Too Poor to Buy Cheap

Whoever said, "I'm too poor to buy cheap," is not a moron.  It is counterintuitive, but true.  Single serving portions and poorly made products are much more costly in the long run than bulk purchased products or services and well made products.  Keeping this in mind is good for your pocketbook and your planet, and will allow you a small but very satisfying defeat over those who would want you to throw small chunks of money at them at regular intervals.

When you buy, buy to last.  Buy dishes, not paper plates.  Buy a Vitamix blender instead a bunch of cheap junk blenders.  Vitamix was made in the US, is expensive, but will last a very long time.  it comes with a five year warrantee.  Ours is beyond or nearly beyond it and works the same as the first day we bought it.  Buy an American made vacuum such as Simplicity.  The idea is same as the Vitamix.

Also, if possible, buy in bulk.  What most often comes to mind is Costco.  You can stock up on household necessities such as toilet paper, diapers, paper towels etc.  This, however, doesn't work so well if you have 885 square feet of living space, like we have.  I don't want to live in a storage room.

But we do buy museum, aquarium and zoo memberships, which is essentially a bulk purchase of visits.  We are big into this kind of entertainment.  it's a healthy and productive alternative to a movie and Chuck E. Cheese. 

A single serving visit for my family would run $25-$35.  We may go 30-50 times this year.  I've been 6 times with my kid to the Natural History Museum just in the last week, as I'm on vacation and the wife is recuperating from a surgery.  So, if we paid every time we went, it would run us $750.00 to $1,750.00.  For our three memberships, one of which includes free admission for a guest at each visit, we are paying a total of $334.00.  This is a discount of 55% to 81%.

If you think it would be boring to hit the same museum so many times in a year, I haven't found it to be the case.  The Natural History Museum, for example, is so big that I still have not seen everything after so many visits.  Also, if you have a kid, they change so rapidly that each time you visit a museum it is a different place to them.  So, it is better for us to explore a few Museums in depth than to spread ourselves too thin.  There is no downside to purchasing a yearly membership.

We're all too poor to buy cheap.  It takes a bit of thought to plan out your purchases, but it's fun and will pencil out for you in the long run.

Introduction

If I had to label myself, I would say I am a Frugalitarian Catholic of the Tree Hugger Social Justice variety.  My goal is to save 30-40% of my after-tax income and to manifest my values in how I spend and save money.  Those values are as follows: (1) the Earth is a sacred resource and not anyone's piggy bank; (2) temporal rulers are usurpers; and (3) the lowliest among us are God in disguise.

The goal of this blog is primarily to explain the how and why of this belief system.  I expect to write on other subjects as well along the way.  I hope readers will find some benefit.   All are welcome, family, friends and strangers.