Recently for my job, I was offered a one week shift to work 40 hours over the summer at Carleton College.  I can work only right after the finals period so the week of June 8 to June 12 or for one week anytime in August. I was having a hard time choosing when to work because of implicit and explicit costs. For the total cost of working, I am willing to pay 70 dollars  over the summer.  The form for summer housing is due Tuesday, May 13 and as I was looking up the payment options, June 8 to June 13 costs $120 because it is commencement week, whereas weeks in August cost $70.  This means that my explicit costs is higher for June and thus I should go for August as that met the maximum price I was willing to pay, but to get housing in August compared to commencement week means that I have to find a proxy that was living on campus in the summer for over 7 weeks and I do not know anyone planning to stay on campus over the summer. The housing application, again noted, is due in two days so the implicit costs added to my total cost for August is actually higher.

I thought, then, to myself since from June 8 to June 12, housing will still be open for students until Tuesday, June 10. I will technically only need two days for extra payment for housing and the $120 cost of that is not reasonable as that is $60 per day and quantitatively I will be only earning about 300 dollars over that one week period (a third of my paycheck will be gone for housing). I looked up Northfield lines options for transportation costs as a way of substitution for housing since I live in Saint Paul, MN.  It costs 26 dollars to travel from the cities to Northfield, and Northfield back to the cities in one day. I would need transportation for two days; thus that will be a total of $52. If I compare the opportunity cost, now, of working the week of June or working a week in August, it saves me more money to work in June if I commute for two days ($26/2 days), rather then dorming for one week in August($14/5 days).