I can be quite cheap with certain things. The main example would be with regard to entertainment. If you wait a few years to see a movie, buy a game or read a book, the quality isn’t going to diminish in the same way that mayonnaise will. So I have no problem looking for the best deal I can on entertainment (short of piracy or bootlegs), because I know I will be getting the same thing and for a lot cheaper. The price is more a matter of recovering development/production costs and the novelty of being new.
I am quite the opposite when it comes to other things. If my car needs new brakes or tyres for example, I am not going to go for the cheap option. Equally so with regards to buying footwear, dental treatment and most types of electrical appliances. The cost of being cheap with many of these products or services can indeed be very expensive. What inspired this post has to do with an important household item that caused a lot more trouble in breaking than it would have if it had been changed when the signs were visible but less destructive. I warned the relevant authorities of the risk of what would and subsequently did happen.
My role as a suburban Cassandra is really only relevant to the wider implications of this which I will delve into briefly below.
Being cheap is not necessarily related to money alone. There are many types of currency where one can be short-sighted and I imagine we are all guilty of being cheap in one way or another from time to time. One way people can be cheap is through time. Impatience or short-sightedness can be very costly. It could be the person who doesn’t want to wait two minutes in front of red lights at an intersection and ends up dying there after being collected by a bus or a truck. One doesn’t have to go to this extreme though, as the child who can’t wait to eat a hot meal learns from having a burnt tongue — though not a permanent lesson.
Another important but underappreciated form of currency is trust. Many people forget how quickly such currency is devalued by one’s actions. Whether it be serial failures to pay a friend back after repeatedly borrowing small amounts. The few hundred dollars gained is found all too late to be worth much less than the friendship was. Although one might manage to get a larger amount from family, the end result remains the same though it may go on for longer. Honesty is a currency related closely to trust and lying quickly runs up bad debt.
The examples above could easily be multiplied but I think there is plenty enough on the table to pay for my point. I was fortunate early in life to learn the value of honesty and though my personal finances are nothing to envy, I think I have a quite a nest egg built from my deposits into truth. And such a nest egg does have its value too. As a quick personal example, I received a dollar today from a café near where I work because the employee realised they had given me incorrect change almost a week earlier. I will not soon forget such honesty and so this dollar will multiply for them with further sales from me. In contrast, if they had deliberately ripped me off and I had known about it, they would have lost all further business from me. Mine may not be worth much but it certainly adds up.
Given how obvious and easy to understand this all is, it should make one wonder why even the generally good and trustworthy can still fall short from time to time? I have no original thoughts to offer here because the doctrine of Original Sin cuts closest to the truth.