Often it makes sense tospend money on quality.

Its an excellent theory.

It doesnt always work out this way in practice, though.

As part ofthis months Money Challenge, I spent the weekend decluttering.

Turns out, despite my best intentions, they were just a waste of money.

For a while, I did.

A couple of months later, the CO2 canister ran out and my convenient gadget turned into a chore.

If you own a Sodastream, you might be thinking, Wow, shes lazy.

I have one and its really not a huge chore.

And youre right, its not.

We watched a documentary, and like a couple of tools, went out and bought a juicer.

It was a good documentary.

Drinking juice is good.

We didnt, however, need to spend $100 to start drinking more of it.

It was afalse first steptoward healthier habits.

Nevermind the fact that we already had a blenderit wasnt a juicer.

Sure, we could blend and then strain out the juice but ugh, that was too much work.

A juicer would save us time, money, and make us super healthy.It was an investment.

We used it for a while.

Of course, over time, we got tired of it.

It was time-consuming to clean and maintain.

(At one point, I said, Id rather buy juice than ever clean this thing again.)

More than the cleaning, though, we couldnt keep up with the lifestyle.

We just werent that into the whole juicing thing.

We used that documentary as a justification to spend money on crap we didnt need.

To avoid this, we could have tested out the new habit before making an investment.

We couldve at least tried blending and straining, for example.

When Cheap Doesnt Mean Poor Quality

I tossed out some expensive, plain t-shirts, too.

I bought them because I figuredtheyd last longerthan the cheap tees I normally buy.

Of course, there are other valid reasons to pay more for quality.

Maybe you want to buy from a fair trade company.

Maybe expensive items fit you better.

One of the biggest arguments for splurging on quality, though, is that quality lasts longer.

The thing is, sometimes cheap items last just as long, or longer!

My oldest purse is one I found on sale at Target ten years ago.

I only recently tossed out a pair of cheap, off-brand boots Ive had for just as long.

The point is, cheap doesntalwaysmean youll have to replace it in a year.

When you want to spend impulsively, quality is rarely a factor as much as it is a justification.

Illustration by: Sam Woolley.