What Price Beauty?

I follow the excellent She's on the Money Facebook Group posts. Recently, I was intrigued by a thread that garnered over a thousand likes and hundreds of comments on the cost of 'doing your nails'. The time and expense involved really surprised me.

Mulling over the comments, I decided to try and quantify what would have happened to me money-wise had I picked up a 'nail habit' aged 20. I calculated that, if I'd visited a nail salon fortnightly for the intervening 40 years, and also costed in my hour of time each time I did so, it would have cost me....$598,000...I know, right? And that's not even factoring in inflation, or the opportunity cost of lost interest, had that money been otherwise invested.

Considering the life choices forgone for the pursuit of buffed-nail beauty made me grateful that I love my nails just as they are. Sure, I 'do my nails' for the odd special occasion, involving a pot of $10 nail polish that I put on myself, and that lasts for years. This experience made me reflect on the whole question of 'What price beauty?' and the need to set our priorities and thus our actions to align with our values.