Nothing is Free

A personal anecdote: a while back I saw a hutch top sitting next to a dumpster. It was in good condition, made of solid wood and free. Free! FREE! Free, free, free. That word repeated over and over in my head as I checked it over. I saw potential. I thought about my living space and a number of places I could put the hutch. It would give me more space to put things as it would build up, a dimension many people forget when creating storage.

So, I carried it home. It was heavy and I needed help getting it up the stairs. Upon getting it home I measured and realized it would not fit in any of the places I had thought it would. I would need to shuffle some furniture around so it could fit.

For the next two weeks, the hutch sat in my entryway on top of the bench intended as a greeting area/mud room. As a result I would often wear my shoes into the living room just to have a place to sit down and take them off. My bag, which usually sat neatly on the corner of the bench, ended up in the bedroom or the living room which meant I had to hunt for it on my way out the door. Guests, thoughtfully not wanting to wear muddy shoes in the living room, would struggle to put on their shoes while standing up. I was embarrassed as I watched them struggle and felt like a bad host.

After two weeks I finally moved furniture and made a place for this hutch. It does what I had intended it to do but as a result I had to place some items in a way that doesn't make me entirely happy. It works but it's not how I would have chosen. However, I am forced by the semantics of placing the hutch to have things that way.

The free hutch cost me. It cost me time. It cost me space. It cost me agitation when I would come upstairs and see it. Part of that was my fault, I didn't find a place for it right away but life conspired to rob me of the time to do it right away. The free hutch wasn't free.

I lurvs me a free or cheap thing. I feel like it's a present, like I've won something. Rationally, I realize that is an emotional reaction that is inaccurate to the items actual value. But still, FREE!

Let's do some math (thank goodness for calculators). How much do you get paid an hour at work? I would say everyone's time is worth $10 an hour at least in these situations since most people greatly value their free time. How much is the mortgage/rent on your home? Now divide that by the square feet in your home to find out how much one inch of space in your home worth. Counseling to deal with stress isn't cheap either. Many sessions are over $100 an hour. Something that is causing you unhappiness has a cost. Some of these estimates many seem extreme but the hope it is to show how much just bringing an item into your house COSTS.

Nothing is free. If it doesn't cost you money, it costs you time or space. Before bringing something free into your home consider the value of insubstantial things. Your time has value. The space in your home has value. Your happiness has value.

Is this 'free' item as valuable as those three things?