Please read James Surowiecki's piece in Presence (pg. 676) and write a 200-word comment on a cost-benefit trade-off you've had to make. Was it worth it in the end?
About 2 years ago when ugg boots came out, like any other girl i wanted a pair sooo bad. Back then the though stupid things were so expensive i couldnt buy them. So instead of buying the real uggs, i bought imitaion uggs. Now i thought hey these are exactly the same thing, i saved alot of money. But about a month later, they started to fall apart, and i could not wear them anymore. Because of this i had to go out and buy a new pair of imitation uggs.The same thing kept happening over and over again. After my sixth pair of boots, i relized if i would have just bought the real ones, they would have been real, and lasted forever. In the end i ended up paying the same amount for the fake ones, because they were sucky quality. Now i always buy the real thing.
actually i was going to write about the same thing but i had a different solution. i was never going to spend over $100 on a pair of boots that would get dirty with salt and mud in the winter, and i wouldn't want to wear them in the summer when the ground was dry. instead of spending $120 on a pair of Uggs, i went out and bought six pairs of boots that cost $90 total. i saved $30 and got five more pairs than just the one pair of Uggs! i figured this way i would save money and have better variety. then, they wouldn't get worn out as quickly because i could alternate between pairs. it's working for me so far : )
Over the years I have had many problems with my figure skates. Normally they cost close to five hundred dollars. My feet were getting really small so my parent bought a pair of skates for me at my rink I skated at. My parents decided to get the boot a half size above what my feet were so the blade needs to be that size. Since, my feet were growing extremely fast and my parents did not want to buy me skates every year. My feet stopped growing a month after I got my new skates. Later on, my coach at the time said that I had to get new skates. It was not good to have skates to big. Apparently, if you have to big of skates your toes move around and grip onto the insole in your skates. So my coach took me up to this special shop were this person re-measured my feet. My feet are a half a size apart and he told me that the skates should be sized to the smaller foot. My parents had to buy the same exact boots and blades. It was a waste of money. I have had those skates now for two and a half years. From those skates, I have lost my big toenail four or five times. My feet hurt so badly and the guy took out parts of the insole. It got so bad I actually gotten them punched out, but it did not work.
In my family I have had to always make tradeoffs due to limitation of money. I liked really nice clothes that were expensive and lasted a long time. I was used to buying clothes from Maurice’s and places like that, but when I moved in with my mom, we didn’t have that much money and neither did I. So I had to buy clothes from Wal-Mart that were on sale and from consignment shops. At first I was disgusted by the idea, a sad thing to admit, and I refused at first. But finally, I had to give in when they economy forced my mom into unemployment. They were cheaper clothing with not as much taste, but they still looked good and saved us lots of money each year when it came to winter and summer clothes, and school clothes as well. Now I feel so much better buying from places like Wal-Mart and consignment shops. I learned that it isn’t the worst thing ever. This trade off was pretty good in the end. I saved and money and still could get clothes I found stylish.
i love to snowboard and my gear is my baby. i normally buy new equipment every three years or so and use my gear until it breaks or falls apart. i found a nice pair of boots online, not too expensive only about 120$ and i put off ordering them until it was too late. i was spending money on items that i eiter did or didnt need. the boots now were gone and i had to buy a pair off of my buddy for 50$. i can only get 1 season out of these boots instead of the posssible three so that was a trade off.
I have always had trouble buying baseball cleats. I would always want to get the newest cleat that came out each year. My problem is that I am a catcher, and when your a catcher the toe part of the cleats seem to wear out fast. After spending $100 on one pair of cleats that were not even going to last me a full year, I decided to change things up. I started to buy last year model cleats. The benefit with buying the older model cleats, was that I could get two pair of those cleats for the price of one pair of the new models. This was a good choice on my part, became now I have two pair of cleats that will last me a whole season, instead of having to wear cleats with holes in them.
AH, like noted above, the infamous ugg trend. I was extreemly anti "fuggs" but my mom thought that it was completly impractical to spend the 200$ on the reall uggs and so i was stuck wearing these ugly "fuggs" that she had bought me in order to make her feel better, and like said about i went through those boots in such a short amount of time. Which i was excited about because i thought that this meant that she would see they were worse and get me the real deal, but sadly no. And then... the knitted uggs came out and i thought that they were the cutest things ever! and i begged her to buy me a pair. But yet again she didnt and i ended up getting knitted "fuggs", but with these boots, they somehow made it long enough for me to get through my "fugg" stage they lasted almost 2 or so years, which is the longest that i have ever seen a pair of "fuggs" last. In the end the knitted boots were a great trade off!
