How Much Does Cheap Cost?

You already know; the answer is in the name... or is it? You might be confused because of course cheap is cheap, hence the name. But if you really sit and think, how much money could you save if you just bought the more expensive leading item? If you can afford it, please put the cheaper toilet paper down and just buy the paper with more ply. Know why? Well, it's simply because they [the money-hungry people that run our lives] want you to think you are saving money by purchasing the extra-large roll of one-ply tissue when in reality, you are flushing more money down the drain (pun wasn't intended until I realized what I did there, heh heh). This is how it works: imagine you walk into Kroger and you notice your favorite cheap tissue is out of stock because you know, Coronavirus, so you have to decide between the three-pack of extra-large one-ply rolls for $2.99 or the two-pack of regular-sized four-ply rolls for $5.99. Now, if you are cheap or if you really just don't got it right now ($5.99 for good tissue), then your brain automatically cancels out the larger price. Here is where the scam comes in. You buy the tissue for $2.99 thinking you are about to have toilet paper to last the family for a month...WRONG. You find yourself back in Kroger next week looking for the next tp steal. Where did you go wrong? Well, I am here to inform you that cheaper prices only mean larger dollar signs in the future, as these cheap decisions will cost you over time. For this toilet paper example, let me break it down for you. Number one, the thinner paper will most likely result in having to use more paper from a roll during one use than a certain tissue brand with a promising four-ply construction. Therefore, it is safe to assume that one regular-sized roll of the thicker-papered brands is equal to roughly a half, or even 75%, of the one-ply roll just because of how many times you have to unroll and fold the thin paper. While we are still wiping, the competitor brand has already done its duty and moved on. As the contents of the tissue rolls begin to dwindle, we begin to wish that we just invested in the more expensive brand in the first place because this tissue can barely absorb a small tear without disintegrating. How is it supposed to clean all this mess your body has made? Just trying to stay clean, you need to purchase several more cheap bags of toilet tissue. Will it be worth it? Or will you realize what you've done and save three dollars for a good cost? You go back to Kroger one more time after you scraped up those few dollars to purchase the four-ply brand for $5.99. You feel a little stiff when you see that price in the cash register, but on the inside, you hope that this small amount will indeed pay off. You arrive home, get to the restroom and immediately realize what you have done. Not only is your bum cleaner due to the lack of residual tissue and bodily waste, but you did not have to roll off so much tissue, to begin with. You notice that you still have more of the total regular-sized roll than you had of the cheaper extra-large roll after one wipe. Why is that? Well, I believe it is just another scam, another way the rich rob the poor. Come on let's think for a second here... think about any brand. Now think about its competitors. Think of the ways the original brand may or may not be getting ripped off by cheaper companies promising the same quality. While the quality may be the same or similar for the most part, the reality is, over time, cheaper products are getting you to spend more money than what you would have paid total in the first place. Think back to the tissue or your favorite perfume/cologne. If you have never experienced the following personally, perhaps you know of someone who can attest or even let you see for yourself. When you purchase a small bottle (which looks like it shouldn't last but for a week, tops) for $400, it will practically last your whole life because firstly, each spritz itself lasts three to five business days so you do not need to spray yourself that much in the first place. Secondly, by the time you reach half of the bottle, you are ready to try your next scent so now you have that one for 30 more years of your life. It is truly amazing because, on the other hand, we have people like me who want to smell good on a budget, or people who want to smell good and have to do so on a budget... however, the cookie crumbles, we don't care as long as you smell good. Back to the point, people who do not casually have $400 laying around for a bottle of scented alcohol have to resort to cheaper alternatives such as a large bottle the size of a lava lamp, one that you might expect to last you way longer than the $400 bottle. This particular bottle costs waayyy less, let's say $25, and it smells exactly the same. Now for this smell to stick to you, you have to spray it at least 10 times but those 10 spritzes will only last for four hours max. That right there has already decreased the life span from 40 years to three weeks, by the looks of it. Now is it clear how they rip you off? If you don't see it yet, oh read on darlin', you will. Imagine for the next 30 days you use both perfumes (one for you and one for a friend) to the best of their ability, meaning each day, you and a friend spray the amount that will leave you smelling sweet all day. You spray one spritz of the small bottle per day, if that, and 10 spritzes of the larger, cheaper bottle, every four hours. By the end of the 10 days, you can see that the large bottle is almost depleted whereas the smaller, more expensive bottle, has literally only been used nine times total. You will not have to replace this bottle for God knows how long... they might even discontinue the product before you get to refill. On the other hand, you will have to replace the larger bottle three times before you are halfway done with the expensive bottle. You wonder how you could fall for such a scam and try to find a happy medium between the two products. You can't. There isn't one. Either you spend a lot of money on a higher quality product or you spend less on a cheaper quality product and regret it when it is time to file your taxes. I would say the choice is yours but is it really? It is almost like we can never quite make enough to supply the better, yet more expensive product, and still live a comfortable life. It is either we spend a lump sum on this better product upfront, thereby "wasting money" on something that could have been spent more wisely for more necessary items than the designer perfume or toilet tissue of decent quality, or we pay a small price for a cheaper product multiple times in order to allocate funds for our daily, weekly, monthly, yearly necessities and actually waste money years down the line, seemingly furthering us into the financial shackles... it seems to me that the people who do not have the luxury of calling themselves "rich" can not exit this weird and interesting cycle of classic "scammertry" because both ways, we stay under the belt of poverty. And next, imagine having to deal with this scam in your everyday life with every single product you use... imagine how much money we are really wasting just by not having enough money to purchase the better, longer-lasting product. I'm just saying, you get exactly what you pay for so take heed to that... or not, I am not your parent. I know if you don't have much money, you can't necessarily take heed to that advice all willy nilly but I know there are at least a few items that can make you stop, think, and pose the following questions: will I be able to sacrifice this load now and reap the rewards in the future? Or will I have to suffer now and pay later? Have fun deciding whether or not you're content being broke and as always, thanks for reading!