When you buy something new like clothes or a laptop, how long does it take for you to use it to feel like you’ve gotten your moneys worth from it?
I’m not sure I understand the question. If I didn’t feel like I was getting my money’s worth, why would I buy it?
It would depend on what it is and what my intentions were for it at purchase.
I spent a few hundred dollars for a dress to wear to my sister’s wedding - I got my money’s worth out of it the day I wore it. I’ve worn it since. So that is one day and a few hundred dollars. But I have a pair of pants that I bought, I’ve worn a few times, and they didn’t hold up through the wash - I still have them and wear them from time to time, but I’ll never feel like I got my money’s worth out of them, because they should have held up a lot better and I bought them intending them to last years - and after a wash they were good for hanging around the house. A laptop - it would take years, if it broke before two years, I’d say it was a piece of crap and not worth the money I spent on it.
When I buy a new car, I’ve bought four new cars in my lifetime, I’ve had them for about ten years each. At that age they start to nickel and dime me to death. At that age I can GIVE them away and I feel I got my investment out of them.
My last car lasted a full ten years and my mechanic bought if for $500 for his daughter. He knew what was wrong with it and felt it was a good deal for him. I’d rather sell them for that much or give them away then waste my time advertising trying to make a few more bucks out of them.
When you buy something like a laptop, how many years of using it would you consider to be appropriate for the amount you bought it for? That’s the gist of what I was asking.
If I buy a laptop it’s because I need a laptop. I get my money’s worth the moment I start using it, because if I hadn’t bought it, I wouldn’t be able to do that. It’s an expense, not an investment.
If you’re asking how long do I think a laptop should last, then that’s two or three years.
**Stihl Chainsaw. That’s it. Nothing more to say. **
For me it is really dependent on the item and cost. I would expect a car to last many years, I would expect a laptop to last a few years, whereas I would if a shirt I bought for $30 fell apart on the first washing I would feel I didn’t get my moneys worth.
So, it depends.
As of those saying, “If I didn’t feel like I was getting my money’s worth, why would I buy it?” - Don’t you have some time horizon utilization expectations?
I took the OP to mean “How long does it take for you to feel satisfied with a purchase.” with emphasis on the word feel. My response to this is that I *feel *satisfied immediately; if the product fails sooner than I expected, then I *feel *disappointed. It’s not as if I’m sitting around waiting to be happy.
Depends. How much did it cost? How incredibly awesome/useful is it? The more awesome/useful it is, the less time it takes to get my money’s worth, even if it was a lot of money. I spent $20 on a cherry pitter once, and I’ll never get my money’s worth out of that thing. I spent $500 on a spinning wheel this summer and got my money’s worth out of it inside the first month.
To me, that’s in line with what is being asked.
I THINK I threw away a pair of Bass pennyloafers I’ve had since college this fall - I’m 47 years old so 25 year old shoes. Granted, they’d been the “garden, mail” shoes for several years when they hit the trash, I might have gotten every penny out of the $60 I paid for those shoes in 1986 (which was a LOT of money for a poor college student to pay for shoes - which is probably why I hung onto them so long).
I bought a Dyson vaccuum that was the worst purchase ever. I never worked properly, finally had it replaced, and THAT one didn’t work properly. No amount of time would have made me feel that was a good purchase - although I owned it for over a year (during which time it spent three months in the shop).
It depends on the purchase. I once bought a VW Jetta and the thing was a piece of shit. By the time I unloaded it a couple of years after purchasing it new, I had probably spent about half the resale value fixing the thing. My Toyota Corolla, though, I’ve had for almost 10 years and 160,000 miles and if it crapped out tomorrow, the inconvenience would piss me off, but I wouldn’t feel like I’d wasted money.
I’m also more than willing to spend a lot on food that I can only buy in smaller portions (sometimes specifically because the portions are smaller) if I’m really going to enjoy it. The taste more than outweighs the expense. If it’s so-so, then it’s a waste of money.
All in all, it depends on my expectations. If they’re met or exceeded, the money was well spent. If they’re not met, depending upon the extent to which they weren’t met, the expense may have been questionable or a colossal waste of money.