our family I have found that there are a lot of resources, but they are hard to find because it is a closed community. You come in not knowing anything and the system is organized in such a way that you need a guide. It is tedious and frustrating and it doesn’t help that you come in stressed and emotional.
It isn’t a perfect system by any means but I feel the need to give credit where it is due.
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Thank you for a very interesting concept – I hadn’t come across “sunk cost” before, but I find it a useful idea. It’s gone, so forget it.
Sorry to hear about your Mom, it sounds to me as if you made the right decision to cancel. Also, I’m sure you’ve heard about the riots in London and other main cities. Not the best time to visit. However, I can guarantee there would be no riots on Hadrian’s Wall! (Unless by companies of Roman Soldier ghosts.) But the weather here is going down the tubes as of tomorrow. The Roman Wall is no fun in the rain, but it is definitely worth seeing at some point.
(From a completely biased Northumbrian!)
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There was a post a couple of months ago on GRS where JD’s travel idea came up and it came along with the idea of selling the house because the house had issues. In the post, it was decided that JD would travel alone since Kris had a good job and didn’t want to go. I’m paraphrasing here, but most of the comments were not exactly a high-five for J.D.’s decision. I’m sorry that the plane ticket price was lost money but I’m not so sure that the whole idea of travelling was meant to be in the first place. For me, I have learned that everything that I do and decisions that I make affects SOMEONE. It can affect my family, a co-worker, boss or my neighbor. And sometimes, I have to wait for the final answer to reveal itself. Patience really is a virtue.
I hope things go better for you, JD, and things work out for everyone involved.
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