If you think you can’t afford the best your money can buy think again. You can’t afford not to spend a little more in the short run to benefit in the long run. As the saying goes, “you get what you pay for” so if you want quality you have to pay for quality.
Of course there’s a range to what things costs and what you spend on something is relative to your income level. But remember, just because you can’t afford a million dollar home doesn’t mean you can’t still have a beautiful home that fits your budget. Or that a modest income means you have to buy cheap furniture to fill your home or stay at the Motel 6 when you have Westin tastes. Lower income doesn’t mean you settle for lower quality. It just means you scale down what you buy and you save until you can buy quality. For example, having less money means you can buy a nice small house versus a nice big house. It does not mean you settle for a rundown shack. Or you stay at the Westin for a weekend getaway versus a week long getaway. Or you buy two luxurious towels versus six.
You should not buy cheap, poor quality anything if you truly value your money and what you spend it on. Instead invest in what passes the quality test and the test of time.
I for one have given away and squandered my money on things I really didn’t love or need. It was a waste of my valuable resources and I have nothing to show of it.
Let’s take clothes for example. I’ve gone to discount stores and bought sweaters that looked great at the time but were of cheap quality and barely made it through a season before looking completely raggedy. So the following year I had to buy a whole new set of sweaters when I could have bought one or two quality sweaters here and there to add to my wardrobe and they would last year after year. You can apply this example to just about anything you buy. The cheap stuff never lasts and you end you having to replace it which cost you more money when you could have paid a little extra up front and saved in the end.
So stop throwing you money away on cheap shit or things you don’t really want or need. Instead save until you can afford the living room furniture you love. It may take you a little longer to furnish your home but you’ll have better quality stuff that lasts a lot longer and you’ll be much happier surrounded by things you love and value versus hating the cheap sofa you bought every time you sit on it, like I do. We bought a cheap sofa without really shopping around and waiting to get something nicer and it’s awful. I hate it and I don’t sit on it very often.
Also stop taking the cheap, fast and easy way out of how you invest your time and resources because at the end of the day it’s going to cost you a lot more to re-buy, rehire, start over, or fix whatever you made bad investments in.
My favorite personal example is home repairs and improvements. My husband is famous for taking the cheap, easy and fast way out of getting things done around the house. Mainly because he thinks we can’t afford the more expensive option but I say where there’s a will there’s a way. He often just doesn’t want to take the time (or insists he doesn’t have the time) to do the research to find the best option that is affordable and delivers on quality. One example is that he had his nephews paint our rooftop deck and it looks awful. I use to get mad every time I would go up on it. I had to let it go but really, hiring your nephews is never a good idea unless they have the skills you need them for. In this case they were sloppy and just wanted to get it done instead of taking their time and doing it right. But we saved money…Not really, because we ended up having to have it redone months later.
I won’t even get into the fact (ok I will) that he hired our neighbors as the general contractors to do a major renovation and extension of our house which absolutely turned out to be a complete disaster. Note to self – don’t hire your neighbor either. In this case it was the easy and presumably cheaper way to go. But it has costs us far more than originally expected due to the aftermath of the shoddy work that was done not to mention the cost of the renovation that went over budget and over schedule because of our contractors’ incompetence and fraudulence.
I will admit that I should have been more forceful in voicing my opinion and more adamant about certain decisions but we all live and learn. I now know that I have to be more proactive and vocal in honoring the money principles I want our family to uphold. I hope you will do the same for your family.
If you haven’t gotten the message here it’s quite simple: STOP BEING CHEAP! Take your time, do your research and due diligence, and save until you can afford quality goods and services. Otherwise be prepared to pay the price for being a cheap ass. I for one would whether live without for a while longer than to live with junk and the work of a bad contractor just to save a few bucks.
