 August 2nd 2007
 Financial
 7 comments
My primary way of determining value for money, especially when it comes to media like DVDs and music CDs is hours of entertainment vs cost. For example new film DVDs in the UK tend to cost around £16.00 and they tend to last around 2 hours. If you just watch the film once that works out to £8.00 per hour of entertainment. Personally, I watch films only occasionally so to me that is not good value. However I recently bought a boxset for £20.00 which had over 40 hours of viewing time. That worked out to less than a pound per hour I was entertained. Bargain!
The same principle can be applied to computer games. I have a Nintendo Wii and bought Zelda: Twilight Princess for the full price of £40. I played it for over 50 hours over a month. I think you can agree that even though I could have bought it at a much cheaper price (and if I was not treating myself, I would have done), it still more than paid for itself.
What’s your personal cut-off point? Would you be happy to spend £8.00 pounds an hour to be entertained? With the ability to buy goods second-hand off eBay and Amazon or even rent them, and the constant access to TV and the internet, how much we are willing to spend to be entertained has dropped significantly.
Reader discussion
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A favourite saying of mine is “everyone has a currency.” Meaning, some people translate costs into McBurgers, some into hours of entertainment and I into mountain bikes. “For that aeroplane ticket I could get X mountain bike.”
The entertainment-hours thing could be tricky. 100 hours of the Spice Girls World Tour would be… lowish on my list, say. Then again, if it’s painful it’s not entertainment…
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They would have to pay me. Lets see… 100 hours at £500 per hour…
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I get all my DVDs and CDs from the library for FREE. How’s that for value?
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That makes sense to me! My 2 older kids just got their own iPod and they just realized how much money they’ll save not having to buy the whole CD, but only download the songs they like and they are only 8 & 9, lol!
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