How We Prepared for a Lay-off Part 4: I is for Investing (Alternate Title: The Demise of the Ugly Green Toilet Seat)

You can read parts 1, 2, and 3 of this series here.

It’s time to share the next letter in our BASIC lay-off survival prep: I is for Investing

B-Budget
A-Apartment
S-Saving
I-Investing
C-

While there are benefits to investing in in the stock market, I’m referring to a different kind of investing.

It’s a kind of investing that frankly, I’m not very good at.  You see, I’m the kind of girl that loves The Dollar Store.  I get a little giddy knowing that every. single. thing. in the store is only a DOLLAR.   I love that you can just grab something from the shelf without the need to compare the unit price with the other rows upon rows of similar products.  Aw shucks, I’d probably buy my wardrobe there if I could.

My husband sees things a little differently. While he can appreciate the Dollar Store, he’s more of a “You-Get-What-You-Pay-For” kind of guy.  He will spend hours of research before making big purchases to be sure that we are making the best decision.  He also is willing to pay a little more upfront for certain products if he thinks they will give us a good return.

Neither one of us tends to be fighters, but it was this difference in views that led to our first fight.   It all came to a head when we went to the mall to create our Wedding Registry.  I wanted to just take the magic little scanner and swipe it across the UPC codes of every set of silverware, bed sheets, and steak knives that was the cheapest deal.  Wes wanted to discuss each and every item in depth before adding it to the list.

It was the toilet seat that did me in. Seriously?   Did we really have to consider and discuss the pros and cons and long term benefits of the toilet seat?!

That night was an eye-opener for us.  We discovered that we shop a whole lot differently.  And thus, we began to shop together a whole lot less often.

It wasn’t long before I began to see the benefits of Wes’s way of thinking, however.   His willingness to take the time to plan out our purchases wisely has been a life saver for us on more than one occasion.

There are two areas of investing that have benefited us greatly:

An Investment of Time:

While it took unemployment for us to learn the value of investing time in couponing, Wes has been investing time in making purchases for as long as we’ve been married.   This comes in many forms.  It might look like searching Craigslist or Freecycle to find items much cheaper than buying them new.  It also means actually reading reviews on products before purchasing them to be sure we are making a wise purchase.

Wes also introduced me to yard saling.   Getting up early on a Saturday morning was not my idea of a fun way to use my time. Once we were expecting our first son, I realized just how much money a few hours on a Saturday morning was actually saving us.  A little less sleep = getting just about everything we needed for the baby at a fraction of the cost!

When I totaled our Jeep a few years into our marriage, it would have been easy to run right out and buy a car since we obviously needed one.  But we waited and took our time researching and found an incredible deal on a Toyota Camry.  That car is now 15 years old and still going strong.  I’m thankful we invested a few hours of our time before making that purchase.  I’m sure it has saved us thousands of dollars.

An Investment of Money:

It might seem backwards to think that paying more money upfront=saving money.  The Dollar Store Girl in me has slowly come to accept the fact that it’s a good idea to spend more money on certain purchases.  This means that I have learned that sometimes it’s okay to pay full price for something {gasp!}.

We’ve also forked some extra money over for items that will help us save money in the long run.  The perfect example of this is our chest freezer.   A few years ago, I cringed at the thought of paying hundreds of dollars for an appliance that seemed non-essential to me.  Little did I know how soon it would come in handy to support my newfound stockpiling ways.

How about you?  Have you discovered a way to invest your time or money that has saved you money in the long run?

p.s.  What ever happened with the toilet seat you ask?  I’m a little embarrassed to admit that we kept the same ugly green seat for about 6 years.  {Yes…I said green.}  Moral of the story:  It’s okay to just pull the trigger sometimes with that magic little scanner.

Coming up next in the series: C is for Creativity