I’ve been wearing glasses for almost 20 years, but next week I’m going to get Laser Eye Surgery (LASIK) to correct my myopia and astigmatism.
A couple years ago I wrote about outsourcing unhappiness. The idea is “it’s better to spend money on things that remove unhappiness, rather than spend on things that add happiness.”
It’s within this context that I reconsidered my opinion on LASIK. Here’s my logic and here is a Google Spreadsheet you can use to follow along:
Glasses and contact lenses cost about $300 per year.
There is an additional cost, which I call the “myopia burden”. I’ve always felt glasses place a barrier between me the person I’m talking to—it’s difficult to quantify, but there is a cost to me feeling that way. Additionally, contact lenses dry out my eyes and begin to feel uncomfortable within 8 hours—making it hard to get through an entire day at work without feeling some discomfort. This isn’t an exact science, but I’ve priced the “myopia burden” at an additional $300 per year. Which if I’m being honest, is on the low side.
LASIK, however, is around $5,000. Which is a hefty sum to pay upfront.
When doing the cost benefit analysis, we also need to factor in the time value of money (i.e., due to inflation, a dollar today is worth more than a dollar in 1 year, 5 years, or 10 years time). This actually makes LASIK more expensive, because I’m spending the money now as opposed to incurring a $300 annual cost with glasses and contacts.
To complete the analysis, I need to map out the costs incurred—or cashflows—under each scenario over a given time period, say 15 years. I then need to discount future costs back to their present day value using a discount rate (i.e., the rate of inflation; assumed at 3%). This calculation can be completed using the Net Present Value formula.
In summary, although LASIK costs $5,000 upfront, which is higher than the Net Present Cost of glasses and contacts over a 15 year period ($3,581), it’s lower than the Net Present Cost of glasses and contacts + the myopia burden ($7,163).
Each person will have their own cost assumptions, and some will disagree with mine, but for me, I felt the evidence was clear: I’m better off getting LASIK, not because it’s cheaper than glasses and contacts, but because I outsource unhappiness by removing the “myopia burden”.