LESSON LEARNED!
A piece of wisdom was once passed on by a mentor. “You will repeat your mistake until you learn your lesson.” It was so simple to understand yet I never really applied this gem until lately.
I am thrifty! In the Encarta Thesaurus, it’s synonymous to frugal, economical, careful, cautious, prudent, sparing, and parsimonious. In Filipino, KURIPOT! I’d rather buy a P100 shirt than a P300 branded one. I like my money’s purchasing power to be stable. I love to save!When I started living in Manila, a certain place (I don’t want to mention the place) became my shopping haven! The goods were very affordable. You can buy the things that you buy in the mall half the price or even lower. I am also a fan of the discount dates at the mall.
Last year, I bought a big foam (mattress) for my metal bed for P300 from that shopping haven. It was really cheap. I was thinking, I will just be using it for six to eight hours at night so I was sure I made the right decision. After one night of usage, it flattened like paper! And two days after, I heard from the news that these foams were from Payatas (a place where they put tons of Metro Manila garbage). I didn’t have a choice but to buy another one from the mall. The cheapest Uratex foam costed P700!
But I didn’t learn anything from that experience. Just this month, I went again to my shopping haven to buy a pair of sneakers. I went for a white one with two red lines on the sides. It was raining when I went home the day I used the shoes for the first time. Guess what? When the red linings got wet, it contaminated the white part making the shoes looked like with allergies because of the red spots! Then, the other day, I went to a cheap electronics shopping area near Quiapo to buy a battery charger. And you guessed it right! The item I bought didn’t work how it was described on the label.
Now I learned my lesson: It’s better to buy more expensive quality products, especially when you plan to be using these products for a long period of time. When you go for quantity instead of quality, because you are thinking you are saving, well, you’re wrong. You may be spending more because the turn over of these products is high. The higher the turn over, the more you buy for replacements making you sacrifice your own hard earned money.