What it is worth to you

A young man in Jeddah is talking himself into a jet ski.

It is more than he planned to spend, so he has found a reason that makes it sensible. They hold their value, he says. In two years he can sell it for nearly what he paid.

Maybe. More likely it will sit under a cover through the hottest months, pick up a long scratch along one side, and reach the second-hand market next to a dozen others bought for the same reason in the same summer.

Most of what we buy is worth less the moment it is ours. Phones, sofas, the boxed collectible on the shelf. The hope that this one will be the exception is very human, and it is almost always the seller's argument, borrowed and repeated in our own voice.

There is a better question to ask before paying. If this were worth nothing the day after I bought it, would I still be glad I did?

If the answer is yes, resale value is a pleasant bonus and nothing more. He will take it out on Friday mornings off the Corniche, bring his nephews along, and the money will have bought exactly what it was meant to buy.

If the answer is no, he is not really buying a jet ski. He is placing a bet, and using an object he does not much want as the stake. That is a different decision. It deserves the cold reasoning we bring to savings, not the warm reasoning we bring to weekends.

The things worth owning are the ones whose price we stop thinking about once they are ours.