However, no one buys anything cheap. Everyone tries to find a good deal and feels like outsmarting the system. But there is a tremendous gap between getting something cheap and saving money. And while building your career or company, you should take this difference into account right away.
Cheap is the trap. During several first minutes, you feel satisfied. And then comes a broken zipper, non-working software, an unreliable contractor and you start buying this stuff again and again. But you don’t save your money, you burn your cash and waste time.
It is the affordable item you are searching. Affordability is the point. This is your Honda Civic among purchases. It performs its task excellently and you can be proud of it. It is not luxury but it doesn’t disappoint you.
The valuable is the item which is costly at first sight. It is unpleasant to pay a lot when you use your credit card but its price of usage will become negligible with time. Think of your Herman Miller chair or an expensive espresso machine. This is the item you buy once, use for ten years and it becomes better and better with time.
The real test for finding whether you save your money or not is “penny wise, pound foolish”. Do you try to save twenty dollars at the moment but lose a thousand of them later? If yes, you are buying cheap products. This is a mistake of a newbie.
Forget about prices. Focus on the cost of the purchase. The cheap suit loses its appearance after three washes while the valuable one looks gorgeous for decades.
Your most expensive resource is your time. Cheap things are easily breakable, they need maintenance and they distract you from doing important work. When you buy valuable products, you make an investment into your job.
So, each time when you should choose between a laptop and a pair of shoes consider only one thing. Is this investment or expenditure? If the second one, choose affordable items. Otherwise, choose valuable products. And never buy cheap items!