Cost-cutting & WIAGF — 008
Today, I got an insight into making financial decisions that I intend to practise in the coming weeks. This is regarding making purchases for a thing or a service.
When next I’m making a purchase decision especially when it involves cutting costs, it is important I take into consideration that whatever things I eventually settle on, if they don’t cost me now they’ll cost me later. Put this in perspective when choosing to opt for alternatives to things/services that are costly.
While it is good to be frugal in one’s spendings, if I build the habit of always finding the cheapest things whenever I make purchases and this builds up, I may end up watering down my values over time and this is costly in the long term. For the most part, it is safe to assume most goods and services that cost more will offer an experience no cheap alternative will give you. By cheap I don’t mean $5 cheap, I’m talking $800 vs $170 kind of cheap.
Also, over time one can learn the habit of cutting corners just to cut cost which isn’t always good. There’s only so much cost I can cut before getting to the point of diminishing returns now or in the future. Since it is really hard to think and plan long term, there are enough chances in the short term to feel that one can always get away with things by always buying ridiculously cheaper alternatives to things or services.
In the past year, I cannot count the number of headsets I’ve had to buy because the ones I buy just never last. An ideal headset cost in the region of +/-N10,000 but the ones I buy are always between N200 — N500. This ended up costing me the instances where I’d want to make a private call handsfree or listen to music, podcast, or watch a video where doing so without a headset wasn’t reasonable. I’d end up borrowing someone else’s pair, and most times this is very uncomfortable for me and inconvenient for the owner.
I’ve had to buy 3 game controllers in the past year, because of again cheap alternatives. A single Xbox wireless controller for PCs costs N16,000 but I bought alternatives that cost me N2500. This has cost me precious moments in games where the difference between me winning and losing depended on my controller. As I write this, I haven’t played any game recently as the current controller I have has since packed up.
Recently, while working on a project in Adobe CC apps, I’ve had to sigh every 5 minutes of working as the wireless mouse I have gives me a real headache. A solid wireless mouse costs north of N20,000, mine cost N2100 with batteries. Dragging and dropping of items, drawing curves, manipulating vectors, are terrible experiences for me, costing me time, effort and stress. People buy headsets, controllers and mouse and use for years and even pass them on to others.
Don’t get me wrong, being frugal is good, I’m not saying cost-cutting is bad, neither am I saying solid cheap alternatives to things/services aren’t out there but from my experiences, the cheap alternatives are not worth it. There’s a reason why certain things/services cost the amount they demand.
The question now is how much of cost-cutting is too much? Moderacy, I think is the answer. Understanding diminishing returns is very important and a mix of moderate plus one’s own personal values could be a great guide. If I truly valued my time, money and happiness, I shouldn’t have bought a wireless mouse that makes me sigh.
What I am Grateful for;
Today, I’m grateful for my family and my siblings especially. I have the most wonderful and amazing siblings ever.
