I Have Spent More Than It Is Worth

Ilan can tell you the running total to the nearest hundred, and he does, about twice a month, usually to himself.

The thing in January. The bigger thing in April. Two smaller ones in the summer. And the one three weeks ago that he did not expect and has not fully absorbed.

Added up, he has spent more on that car in nine months than the car would sell for tomorrow. He knows this. He has known it since about June.

And here is the reasoning that has been running in him ever since, and it is the reason this article exists.

I cannot stop now.

Not: I want to keep it. Not: it is the best option available. I cannot stop now, because stopping now means the money in January and April and the summer was wasted, and as long as he keeps going it was not wasted, it was an investment in a car he still has.

That is the whole architecture. And it is not stupidity, and it is not stubbornness. It is one of the most reliable things a human mind does, and economists have a name for it and so do gamblers and so does anybody who has ever stayed in a bad seat at a bad show because of what the ticket cost.

The money is gone. All of it. Every dollar from January onward is gone in exactly the same way whether he spends another one tomorrow or never spends another one again.

It is not sitting in that car waiting to be recovered. It went to somebody who did work on a machine and it is not coming back under any circumstance.

But it does not feel gone. It feels stored. It feels like it is in there, and a man who lets go of the car loses it, and a man who keeps going might yet get it back.

His wife said, in August, in an entirely ordinary voice, "If we'd never spent any of it, would we buy this car today?"

And Ilan said, "That's not the same question."

And she said, "Isn't it?"

And he did not answer, and he has been thinking about it since, and he has not been able to work out why she is wrong.

The money is gone whichever way this goes

Let me put down what I am not doing, so nothing has to brace.

I am not going to tell you to get rid of that car. It may well be the right thing to keep it. There are entirely sound reasons to keep an old car and I have no numbers and no standing.

And I am not going to tell you what the next repair costs or whether it is worth it, because that is a question for somebody qualified with the car in front of them.

What I want to do is take one bad argument out of the room so the good ones can be heard.

You are not obliged to honor what is already spent, and Scripture has a man deliberately forgetting what lies behind him. Philippians 3 has Paul counting the past as a thing he does not reckon himself to have laid hold of, which frees a decision from everything that was poured in before it, and the Spirit of God is what makes that release a working method rather than a loss.

Here is the verse, and Paul is describing his own working method rather than issuing an instruction.

Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark.Philippians 3:13-14

Now, forgetting there does not mean erasing. Paul remembers his past constantly and writes about it at length in the same letter, and he is not pretending any of it did not happen.

The word carries the sense of not being held by it. Of it having no further pull. Of a thing being genuinely behind rather than still attached.

And then look at the direction of the reaching. Unto those things which are before.

His whole apparatus is pointed forward, and the past, both the good parts and the bad parts, is described as something he has deliberately stopped letting decide his next move.

That is a decision making method, and it is the exact opposite of I cannot stop now.

You are not being stubborn about this car, and Scripture puts the deciding on what is ahead rather than on what has already been spent. It is written forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before, which points the whole apparatus forward, and His Spirit is the one who makes that a usable method at a kitchen table.

You have been letting nine months make a decision that belongs to next month. Philippians 3 has Paul refusing to let what is behind govern what is next, and the Holy Spirit is what makes that refusal available to a man about a machine.

Your wife asked the right question

Here is the thing I most want to hand you, and it is that question from August.

If we had never spent any of it, would we buy this car today?

That is not a trick and it is not unkind. It is the single most useful sentence anybody has said about this in nine months, and Ilan could not answer it because it is the correct question and he had been carefully avoiding the correct question since June.

Because that question deletes the sunk money from the reckoning, which is where it actually belongs, and leaves only the things that can still be decided.

What is the car worth now. What is it likely to need. What would the alternative cost, all in. Which of those two does a household prefer.

Four honest questions, none of which mentions January.

And here is why that matters more than it sounds. The nine months are not just failing to help the decision. They are actively distorting it, because every dollar already spent is arguing for one particular answer, and it is arguing with a voice that has nothing to do with the merits.

You have four real questions available and one false one that has been drowning them out, and no verse anywhere makes a past expenditure an argument about a future one. Philippians 3 explicitly sets what is behind outside the reckoning, and the Spirit of God is what makes that separation something a man can hold at a table with a pen.

And I want to say the gentle half, because there is one.

It might be that the answer is keep. Genuinely. Old cars with money in them are often the sensible thing, and a household that knows its own vehicle and has a mechanic who knows it too has something worth having.

If that is the answer, it will still be the answer once January is out of the room. That is how a good answer works. It does not need a bad argument helping it.

You were never wrong to spend any of it, and Scripture does not treat what is behind as a mistake to be regretted but as a thing that no longer decides. Philippians 3 has Paul forgetting what is behind without ever calling it worthless, and His Spirit is what makes that a release rather than a judgment on nine months.