What my other self was thinking was something called Opportunity Cost.
Before Heidi started home-schooling full time, she was teaching in one of the area's higher paying districts. She had 11 years in when she quit. She would have had 18 years in by now. By not doing that work and taking on the work of home-schooling instead, she gives up $75k a year in income and another $15k in benefits. That's the cost incurred by me (and her, and the whole family) to have her stay at home. We're "paying" $90,000 a year--more than half a million dollars so far--for Heidi to home school.
But my other self wasn't exactly right because $90k is only the baseline opportunity cost. That's just what she would be making as a public school teacher. The fact is Heidi's a flat-out steal at that price. She works as hard as any corporate CEO and builds a product that will outlast anything any Fortune 500 company can put out. She's also great to the stockholders (I'm the majority holder), and the employees love her. In fact, she doesn't know this but I'd go a lot higher--a million a year, ten million maybe--to keep her at home doing exactly what she's doing. Maybe first self was right, maybe I can't put a value on something like that. But $90k doesn't even come close.
I need to keep that in mind because when things are tight--which is always--I'm tempted to look around and bemoan what we don't have. It's easy for me to forget that I'm surrounded by the very best of things. I have a beautiful, smart, loving wife raising my kids in the fear and admonition of the Lord. That makes me the richest of men.
