The Curious Way We Think About Money
Why does one €50 feel expensive and another doesn’t?
Go to a restaurant and order a bottle of wine. You might hesitate when you see €50 on the wine list. Is one bottle really worth that much?
Then, without much thought, five people order dessert for €10 each. That’s another €50. Funny how one decision feels expensive while the other barely registers.
When we’re out having fun, we obviously don’t want to ruin the evening with financial calculations. Nor should we. I am certainly not suggesting that every decision deserves a spreadsheet. Life would become exhausting if every coffee, dinner, or purchase turned into a financial analysis.
But I do think there is something interesting going on here. Why does one €50 purchase feel expensive while another barely registers?
The more I think about it, the more I notice these moments everywhere. We negotiate endlessly over some purchases and make others almost automatically. We focus on the visible price but ignore the long-term cost. We celebrate discounts without asking whether we actually needed the product in the first place. We instinctively compare some decisions while accepting others without much thought.
None of this is necessarily wrong. Human decisions are not made in a perfectly rational world. Context matters. Emotions matter. The experience something creates matters.
But it is fascinating because often the biggest difference is not the amount of money involved. It is the way we think about the decision.
It is not about optimizing every decision
A common reaction might be: “If I have to think about every decision this way, I will never enjoy anything.” And that is a fair point.
Money should not become the main character in every decision. The goal is not to turn every dinner, holiday, or purchase into a calculation exercise. The financially literate person is not the person who always chooses the cheapest option or refuses the bottle of wine because there is a less expensive alternative.
Sometimes the more expensive choice is exactly the right one. A higher-quality product may last longer. A more expensive holiday may create memories that are worth far more than the price difference. A lower salary offer may still create more value if it provides greater opportunities for learning, growth, or future potential.
The question is not simply: “How much does this cost?” The more interesting question is: “What value am I getting in return?”
Financial literacy starts with curiosity
We often associate financial literacy with investing, taxes, or accounting. Those topics matter, but they also make the concept sound more complicated than it needs to be. For many people, the term itself creates the impression that this is a subject reserved for experts.
I think it starts much earlier. It starts with noticing.
It starts when we become curious about our own decisions and ask why something feels expensive, why something feels like a bargain, or why we value one option differently from another.
Financial literacy is not about making every decision financially optimal. It is about understanding the trade-offs behind our decisions.
It is about recognizing that every choice has consequences. Spending money on one thing means not spending it on something else. Choosing one path often means giving up another.
You do not need to become an expert in finance to understand this. You simply need to become a little more curious about the decisions you make.
The same happens in business
Interestingly, businesses struggle with exactly the same thing.
They celebrate growing sales without asking whether those sales actually create value. They focus on reducing costs without asking which costs enable future growth. They measure what is easy to measure instead of what really matters.
This is where finance can play an important role. Finance can bring structure, ask difficult questions, and help organizations understand the trade-offs behind decisions. But even then, there is always a risk of focusing too much on the numbers themselves rather than on the story behind them.
A company can have record revenue and still destroy value. A cost reduction can improve short-term profitability while damaging long-term performance. A metric can look impressive while hiding the real issue underneath.
Working in finance hasn’t made me immune to these mistakes. I still catch myself focusing on the wrong numbers from time to time. The difference is that I notice it a little sooner than I used to.
The question that changes how we think about money
Financial literacy will not tell you whether you should order the €50 bottle of wine or skip it. There probably isn’t a universal right answer.
But it might encourage you to pause for a moment and ask: Why does this decision feel different?
That question applies far beyond a restaurant. It applies to the products we buy, the investments we make, the businesses we build, and the decisions we take every day.
Because financial literacy is not primarily about numbers. It is about connecting numbers with value.
