After a couple of heart attacks, I’ve learned to eat much healthier. But finding snacks can be challenging once you remove Doritos and Cheetos from the equation. A good substitute for me is now Harvest Snaps, which are baked lentil pods. I highly recommend the tomato-basil version.

Anyway, I was lentil-snapping away the other day on some of the onion-thyme ones. I bit down on a snap with my back left molar and heard a snap. Then the pain train came roaring through the station. The tooth had cracked. Of course, this happens on a Friday at 7 p.m., and the dentist doesn’t open until Monday morning. So I suffered through the weekend, wondering what I’d be in for.

On Monday morning, Dr. Kubic saw me and put in a temporary filling to hold the tooth together. He told me it had cracked all the way down to the root. My options were having an extensive root canal, getting a crown, or getting a dental implant. With the root canal, he said it would be pretty invasive, and he wasn’t optimistic about it holding up over the long term. A crown would be more permanent, but given it’s a molar with heavy grinding activity, it would need to be recrowned down the road. The dental implant was the most permanent solution but also the most expensive, would take the longest, and was the most invasive. He referred me to Dr. Hinkle, who had done an implant for me previously. (By the way, if you live in Columbus, Ohio, and need a dentist or oral surgeon, I highly recommend these guys.)

I went to see Dr. Hinkle, and I walked him through my options, spouted off the pros and cons, and told him I’d already made my decision. He looked at me, pretty surprised, and said, “Seems like you’re all over this diagnosis, and that all makes sense. Thanks for saving me the time of having to explain everything. And by the way—I agree with your recommendation.”

For me, the choice was clear.

I chose the implant. Yes, it was going to cost me a bunch more money than the root canal or crown (ow!), require a tooth extraction (Ow!), the placement of a titanium post in my jawbone 12 weeks later (OW!), and the addition of the replacement molar on that post 6–10 weeks after that (ow). (Note: all ow’s are capitalized according to their pain level.)

My choice of the “worst” option was purely a business decision. That decision contains several great business lessons you can apply to investments you’re thinking about making.

Lesson 1: Consider the total cost of ownership

Although the root canal was the cheapest and fastest option, that’s only in the near term. When it fails in the future, I’ll be in pain again, back in the dentist’s chair, and doing another root canal, crown, or implant. It would save me time in the short term, and that time has a value from an opportunity-cost standpoint. But longer term, I’d spend more total time on this treatment option than I would on a more permanent solution. From a financial perspective, a root canal is a poor investment because it would require future investment to address its shortcomings, and a greater total investment of time than the other options.

The crown was a more expensive option, and it would take a little longer than the root canal from a treatment perspective. In the short term, it costs more, both in time and money. Longer term, the solution would last longer and not need replacement for a while. When it did need replacement, it would be another crown or implant. Relative to the root canal, there’s a longer-term time-and-money savings with this option.

The implant incurs the highest upfront costs, both in terms of time and dollars. Long term, however, it’s a permanent solution. Only something catastrophic would require it to be replaced. This makes it a “one and done” type of investment. From a total-cost perspective, it’s actually the cheapest option.

Evaluating investments in terms of total cost of ownership will lead to better decisions and help you avoid making poor choices based solely on near-term metrics.

Lesson 2: Time is money

As mentioned in Lesson 1, there’s value to your time. Don’t forget to factor that into your decision-making processes. While the root canal would only cost me two hours near-term, I’d still have to invest more hours down the road when it fails (which it will). I’ll spend more total time away from work to get things fixed a second and third time around.

Sure, the implant costs me a bunch of time near term between the procedures themselves and more extensive recovery time. That said, once I’m done with that time investment, I’m done.

Look at projects or investments you’re considering. Think about how much time you’ll spend in the future repairing suboptimal solutions. Consider how much that downtime will cost your business. Is it really worth saving a few bucks now only to risk a lot more money and opportunity cost later?

Lesson 3: Think about the complete financial picture

The implant costs a lot of money—more than the root canal or crown. Normally, the only thing people consider is the cost of each project. But they don’t appreciate the secondary financial impacts. The big one I’m talking about here is taxes. This year, I’m in a bit of an abnormal situation for me, where I’ll be able to claim my medical expenses as a tax deduction, mostly because my health insurance plan changed a lot this year, and I had a much higher deductible as well as some out-of-network costs. Next year, I may or may not be in that situation again.

That tax situation creates a financial opportunity. If I take this big implant expense this year, it will be deductible on my taxes. That reduces the actual cost of the procedure in terms of the total cash outlay. If I wait until next year, I might not get that deduction, especially with possible tax code changes.

Look at your projects and investments. Do you understand the tax implications for them? How about the interest costs of making your investment? Do you have the complete economic picture of your project’s impact? If not, it’s a worthwhile analysis.

See? Considering a cracked tooth as a business project helps teach valuable lessons on how to evaluate your projects. You’ve now learned from my pain. I hope it helps you make better decisions in the future.

Published July 2, 2025, in The thoughtLEADERS Brief on LinkedIn.