Girl Math, Approved (With One Catch)

You find a coat you absolutely love. It's $300.

But you're going to wear it at least 100 times, which means it's really only $3 per wear. So... basically a bargain, right?

As a financial planner, I'm going to allow this one.

Cost per wear is a real way to think about value

Girl Math gets teased a lot, but cost per wear is genuinely useful. It shifts the question from "How much does this cost?" to "How much will I actually use it?"

I'd much rather see you spend $300 on a coat you love and wear for five years than spend $75 four different times on coats you don't really like.

Run the numbers on that second option: four $75 coats adds up to the same $300. Same money spent, but instead of one coat you reach for every morning, you end up with a closet full of "fine."

Here's the catch

Cost per wear can help you decide whether something is good value. It cannot make something affordable.

If the $300 isn't in your spending plan, dividing it by 100 doesn't magically put $300 in your bank account. The coat still costs $300 on the day you buy it.

Ask two questions, not one

Before a bigger purchase, check both:

1. Will I use this enough to make it worth it? That's cost per wear.
2. Is the money actually in my plan for this? That's affordability.

If the answer to both is yes, enjoy the coat. If the first is yes and the second is no, it may be a "not yet" instead of a "no", something worth planning and saving for.

So yes, sometimes Girl Math actually maths.

Just don't use the calculator to lie to yourself.