I love a good deal as much as any other Goodr-clad, middle-aged mom out there, but there are some cheap things I just won’t fork over any amount of money for. They just end up being too expensive.
Three “Cheap” Things That End up Being Too Expensive
High-Stakes Repairs: We recently had a leaky faucet. Since we’ve had a few basic YouTube-assisted home repairs under our belt, I stuck my head in the cabinets, and looked back and forth between the plumbing fixtures and the video. After multiple rounds of pausing and backing that thing up, I put the tools away and called the pros. If I’d carried on with my DIY repair, I ran the risk of doing more damage and ending up in the same place, but with a more expensive job. If the repair were lower stakes (i.e. not involving something like water or electricity), I might’ve endured a little longer. I’m just not gonna mess around with a repair that could turn our kitchen into a swimming pool or our house into the clock tower from Back to The Future.
Low-Quality Products: I am very familiar with the allure of a deal, but it can be deceptive sometimes. For example, there’s a whole industry around fast fashion that is built to wear for Instagram one week and replace the next. But a little experience has served me well in this way and I’m much quicker to spend a premium for a product that will remain in my wardrobe for a few years and be the first I reach for every time I do laundry. That goes for clothes, home appliances, cars, and more. You’re just not gonna find me hanging out at many clearance racks anymore. They’re just too expensive.
One-Star Services: Have you ever hired the cheapest company and had to bring someone else in to redo the job when the work is subpar? I hear about it all the time. I don’t care how good the quality is of an iPhone camera, for example. If you don’t have a skilled operator behind it, you’re not going to get a professional-looking result. I promise you won’t be happy with the result if you hire an event videographer who has an expensive camera but puts as much care into their composition as your Aunt Janet puts into her Facebook posts. Sometimes, a premium service is worth setting aside the budget for. Counterintuitively, it could end up saving you money in the long run because you get it done right the first time.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that sometimes the “cheap” option turns out to be quite expensive after all. In what areas have you found this to be true? Do you agree with my top picks? What would you add to the list?
