Money well spent is never wasted, not matter how much you spend.
On my 16th birthday, I was fortunate enough to be gifted a MacBook Pro. Why does a 16-year-old need such an expensive laptop? I can remember some of my friends saying that I could have got a laptop with the same specs for half the price.
However, that laptop lasted me exactly 10 years. It took me from my GCSEs, A levels, university and even for a couple of years when I was working after university. With the laptop costing £1,400, that’s £140 per year for a device that I done the majority of my work on. It was the device that I used to revise for exams back in school. Eventually, it was the device I wrote my CV on, which got me my graduate job. During this time, I never had any viruses or major issues. With this return on investment, was the money really wasted?
A few years ago, I invested in some really comfy (and expensive) Adidas Ultraboost trainers for the gym. I not only wear these to the gym, but pretty much everywhere I go when I’m doing my daily errands. For me, it’s a shoe that delivers comfort and improves my quality of life. Even after wearing them daily for almost 5 years, they are still in really good shape. Money wasted? Of course not.
The return may not always be financial, such as in the instance of purchasing an overkill laptop or shoes. However, the return on investment could be increased convenience, quality of life, health or even reliability.
Whenever spending money on something, think about the return on investment you will have, and try and optimise that.
You have to find if the return on investment is worth it for you. For example, I spend extra money on certain foods that are unprocessed as I want to optimise my health. Yes, these come at a premium and I could get them for half the price elsewhere, but for me, the return on investment I get for my health makes it worth it.
By having this mindset when it comes to spending, this has helped me become less frugal and develop a more healthy habit of spending money.
