A few years ago, my wife and I considered buying a boat. We both grew up water-skiing on the lakes here in Utah, and some of my best memories involve being on the water. I was talking about this with my friend Eric, because he has a boat, and he introduced me to his “cost per units of fun” concept.

几年前，我和妻子考虑买一条船。我们都是从小就在犹他州的湖上滑水，我最美好的记忆也都和水有关。我的朋友埃里克(Eric)有一条船，我和他聊起这个主意，于是他就向我介绍了他的“单位享乐成本”理念。

“Over the years,” he said, “I’ve looked back carefully at the things we’ve done that have been the most fun for our family. Above all else has been our trampoline. It cost us considerably less per unit of fun than anything else I could think of. In second place were our motorcycles. Then way down on the list, like a long way down behind motorcycles and trampolines, was the boat.”

他说：“我仔细回想一家人这么多年来做过的最有意思的事情，发现最开心的就是玩蹦床。我们在它上面花费的‘单位享乐成本’比任何东西都少。其次是我们的摩托车。这个单子再往下排，摩托车和蹦床之后很多名才能轮到船。”

Now, whether you agree with that hierarchy or not (or their particular choices or tastes), the concept itself is extremely cool. We have seemingly unlimited options for fun, which is great. But we all have limits on the time, energy and money we have. Even if you are a millionaire retired at age 40, there are still only 24 hours in a day. We are constantly faced with decisions on how we spend these limited resources. Whether you are aware of it or not, you are doing those calculations all the time. We all are.

好吧，不管你同不同意这个顺序（或者说他们的选择和品位），这个概念本身还是挺酷的。我们似乎有无穷无尽的享乐方式，这很棒。但我们的时间、精力和金钱都是有限的。就算你是百万富翁，40岁就退休，但你一天也仍然只有24小时。如何运用这些有限的资源？我们一直需要做出取舍。不管有没有意识到，你都是随时随地在做这样的计算。我们大家都是这样。

Consider something as basic as dinner. I used to really like going out to eat. I thought it was fun. But over time, I found that taking our four children out to dinner wasn’t always the most fun. Making dinner at home, especially on a Friday or Saturday night when everybody was around and involved, now that was awesome. We spent years going out to eat before we did this back-of-the-napkin calculation based on what my friend had mentioned about the calculation of cost per unit of fun.

就拿晚饭这么基本的事情来说吧。我过去确实很喜欢出去吃。我觉得这是一种乐趣。但是随着时间推移，我发现，带着四个孩子出去吃饭并不会总那么开心。现在我发现，在家做晚饭才是很棒的事情，特别是星期五和星期六的晚上，大家可以欢聚一堂。很多年来，我们都是出去吃，如今有了朋友的这个“单位享乐成本”计算公式，我们可以草草计算一下。

Here’s how the formula works. You start by putting the total amount you are spending in the numerator. Then, in the denominator, goes a guess of the units of fun you get from the activity. Now, I realize that is totally subjective because there is no standard unit of measurement for fun. But we’re not going to let that get in the way. Just make a guess. In the end, the only measure of fun that matters is your own, so your guess will work just fine. But to make it a little easier, we are going to use a scale from one to 10, with one being the least fun and 10 being the most fun.

这个公式是这么算的。先拿你为某件事花的钱的总数当分子。然后再估算一下你从这个活动中得到多少个单位的乐趣，拿这个数字当分母。我知道这太主观了，能获得多少单位的乐趣根本就没有可以量化的标准。但是别让这个妨碍你。就是估计一下。到头来，唯一能够衡量乐趣的标准还是你自己的感受，所以你自己估计一下就很好。如果要简单一点，你可以使用从1到10的分级，1代表最没乐趣，10代表乐趣最大。

Let’s go through this calculation together with the dinner example. First, we start with the cost. We’ll assume a meal out with the family costs $100. In this case, we would put $100 in the numerator. Then, we’ll just take a guess at the units of fun. Over the years, we’ve discovered that for us, eating out is about a four. What we have, then, is $100/4, or $25. So eating out costs us $25 per unit of fun.

让我以晚餐为例演示一下这个计算式。首先是成本。我们假设全家人一起出去吃一顿饭要花100美元。所以我们就拿100美元当分子。然后，我们要评估一下乐趣单位。这么多年来，我们发现，对于我们来说，出去吃饭的乐趣等级相当于4。所以我们就可以用100美元除以4，得出25美元。于是，我们外出吃饭的“单位享乐成本”就是每单位乐趣25美元。

Now, let’s compare that with making dinner at home. Typically, eating in costs a little less, like $80. So $80 becomes our numerator. For us, eating in is a really fun experience, like a nine out of 10. So for our unit of fun, we use nine, and $80/9 equals $8.89.

下面要把它同在家做饭的单位乐趣成本进行对比。一般来说，在家做饭花的钱要少些，大约是80美元。所以就用80美元做分子。对于我们来说，在家吃饭真的是很开心的体验，如果最高标准是10，那就大概相当于9。所以我们用9来做分母，单位享乐成本就是80美元除以9，合8.89美元。

There’s a huge difference between $8.89 per unit of fun and $25. The calculation made our decision much more clear. Eating at home costs us considerably less per unit of fun.

8.89美元的单位乐趣成本和25美元的单位乐趣成本相差真不是一星半点。这个计算让我们更加明确了自己的决定。在家吃饭让我们大大节约了单位享乐成本。

This formula has its shortfalls. It’s not great for comparing a drive in your $50,000 car with going to the free concert at the park. It may not even be valuable in that situation. But I’ve found it to be an incredibly useful tool for comparing similar activities. It doesn’t really matter what number you come up with. The point is to use the formula to help gauge which activity or purchase will give you the most bang for your buck. And the boat did not win out in our family, since we decided we valued other forms of outdoor activity much more.

这个公式也有缺陷。要比较开着价值5万美元的车出去兜风和去公园参加免费音乐会，用这个公式就不容易比出来。但我发现，如果用来比较类似的活动，这个公式是个非常方便的工具。最后得出的数值其实无关紧要。重点是使用这个公式来帮助你评估一项活动或一项购买是否能带来最佳性价比。最后我家没有通过买船的方案，因为我们觉得还是其他形式的户外活动更重要。

Try using this formula in your day-to-day decision making and actually think it through. Pull out a napkin, put a value in the numerator and make a guess at the denominator. If you are like me, and everybody else I have ever talked to about this, I bet you will find examples where you say, “Wow, I spend a lot of time on that, and I don’t even really like it.”

试试在日常生活决策中应用这个公式，并且认真思考吧。拿出一张草稿纸，把价格写下来当分子，再评估一下分母。如果你和我一样，我猜你肯定会发现这样的例子，“天哪，我花了那么多时间在这个事情上面，我其实根本就不喜欢它。”我和不少人聊过这个话题，他们也是这样的。

That will give you the information you need to start making different decisions, and you can start minimizing the cost per unit of fun on the things you like to do as we roll into a new year.

这种方式能让你得到有用的信息，帮你做出不同选择，这样一来，在新的一年里，你就可以做你喜欢做的事情，把单位享乐成本降到最低限度。