Shop for Quality, Not Price
I have to admit my wife taught me this one, for which I am
eternally in her debt. To me it seemed a natural thing to shop
for price. Perhaps this is what men do. I would work out what
I wanted and then go and buy the cheapest items I could and
feel really pleased with myself for saving money. And then I
was always dissatisfied with what I had. Stuff broke or didn’t
work or wore out quickly or looked shoddy after a very short
time. I was living in a mess—and a cheap one at that. What I
needed to learn was the art of quality shopping.
Basically:
- Accept only the very best—second best is not for you,
ever. - If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it or wait and save until
you can. - If you have to have it, buy the very best you can afford.
There, that’s pretty easy, isn’t it? Well, for me it wasn’t as easy
as that. It took me quite a long time to really get to grips with
this one. It isn’t that I don’t—or didn’t then—admire quality or
appreciate excellence; it was that I was impulsive. If I thought
I needed something, I wanted it right then and there. And if I
couldn’t afford the very best, I would settle for the cheapest. In
fact, in a very English sort of way, I thought that “getting a
bargain” was what it was all about. We don’t like to talk about
money, and we don’t like to brag about how much something
cost, too tacky by far—better to buy tacky in the first place. I
think not.