Timely Education

the main cost in education (formal or informal) is time, and the best outcome depends upon your application of whatever you learn. Notably, what you learn is not (& never has been) necessarily what anyone thinks they might be teaching you. Thus, cost can also be related to your intelligent use of the experience of others to enhance your relationships with them whether you each reach the same conclusions from education or not.
Many conversations do not necessarily add to your knowledge - in fact most merely reaffirm "general knowledge" or what many tend to refer to as "common sense".
True intelligence is the ability to take whatever is offered and make some practical use of it for yourself. If you gain something by a different approach than before acquiring that knowledge, you are said to have learned something. Often what you learn reaffirms your old habits, whether they are more generally applicable as useful or not.
All that matters is what works for you. And subsequently, the cost you are prepared to pay to find out...