Bang per Buck Calculations

Maybe this says more about Nat than he’d like to admit, but I got this email from him a couple weeks back and have neglected to post it. It details the average cost per hour, over two years, of a number of recreational activities. So you can tell how you’re saving money by, say, walking in the park, or masturbating, instead of watching TV or getting drunk.

He says:

One thing I’ve been thinking about is calculating entertainment costs
over hours of entertainment to find the lowest buck-for-bang ratio.
I’m amortizing over two years. Below are my numbers, assuming that
you require 36 hours of entertainment per week (about what I require).

I tried to use the cost figures that most people I know would probably
incur, not the minimal ones (e.g. going to the library to watch movies
instead of the theater, I don’t know anyone who does that).

Watching TV:
————

Television: $600
TiVO: $400
TiVO svc: $200
Cable: $1080
Couch: $400

Total: $2680

Dollars/fun-hour quotient: $1.43/hour

Seeing Movies:
————–

Average movie length: 1.85 hours
Cost of ticket: $10

Dollars/fun-hour quotient: $5.41/hour

Drinking:
———

Average cost of drink: $3.50
Drinks/hour: 1.5
Average drinking duration: 3.5
Transportation (presuming a taxi one way): $15

Dollars/fun-hour quotient: $9.00/hour

Sex:
—-

Condoms: $1.50/each
Average sex duration: 1 hour

Dollars/fun-hour quotient: $1.50/hour

* Sex duration includes foreplay and postcoital cuddling.

* Condom cost based on
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005KC7M/qid=1042515598/sr=8-9//103-5649466-6887804?v=glance

Hacking: