CHICAGO - It’s the common shopping dilemma: Buy what you love now versus what you think you’ll love in 10 years.
The former might be a trendier, possibly less-expensive item, while the latter might have a higher resale value, and could be a classic piece but may not be the product you lust after at first sight.
Is there a savvy way to shop?
Mark Ellwood, the New York-based author of Bargain Fever: How to Shop in a Discounted World, has a clear shopping formula for trendy items versus staples.
“Classify your purchases in three: investments, durable and trendy,” Ellwood said. “Don’t let anything you buy in the trendy category cost more than $50, ever.”
Those three categories can be carried over to every aspect of your shopping life with regard to how long they are expected to last - and they should be priced accordingly.
In the clothing category, a coat should last five seasons, shoes should last two seasons and everything else should last two months.
In the furniture category, a sofa should last 10 years, a coffee table should last two years, and a throw pillow is called a throwaway pillow for a reason.
Melissa Tosetti, author of Living the Savvy Life: The Savvy Woman’s Guide to Smart Spending and Rich Living, said you can be more flexible, depending on your financial status - but the overall message is the same.
“The biggest message that I try to propagate is to be very purposeful. If you’ve fallen in love with a trendy item, then get it, even if you’re only going to love it for a year or so,” Tosetti said. “But if it’s something that two weeks later, you’re not going to think about again, you shouldn’t buy it.”
The key is figuring out which are the items that you’re only going to love for two weeks and which are the keepers.
Look around your house at the clutter, and see if any of the items were bought just a few weeks ago and were products that you felt like you had to have.
“Unless you really think about it, you’re just going to keep doing what you’re doing,” Tosetti said.
You should invest well in items that you plan to use on a regular basis, such as kitchen knives, pots and pans and wardrobe classics. But unless you’re a professional cook, there’s no reason to buy the very best knives on the market, Tosetti said.
“You want the best of what you’re going to use them for,” she said. “Make individual decisions instead of blanket decisions.”
An individual decision that Kelly Hancock, author of Saving Savvy, always makes is spending more on appliances that may need maintenance.
“If I purchase a better product with a good warranty, that usually saves me tons in the long run,” she said. “But items like furniture, I don’t like to spend more on. I find that if it looks good to me, that is usually good enough to last me five to 10 years, even if it isn’t the best quality.”
And while many people try to buy an expensive, classic item in the hopes that they could resell it later, Hancock warned that this doesn’t always work.
“I find resale value plummets very quickly and much lower than you would imagine,” she said, offering exceptions only for items that you plan to resell shortly after buying - or a home purchase.
If you do plan to buy and resell, however, there are a few things to keep in mind.
“Classic items will hold their value over time, and on trend, more premium items generally retain strong resale value within a few-year period,” said James Reinhart, chief executive officer and co-founder of thredUP.com, an online clothing consignment store.
“The time to really think about resale value and contemplate whether you’re buying a classic item that you’ll keep forever … is when the price tag is higher than what you would normally spend,” he added.
High Profile, Pages 43 on 04/06/2014