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Getting Your Money’s Worth
By Daphne | April 18, 2008
Spending withinyour means does not mean buy the cheapest or the most expensive product; buy something that will last.
If you need to purchase luggage for a trip, do not buy the cheapest bag or the most expensive bag, but get one that will suit your needs. Meaning if you are traditionally an over packer or you like to carry your bags yourself for part of the way, you may have different luggage needs than another person.
What are your expectations for an item? If you expect luggage to last you several years, then the price you pay may be more than someone who expects luggage to last three years. Price doesn’t mean that something will last a long time either. After a long time I finally decided to purchase an electronic popcorn maker for my kitchen using a merchandise certificate from a housewares store. After about three months, the item broke. I had registered the item online and contacted the company. For the cost of shipping I am going to receive a replacement. If the item had only been $20 or so I probably wouldn’t have balked that it stopped working in a short time. It cost almost three times that much, and even though I didn’t pay full price, there was still the expectation that the machine was going to perform the way that it was intended.
Buying something cheap which lasts longer than you thought it would makes you think… “hey I got my money’s worth out of this.” When something lasts less time than you expect an item to, you start thinking… “this is worthless garbage.”
If you buy something that it doesn’t live up to your expectations because of the price think about what you paid. If you paid a little and got a lot, your expectations were exceeded. When you pay a lot, you expect a lot.
Price is relative to different people. Money is only a tool or vehicle that we use for trade. Sometimes we make good trades, and other times we don’t. When we make bad decisions with money, use this to guide better decisions for the future.
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Topics: April 2008 |