Finance Is Personal by Kim Stephenson

Author:Kim Stephenson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ABC-CLIO
Published: 2015-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

COMPARE COST AND VALUE TO YOU

You’ve probably noticed that you buy particular items from habit because it’s the brand you grew up with or because it’s the “luxury brand” or because an ad has convinced you that it will (fill in the blank—make you smarter, sexier, and so on) rather than because you actually value what the product does. So you’ll buy a new textbook because you like the smell of new books, not because there is actually any intrinsic advantage to it.

One idea for dealing with this is to experiment and trade down. If you always buy named brands, try a store brand item. If you buy the store brand, try the economy. Can you actually notice the difference; are your whites whiter, does the branded clothing look better or fit better?

You can pay for the label alone. That’s particularly common with clothes; some people can’t bear to be seen without the “right” label. If it’s really important to you, if it really has value and it’s something that for you is a necessary expense, or is something that you’re prepared to give up other things for, that’s fine. But remember the opportunity cost—if you pay extra for the label, it’s money that you’ve chosen to pay for the label—and you may come up short on the price of the concert you have waited three years to go to.

In some cases, it is worth paying for the label, so do some research. I’ve found, for example, that paying less for a cashmere sweater is always a waste of money; a higher end cashmere sweater will last for years without pilling or stretching. On the other hand, I’ve talked about clothing to tailors trained in Savile Row, the home of bespoke tailoring and “a byword for quality throughout the world.” They say that a lot of the mass-produced “label” brands of clothes are actually quite poorly made, the stitching is not done properly, linings are not correctly cut, and so on. It means that, often, you can get clothing that is of better quality, will fit better, last longer, and hence look better for less money if you buy on the basis of quality and fit rather than the name on the label. So it will be worth your time actually to compare stitching and finishing and remember that it doesn’t cost anything to try one on—and ask questions. The material label may mean something (as with cashmere); sadly, the brand label may not—so check it out and decide what matters to you and whether the label does indicate something that you will value and are prepared to pay for.

Remember, it is all a case of opportunity cost and your choices. If you really must have a different outfit for each day of the year, then for now you’re probably going to have to do things like buy secondhand, adapt clothes yourself, or buy on the basis of value, not quality. If you want the brand labels, you probably have

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