When you go shopping, you may wonder about buying cheap products or going for the authentic ones, in most cases expensive ones, but it is always difficult to decide which one to choose.
As a minimalist, I have a clear concept and philosophy about shopping and would like to share some tips.
I hope this article will help you to judge with a clear mind when you go shopping next time.
Let's jump into it
Why buying cheap things frequently is not good?
First, I am not trying to deny the whole action of buying cheap things.
There are so many people who are satisfied with buying cheap products and using them for a long time.
If you are compensating by choosing the cheaper one even though you actually want to have the authentic and expensive one, then there are enough rooms to improve the way to think about it.
The reasons why I recommend avoiding cheap products are.
- They break easily
- We have to buy many times
- It is not good for the earth
They break easily
You may have realized that cheap products tend to break easily when you keep using them for a long time.
I always try to think about the reason for the cheap price.
In my mind, the reason for the cheap price is it is produced in mass production, so the quality of every single product tends to be lower than something made by a craftsman
In my personal opinion, I would like to keep using one authentic product for a long time created by a craftsman.
We have to buy many times
The second point is the financial aspect.
If you keep purchasing the same product over and over, It affects your expense significantly.
Later in this article, I will show you the reason why expensive and authentic products tend to be much cheaper than actual cheap products.
It is not good for the earth
The third, and most important point is that purchasing cheap products is not eco-friendly action.
Cheap products are in most cases, from the mass production industry.
Once my partner told me that purchasing something means supporting the whole industry, so when you purchase something you need to think about, whether you are really sure to support the industry from which you are purchasing the products.
Unless one company has an eco-friendly production system, in most cases, it is very clear that producing something will burden the environment in some way.
So purchasing cheap products over and over is not good for your financial status and also not good for the Earth.
One thing to remember when you buy things
As always, I would like to share my concept of shopping.
The expensive ones are the cheaper ones.
To make you understand clearly on this, I have to add some notes.
The reason why I think the expensive products are much cheaper than the actual cheaper product is based on the way to calculate the real cost.
For example, the headphones I own cost me about €320, and I think these headphones can be categorized in the expensive product category.
However, I had no hesitation when I was about to purchase this product online because I have the magical calculation method.
The way to know the actual cost of the product that you're going to buy is very simple.
(the actual expense) provided by (the duration you can use it for)
Let's stick to the headstone example.
The way that I calculated the actual cost of these headphones is as below.
(€320) divided by (at least 24 months) = €13.3/month
I bought his headphones almost a year ago, end of Oct. 2021, and this functions still fine so I think my 24 months calculation seems to be right.
If I keep using the headphones carefully for two years, the theoretical expense that I pay is only €13 per month.
Since the time, I realized this calculation method, the pricing tag looked so different to me, but the frequency of shopping has decreased drastically.
Why?
Because now I know the best shopping method for me, and I am so satisfied with the products that I buy because each product is authentic and amazing, the quality of everything in my life has improved.
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