I often hear, “You should never cheap out on a good office chair, shoes, underpants, backpack etc…” but what are some items that you would feel OK to cheap out on?
This can by anything from items such as: expensive clothing brands to general groceries.
This is the big one. If you’re starting a new hobby, it’s easy to fall into the trap of buying loads of expensive kit because it’s shiny and new. Buy the cheaper versions first and learn what you actually need. If you need to upgrade then, at least you know what to buy.
Obviously this doesn’t apply to safety kit 👍
I find the opposite with some hobbies. If you buy a cheap acoustic guitar it’s going to be horrible to play and will probably sound crap. That might discourage you from continuing. More expensive guitars have a much better resale value too, so you’d probably be out of pocket for less if you buy a nice one and sell it again than if you bought a crap one and no one else wanted to buy it.
I began learning on a cheap acoustic that made it incredibly hard to play, but I never knew any better.
Many years later, I was given a nicer acoustic and I realized how much easier it was to play. Suddenly the F chord wasn’t such a monster to hold down.
I feel like the cheap acoustic absolutely stunted my learning, and possibly caused me to pick up bad habits. But I still have it cause it was my first guitar and kinda like the sound of it. But holy shit, it’s still hard for me to play it
Nah, buy a used guitar for $50 and try it out. Most people trying out new hobbies give up after a short time.
I kinda agree. Knitting is the go-to for this advice, which makes sense. It gets crazy expensive crazy fast. But starting out with shitty yarn and needles makes the whole thing miserable. Same with a lot of other crafting and baking. Using low quality materials results in an unsatisfying product, and low quality tools make for an unsatisfying learning process.
I generally recommend letting yourself buy something nice-but-not-luxury that you’re excited about, but keeping those initial investments really limited in scope. Buy one nice(ish) pair of needles and just enough nice(ish) yarn to make a specific project. You don’t want to go broke for something you end up hating, but you do want to be able to know whether you hate the actual hobby or you just hate doing that hobby badly.
Absolutely, and you’ll know what you like. I started walking a few years back and bought expensive shoes for my first walk but realised I like ankle support so only 6 months later I had to buy expensive boots.