Word
Opportunity cost
The value of the best alternative you give up when you make a choice
Examples
A mission's opportunity cost includes the strongest other project its resources could have supported.
The opportunity cost of an evening meeting might be the uninterrupted work you needed to finish.
Origin
Economists use opportunity cost to name a sacrifice that accounting expenses can miss. Opportunity means an available course of action; cost includes the value lost by declining it. The relevant comparison is the next-best feasible alternative, not every imaginable use combined.
How it connects
The term makes the unflown alternative part of a mission's real cost.
This word appeared in The mission you do not fly, the Involves connection for September 8, 2026, which asked: What does a choice cost when its price tag leaves something out?
Check yourself
You use your only free hour to study instead of taking your most valued alternative, a walk. What is the opportunity cost?
The value you would have received from the walk. Exactly. Opportunity cost is the value of the best feasible option forgone, even when no money changes hands.
What the sources establish
Opportunity cost is the value of the next-best feasible alternative forgone, not all alternatives added together.
Sources
Opportunity Cost (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis), Economic Lowdown episode 1: scarcity and the next-highest-valued alternative
Real-Life Examples of Opportunity Cost (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis), Definition and distinction between visible costs and missed alternatives