The Time Value of Money | Personal Finance Series

What’s better than watching videos from Alanis Business Academy? Doing so with a delicious cup of freshly brewed premium coffee. Visit https://www.lannacoffeeco.com and get free shipping on your online order. Help us learn more about your experience by completing this short survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RRKS8LZ Subscribe to Alanis Business Academy on YouTube for updates on the latest videos: https://www.youtube.com/alanisbusines... The time value of money, commonly abbreviated as simply TVM, is the idea that money loses value over time. You may have heard the saying one dollar received today is worth more than one dollar received tomorrow. What this attempts to explain is the fact that the value of your hard earned money decreases each and every day. As an example, lets say that that your friend asked you for $500 with the promise to repay you that same amount in twelve months. Although you may be inclined to help your friend out this wouldn't be a great financial decision. But why? You're still receiving that same $500 you loaned him or her twelve months ago. The truth is, that although the numerical value of your $500 remains unchanged, you incur several costs by not having it in your possession. The first and probably the most obvious cost that you incur is inflation. Inflation is the increase in the price of goods and services over a period of time. Inflation generally runs at about two percent annually, although it has been quite less as of late. So if you hold your money for that period of time, what you can do with that money actually decreases. The financial equation to determine a present value is as follows: PV equals FV divided by one plus i to the nth power. In this equation, PV is the present value of our money and what we are trying to determine. FV represents that future value of our money, which is $500 . i represents the interest rate that we intend to discount or reduce our $500 by. Generally for discounting purposes the interest rate represents what we could've received if you had the money in our possession and put it to good use. In this case, we are going to discount our money by an inflation rate of two percent to reflect its diminished value. The last bit of data we need is the number of periods or n, which will be one to reflect the number of years we are going to discount our $500 by. The second reason that money decreases in value over time is due to opportunity costs. An opportunity cost represents what you give up by loaning the $500 to your friend. More specifically, the opportunity cost represents the next best alternative. What that is depends upon your unique situation. It could be investing in the stock market, placing the money in a savings account, or even spending it on new clothes. Unfortunately you incur an opportunity cost by giving up possession of your money. Now as a result of both inflationary pressures and opportunity costs your $500 will be worth less in twelve months. This is why banks charge interest on loans and why consumers expect to earn some type of interest when they place their money in a bank. It's simply being compensated for the costs that they incur by not having the money in their possession at this moment in time.