You Buy Cheap, You Buy Twice

Not buying what you truly want is your most expensive purchase.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

At least twice. How often have you “compromised” and bought the knockoff instead of the real thing you truly desired because it costs less? Sometimes even marginally so. Seems like a good deal, right? Wrong. It’s actually your most expensive purchase. Why?

Opportunity Cost

Opportunity cost is strangely absent from most of our calculations. And when it is included, it’s often given a purely monetary value, not a qualitative one. The qualitative value of owning something that isn’t quite what you wanted is mental — dissatisfaction, longing, boredom, ennui, rage. A bunch of negativities. Those drive you crazier, make you obsessive about what could be. And those are extremely expensive costs that your money-saving on the cheaper deal will definitely not cover.

I should know.

Having moved to the country recently and with a non-existent credit score, I was unable to get car financing at all. And having driven a top-of-the-range Tesla Model S in its prime for years, I was spoiled, to say the least. After rigorous negotiations, I finally managed to get my hands on a brand-new car — not a Tesla — paid down for it, got the deposit sorted, and am currently driving it around. But you know what…