Present Value - PV

See: Net Present Value.

The "present value" isn't about what store credit you can get on the turbo-charged personal adult massage product that your grandmother awkwardly gave you for your wedding shower.

Rather, present value refers to the value of that asset or stream of cash flows or thing of value that would be given to you in the future, rather than today. Like the promise of a 1987 Ford Crapola. A year from now, it's worth less than your brother just handing you the keys today. There is a discount rate attached to things promised to you in the future. There are other things you could have done with that dough, and there's risk that the thing you're getting in a year gets in more than just a fender bender or two, or that the garage scrapings make its side doors look like the back of a sperm whale after wrestling giant squid dinners 3,000 feet below.

So present value discounts all of that...time and risk...to scream what the value of that future thing is...today.