By the way ...
Behavioral Economists have proven people want “free” much more than they want “actual value” in multiple blind tests.
An example is in Freakonomics but there’s much more academic study that’s been published since that book came out.
So “what you want” is often manipulated by changing the perceived opportunity cost lost to obtain it.
“Buy one get one free!”
Etc.
My favorite is the car dealer who always says he’s having “inventory equalization sales”. LOL. WTF does that even mean?! Sounds important though. Haha.
I got over cheap many years ago. I'm much more a buyer in value. Two things got me there.
First, we were getting a bike for our daughter for her birthday. My wife wanted to get one at Toys R Us. I wasn't wild about that, but we both work so our daughter couldn't ride around the neighborhood all summer like I did. Our neighborhood and the surrounding area is hilly, which makes riding a single geared bike tough. Plus there is a lot of traffic. So, I realized she probably wouldn't ride it much anyway and we got the cheap bike. When my daughter first rode it she noticed the brakes were rubbing the wheels. I figured I could adjust that. Nope, the wheel were well beyond my ability to true-up; I'm not great at it, but can do it a little. These wheels were not "round". Like someone heavy was on the bike and dropped it a few feet.
Back to the store, and find they don't have any more of that model. It took us 3 more bikes of different models to find one with wheels that were "mostly round".
I told my wife after that if we didn't spend at least $500 on a bike they didn't need one.
Second, one day I came home and my wife had a sad face and told me, "I broke the blender. I dropped the pitcher for it and it broke." My response surprised her, "Yes!" That damn blender couldn't make a smoothie to save it's life. The kids wanted smoothies. Occasionally we'd forget about the prior poor results and try again, only to fail again. She wanted to go get a $39 blender. I told her no way, $39 blenders don't make smoothies. I told I had a problem buying a $600 Vitamix, even though it was the best out there, but I'd look and we'd get something. I ended up getting a $200 blender, and yes, it makes smoothies. It does a darn good job of making smoothies.
Those events got me to shop far more often on value and not on price. The "$39 blenders don't make smoothies" is a line I use at work to explain to people why I hire people with more experience and higher salaries/billing rates over cheap labor.
