Do you know you can save money by being a smart buyer & owner of things you buy? In this guide, I will lay down to you five money saving tips to become a smart buyer and user, so that you save every time.
Saving money doesn't only require frugality in the sense that you avoid spending. We need to buy as we live. But the question is — are we a smart buyer?
If we maximize our quality of being a smart buyer and a smart owner of things we buy, we expand our clout to save. And we gain traction on financial management.
Worst, we end up buying more to cover for the bothers of our initial decision not to buy a particular essential.
Below are different situations.
In each situation, buyers face the conditions brought by various ways they buy and use stuff.
Even though I presented each situation with a specific product, you can apply the principle behind it for any buying situation and any usage you do on whatever you buy.
And these situations constitute the 5-ways to be a smart buyer and user of the things we buy. So without further ado, here they are.
5 money saving tips by being smart buyer & user of things we buy
1. Adhere to the proverb “use it or lose it”
When you have two units of an appliance, make sure to use both of them regularly.
Contrary to popular belief that keeping a home appliance unused will extend its life, it is actually the shortcut to a throwaway appliance.
When we don't use an appliance, rusts tend to develop, and the machine itself would have difficulty in jump-start that might result in malfunction.
An idle gas stove, for example, will have an outburst of fire as gas forces itself to come out in the burner when ignited.
On the safety side, that's a very dangerous situation for you and your family.
Meanwhile, a gas cooktop left with its cover closed for a long while will develop rusty surface, grill, and burner. Now that a sure way of breaking a gas stove.
2. Return the item when misrepresented
A salesman in an appliance center conducts a demo of a 55-inch TV to a customer.
One of the concerns and features that the 56-year old man gets to like is the multi-viewing feature which allows you to watch on a small box in the screen another channel while watching the other on the main screen.
He, the customer, wants to shift channels between TV commercials.
The salesman focuses on that feature and delivers his pitch without actually demonstrating it.
He just assures the buyer that he could do that. The TV unit is now delivered.
The next day, crew-technicians arrives to install the smart TV and help the customer to operate it.
And when the new owner of the smart TV asks how to set the multi-screen, the 2-men crew said — that feature is no longer available on the model he bought.
The old man gets disappointed but eventually shrugs it off and decides that he could still enjoy the smart TV. After all, the unit was on-sale when he bought it, and he's got a big discount.
In this situation, if I were the buyer, I could have gotten a case of misrepresentation, and I would have returned it.
But the best ways of buying that TV appliance, intelligently are —
- one, ultimately, have all the features of that smart TV demonstrated to you
- and two, test all the features yourself
The smart TV is costly, and that's for a good reason.
In product demos, don't hesitate and don't be bashful in throwing questions. Remember you've got the money and you need the right product. So, make sure that all valuable pieces of information are brought up crystal clear.
3. Believe that bare is better
In buying a condo, sales agents entice us to buy ready for occupancy unit.
That means we don't need to install cabinets, toilet tiles & fittings, kitchen-tops, lavatory, etc., as the condo developer already fitted them.
In short, the unit is unfurnished which, in the Philippines' real estate means the unit is complete with the home furnishings, fixtures, flooring, painted walls, etc.
All you need to do is to install all the necessary furnishings.
As much as we wanted to save while getting the home we've dreamed of, getting an unfurnished condo is more expensive in the long run. You don't see it as you move in because the entire unit is brand new.
Every single part and area is perfect.
As early as the third month of living in your new condo, one by one, the drawback of an unfurnished condo unit begins to show themselves.
The initial sign of problematic side of unfurnished condos lies in cabinet hinges.
As you use your cabinets, some if not all give way rendering the door panel to lose its alignment.
Whether you fix it DIY style or hire a carpenter, still they are unwanted expenses on your part.
There's also a case of shower glass door that doesn't fit tight after a year.
The result is — water leaks outside and you, mopping your toilet floor every time you finish your shower or bath.
Until such time that you have it fixed. That's only a couple of issues you will encounter.
Sooner you'll realize you lack flexibility in terms of location of air-con, lighting, electrical outlets, hot shower control, etc.
What makes it worse is how cheap and knockdown the materials used.
Believe me bare is much better, money wise. Especially when home living involves very personal preferences and taste.
4. Maximize the usages of items you bought
Maximizing the usages of every single stuff that we own and — even the small devices that we have is a sure way to save money.
For example, you want to show to your family and friends the captured moments of the entire family in a grand vacation.
You can easily sync your phone to view all your pictures on your television.
With a TV-stick, your ordinary television will display all the photos in the phone on the TV screen in a flash.
Yes, getting your family a TV-stick is an excellent way of maximizing the number of usages of your ordinary TV, provided it has an HDMI capability.
Another great way of maximizing your TV usages is to cancel your cable TV subscription and still enjoy watching your favorite cable TV shows through the use of TV-sticks.
Plastic bottles of alcohol, shampoos, sodas can stand-in as spoon holder, pot for diminutive decorative flowers, etc.
You just cut the bottle depending on the height that will hold the content, smoothen the cut-area and you're ready to go.
Don't throw old newspapers and paper bags. You can clean your foggy and dingy glass tops and turned them to look like brand-new again through these papers.
Wet a crumpled torn part of used newspaper, and scrub it to any glass top. Crumple another dry torn-part, and wipe the glass until it becomes clear and clean.
Today's smartphones are packed with amazing capabilities.
If you utilize all of these capabilities, you get to feel that that small ubiquitous device is helping you daily in terms of saving money.
From learning English faster and effectively for free, to be knowledgeable in cooking like a chef, can you imagine how much money you would have spent to master them?
But that's only icing on the cake. Read my post entitled — When Item bought outweighs the cost of purchase — and you would surely realize that there are expensive things that you need which are only dangled by our phones for the taking.
Tip: Before you buy an item or a tool for a particular task, check your phone if it can perform or do the task, for free — through the apps.
5. Visualize you with what you're buying
Let's go back to buying a condo.
You can't say that you really love your condo unit until you actually live in it.
Model units are great ways to be blinded by the aesthetically decorated interior.
What's beauty in having a terrace facing the terraces of all units in the opposite tower?
Do you really want to live 29th floors up and have to put up with other owners looking at you from their own terraces in the opposite tower?
— Or do you want to have a view of an unobstructed sky giving you a more private relaxation in your terrace?
Visualize yourself with the product you want to buy — see the main features and added come-ons of the product at work with you and the entire environment.
In buying a condo, a terraced unit is the best way to appreciate your investment.
You don't want to have a jailed atmosphere inside your condo, right?
Now, before you buy, make sure that you have imagined yourself standing in your terrace and what you see in front of you.
And make a decision — buy or not. Of course, all other factors considered.
Conclusion
Being a smart buyer means you always look beyond the immediate purpose and use of an item you buy.
Because every stuff we buy must first compliment what we have and second must give added-value, which constitutes the avoidance of expenses to other things.
You need that in your financial management. Managing your expenses and inventories occupies a large segment in the pie chart of financial management.
What are the things you do to some of your stuff at home to save money? Do you have some rules in buying? - which also helps you save while buying stuff. Let's hear it in the comments' section below.
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