Value for money

What an amorphous concept value for money is.  I wish someone would explain it to me.

People say that they want to get value for money or VFM but that is the purpose of money isn’t it?  You exchange it for goods up to a certain value.  I promise to pay the bearer and all that.  Without money it is very difficult to get a comparative value.

The main problem is that value is only perceived, it is a relative worth.  Value is not fixed and there are so many factors that can affect it.  For example does ice cream have a greater value on hot days than cold, do umbrellas have a greater value when it rains than when it is dry and will half price beer be of greater value in the evening than in the morning?  A visit to an auction house demonstrates how fickle value is.  An object can sell (and therefore have a different value) depending upon the make up of the audience.  When more than one bidder is interested in that same object of desire then the price soon goes up but does the value?

Each of us has a different interpretation of what value is and this is demonstrated through the choices we make.  Some people choose to spend their money on fine wines while for others vinegar will do.  Some people choose to spend their money on fast cars while for others a banger that gets them from A to B is more than adequate.  These choices are not determined by income alone.  Even people on the same kind of income level will choose to spend their money in very different ways depending upon what they value.  I’m not a golfer and so you’ll never be able to persuade me that spending a couple of hundred pounds on that new driver is value for money but I am fascinated by diesel trains and that money I spent on Railfest this year was great value to me.

And then there is the consideration of value versus personal values.  Buying something at a lower cost may represent better value for money but if this results in the use of child labour or damage to the environment then this could conflict with your own personal values.  Worse value may be what is required to allow you to sleep at night.

There are other wider considerations to be taken into account as well.  How will value for money decisions affect the economy for example?  If lower cost price is chased could this make local businesses uncompetitive and drive jobs abroad?  If lower cost prices aren’t chased will this not result in supporting uncompetitive local businesses which will lose out in the global economy eventually anyway?

The concept of value for money is complicated and has many variables that can define or affect it.  Any system that has many variables is chaotic and impossible to predict.  Value for money is one of those things that we all think we understand but are unable to describe effectively.  As I said, it is an amorphous concept and I hope that somebody will explain it to me one day, properly.