I freaked out the other day when I got home and to my dismay, pushing the power button on my computer elicited…well, nothing. It would start up for about two seconds and then just turn off. Turns out we had a power outage earlier in the day and something got fried. Fearing that I had to buy a new computer, or that I potentially lost ALL of my files, I spent the next five hours troubleshooting, Googling, and calling friends that might have an idea what was wrong. In the end, it was only a bad power supply. In non-techie language, that means I didn’t lose any files and didn’t have to buy a new computer; I just needed to replace one part.
The whole fun-filled ordeal was actually my fault in part because when I bought the parts for my computer, I bought a low-quality cheapo power supply. Rather than spending an extra $20 bucks initially on a good power supply, I now had to spend an extra $80 to replace the dead one.
Sometimes the best way to save money is to spend money. Over and over lately I have been learning the age old lesson, “buy it right or buy it twice”. It can be so tempting to buy cheap when it comes to water heaters, mattresses, running shoes, appliances, cars, computers, etc, but in the end it almost always pays off to buy quality goods over the cheaper models. They are cheap for a reason…