The High Cost of Being Frugal

You all know I love frugality. I love cheap. I love second hand. I LOVE IT! But every now and again, I find something really expensive (at least, in my opinion) that is actually a frugal purchase. Wha!? I know... but hear me out. Sometimes you may find an item on sale that is something you were already planning to buy, at least in some form (that is key!), that is on sale, and that is high quality and therefore worth the price. Let's just cut to the chase with my particular example.

Last Wednesday, I went into Target for some coffee creamer and salsa. And I came out with a Dyson vacuum. Anyone who knows anything about Dyson knows that they are super pricey. But let me tell you my experience with Dyson and why I feel it is a brilliant purchase. Oh, and I should add that this is NOT a sponsored post, though if some Dyson employee comes across this, I'll take one of those fans that blows heat as compensation, mmmkay?

So I was walking into Target, checking the Cartwheel app for salsa sales, when I see 40% off of a Dyson Digital Slim, expiring today, pop up on the screen. My first thought was "well, that'd be nice to have!". See, I'd already been thinking a lot about how our once a week vacuuming won't cut it once baby is here and mobile. It doesn't even cut it now really, but the vacuum is a bit heavy and hurts my pregnant back so I just make it last a week! And I've been thinking about how nice it would be to have a smaller, lighter vacuum to use for every day use in between the weekly vacuuming. So I walked down the vacuum aisle, casually perusing the Dyson section and saw that the Dyson Digital Slim is regularly priced $330. And I thought about how I would probably never see it for 40% off AND the red card (debit! not credit!) savings of 5% off ever again. And even if I did, there's no way we'd have the extra money sitting around after I'm not working. So it was kind of a now or never.

*drool* 

You can even take out the long middle piece and use various attachments on the top part to make it handheld. 

But because I don't like to make decisions on the spot, especially big money ones, I called in reinforcement. First, I negotiated in my own head. My mom gave me her Dyson vacuum when she got a new one. Between the 2 of us, it has vacuumed a minimum of weekly for about a decade now. And since I didn't know until recently that I should be cleaning a filter, 6 (I know, vomit) of those years have been without a clean filter, and that thing STILL picks up better than any other vacuum I've ever used. It attacks cat hair like nobody's business, and my cat has that fur that sticks to EVERYTHING. Reinforcement #1- check. Then I text Steven and told him to call me ASAP, which wasn't the best plan since it was the day before Thanksgiving and he works at a grocery store. Reinforcement #2- fail. Then I called my mom, who is a bit partial since she is diehard Dyson, but who has both an upright and stick version. She said I had to get it. Reinforcement #3- check. 

Then I walked around the store with it in my cart for an hour, hoping Steven would call or text, before deciding that I could always bring it back if I got it home and realized I shouldn't have bought it. So I did it, we crunched numbers the next day, and we're keeping it. And I've already vacuumed twice in between my normal weekly vacuum since getting it. And you know what? This might become my pregnancy vacuum because it is SO much easier on my back than the upright! It picks up well, is light, and it's so nice that there's no cord to drag around. Even better for baby and kitty is that it's a lot quieter than the upright vacuum.

So was spending $188 on a vacuum the best decision ever? I maintain that it was definitely one of them. If I get 10 years out of this thing, we're looking at about $19 a year. I could have bought one of those $40 stick vacuums but a) nothing picks up like a Dyson and I find it maddening to vacuum over the same piece of whatever 17 times hoping the vacuum will pick it up THIS time and b) in my experience, cheaper vacuums die way more often, so I'd probably be replacing it every 2 years or so which automatically puts this as a better price.

So there's a long winded lesson and explanation in why sometimes being frugal means you spend a lot of money. Rarely, but sometimes! 

What's something you spent a lot on but still felt that, in the big picture, it was a frugal purchase? (Although I'm sure my husband is saying, "Don't give her ideas!!!")   :)