Making purchases for your home can be tricky. You want items to be functional, priced competitively, and look great too! But do you ever think about what maintaining that awesome-cute-perfect-thing-you-just-HAVE-to-buy will cost you long term? Even a something that costs very little on the front end will end up costing you a fortune in time and/or money in the long run. Sometimes it’s wise to calculate how much something will REALLY cost us before we buy it.
Here are three examples where I should have thought before I bought:
Wool rug.
Several years ago my husband and I got a super fluffy and comfy wool rug for our small living space. It was definitely a splurge item but we loved it and everyone who came over to our home did also. We still get compliments on that rung almost every time someone new comes to visit. We like how it looks with our decor. But the absolute best part of that rug is when your bare feet step on it, it feels like you are walking on the softest clouds.
The problem is, it sheds like a golden retriever!
Even after vacuuming that rug no less than 400 times, it still keeps keeps on shedding! That means I get to sweep light gray fuzz balls on my dark floors on a daily basis.
We do love our wool rug, but I’m not sure the maintenance is worth the look.
Light bulbs in bathrooms.
When we moved into our current house, we had the opportunity to use standard lighting or choose our own. Since we had the option, we decided to look around the lighting shop and choose fixtures that fit our decor style.
We ended up downgrading some of the fixtures in our home so we could fancify some of the fixtures in the main rooms. Lighting fixtures that we loved were installed in the main areas of the home. The best part is that we didn’t have to pay extra because we used plain-jane lighting areas that no one sees.
Or so we thought.
Three months into living in our home, the bathroom lightbulbs went out. First of all…the light bulbes only lasted THREE MONTHS. That’s crazy. Second of all…we didn’t realize that our bathroom fixtures needed “special” light bulbs that cost a fortune.
Cute lights but the upkeep is expensive.
Coffee maker with a built in coffee bean grinder.
A few years ago we were given a coffee maker with a built in coffee bean grinder. It was oh-so exciting the first time we used it! Fresh beans. Fresh coffee. Those first few cups of coffee were delicious!
The coffee tasted great because it was ultra-fresh. Beans were ground and then sent though a passageway into the coffee filter.
The problem? Ss the coffee brewed, steam traveled up that same passageway causing the coffee ground remnants to clump up in the grinder. It was a wet, sticky mess. So, in order to use the grinder again, you have to wash – and then dry throughly – every. single. time. It may not sound like much, but it’s a ton of work.
I’m all about minimizing appliances in the kitchen. But in this case, a built in coffee grinder costs too much in time. I’d rather use a separate coffee grinder. Or already ground beans. Or quit drinking coffee all together.
Okay…not that last one! I neeeed my coffee.
The cost of maintaining individual items never used to cross my mind. But now that most of my “free time” is spent chasing after and cleaning up after two funny, rowdy, lovable little boys, I’m starting to change my ways!
What about you? Do you think about how much time and money it will cost to maintain and item before you buy it?
iDreamOfClean
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That’s a good point! I do think about this but mostly with clothes. Anything that says “Dry Clean Only” I pass up (except for the the “wear only to interviews and weddings” items). You can buy a dress for $3 at a discount shop that will end up costing you $300 over it’s lifetime.
You can think about this in the reverse too. Our washer and dryer cost $500 more than a cheaper model we could have gotten, but it’s energy efficient, so we made up that cost in less than a year and have been saving money on electricity ever since. So worth it!