So what is a High Value decision, anyway?

I have been thinking for some time about the concept of living a financially efficient, or high relative value, life. It occurred to me recently that other people might be interested in some of my explorations and findings, so I decided to post my adventures on the web. The thing is, it's relatively easy (for me, anyway) to determine what I like. And of course it's easy to figure out what it costs. The question is, Is What I Want Worth the Cost?

That simple question has driven me towards a relatively complex answer. I have been working on a systematic approach to this question, as its answer is providing me with an approach to living that enables me to achieve a relatively high quality of life at a minimum cost.

Notice I did not say that my goal was, or is, to live cheaply or inexpensively. Rather, my interest is in maximizing the value I receive for the money I spend. Interestingly, there are oodles of books and websites written about how to save money, but my research has turned up relatively scant direction as to how to determine the relative value of something. My goal is not to save money - rather, my goal is to spend wisely. My quest is to determine a strategy for doing that.

A brief introduction of my efforts to date : My experience tells me that most experiences or physical items for which there is any sort of competitive market (i..e, there's more than one option) are priced on a curve. Lots of stuff lives at the bottom of the price scale, and then a continuity of options of price / quality combinations exists, until you get to very expensive and very high quality. The question is, what is the shape of that curve, and where is the optimum spot to be? (A hint: Usually, the very expensive items show minimum incremental value for each additional dollar spent). Is it worth it to get the very best? Or will something less suffice? Is this a personal question? Or are there factors that can drive this decision such that you are wringing the most value from every dollar (or incremental dollar) that you spend?

It seems that in many cases there may be a quantitative answer to this question, and for those things, I call that answer the "sweet spot". I find great satisfaction in finding the sweet spot, as it provides some assurance that the purchase decision has been optimized. If I can find the sweet spot, I have spent the "right" amount of money - and no more - so that the requirements of my purchase have been met, and I have made a high-value decision (i.e., a purchase with a high value proposition) at minimum cost. Anything more than the sweet spot would either be too much money for an equivalent experience, or would provide value that I would not appreciate, or would be less money but disappointing. My goal is to be satisfied, or even delighted, at minimum cost.

This blog will document my trials and travails on a variety of topics related to purchase price and value optimization. I seek to review strategies for determination, as well as specific recommendations when I've found a particularly interesting sweet spot. I hope you find this journey, and its findings, as interesting as I do, and I hope to build a community of value cheapsters to come along for the ride.