I bought my first car for $65 from my neighbor. He drove it everyday back and forth to work from Barre to Derby Line everyday. He didnt trust it because it had over 100,000 miles on it. I ran the car for a year, and I ran it hard. I even wrecked it once. I drove it up until this past summer when the inspection ran out. I sold it to a kid for $250. It was a great trade off, but I wish I would have been a little smarter with the car. I learned a valuable lesson from it too. Just because you payed little for it, doesnt mean you cant treat it for higher value. If I kept the car in good shape I could have sold the car for $1200 and made an even bigger profit. Nevertheless you cant change the past and you have to take the best of everything and I did.
I kind of had the situation Kyle had above, but with basketball sneakers instead of cleats. Usually me and my friends would get the newest sneakers out for basketball and what not. But my jr. year it got a little tough so we bought basketball sneakers they may have came out in the summer or the year before to save money, rather than paying 120 dollars for a new pair of sneakers. Also we could buy a second pair for cheaper also if we wanted too. It all worked out.
Similiar to Kyle every year i need to buy basketball sneakers for the season. i would always buy the top notch sneakers that were out. i would spend so much on but they will only last for that season because i would practice with them and they were my game sneakers also. i usually payed about 120$ for my basketball sneakers. so i changed up my method i would buy the cheapest ones and just get two pairs. those two pairs will cost about the same as the top notch ones i would get the previous years. i bought two pairs so that i could have a pair of practice ones and game pair so they dont get as messed up quick. this helped alot but i found out i was still paying the same amount.
I've had this cost-benefit trade-off thing with computers. My friends would ALWAYS go out and buy parts for their computers on the internet and put the whole computer together. Like lazy old me, I would just get the premade computers made by Dell and such, then think nothing of it. But then I found out that my friend's computer, which had the same exact specs as mine, cost less for him. I asked what he bought and how much it was. They said they bought all the parts for the computer and cost a lot cheaper than buying the premade computer. I now know that if I buy separate parts for my computer and fix it up myself, my computer will be a lot cheaper than the premade ones! The only reason the premade one cost just as much is because they want to get their name out. Like Alienware. I can buy all the parts that Alienware has in their computers and it would be a hell of a lot cheaper than buying the Alienware computer. Hooray for Newegg.com!
For my Senior prom I was going to have my dress made from scratch, but then the dressmaker told me it was going to cost $450!! I couldnt afford that, so I went to Needlemans and found a simple black dress on clearance for $125. At that point my cousin took the fabric, I had bought for the dressmaker, and she transformed the black dress into exactly what I wanted! In the end it only cost me about $200 to get my dream dress :)
About 2 years ago when ugg boots came out, like any other girl i wanted a pair sooo bad. Back then the though stupid things were so expensive i couldnt buy them. So instead of buying the real uggs, i bought imitaion uggs. Now i thought hey these are exactly the same thing, i saved alot of money. But about a month later, they started to fall apart, and i could not wear them anymore. Because of this i had to go out and buy a new pair of imitation uggs.The same thing kept happening over and over again. After my sixth pair of boots, i relized if i would have just bought the real ones, they would have been real, and lasted forever. In the end i ended up paying the same amount for the fake ones, because they were sucky quality. Now i always buy the real thing.
ReplyDeleteactually i was going to write about the same thing but i had a different solution. i was never going to spend over $100 on a pair of boots that would get dirty with salt and mud in the winter, and i wouldn't want to wear them in the summer when the ground was dry. instead of spending $120 on a pair of Uggs, i went out and bought six pairs of boots that cost $90 total. i saved $30 and got five more pairs than just the one pair of Uggs! i figured this way i would save money and have better variety. then, they wouldn't get worn out as quickly because i could alternate between pairs. it's working for me so far : )
ReplyDeleteOver the years I have had many problems with my figure skates. Normally they cost close to five hundred dollars. My feet were getting really small so my parent bought a pair of skates for me at my rink I skated at. My parents decided to get the boot a half size above what my feet were so the blade needs to be that size. Since, my feet were growing extremely fast and my parents did not want to buy me skates every year. My feet stopped growing a month after I got my new skates. Later on, my coach at the time said that I had to get new skates. It was not good to have skates to big. Apparently, if you have to big of skates your toes move around and grip onto the insole in your skates. So my coach took me up to this special shop were this person re-measured my feet. My feet are a half a size apart and he told me that the skates should be sized to the smaller foot. My parents had to buy the same exact boots and blades. It was a waste of money. I have had those skates now for two and a half years. From those skates, I have lost my big toenail four or five times. My feet hurt so badly and the guy took out parts of the insole. It got so bad I actually gotten them punched out, but it did not work.
ReplyDeleteIn my family I have had to always make tradeoffs due to limitation of money. I liked really nice clothes that were expensive and lasted a long time. I was used to buying clothes from Maurice’s and places like that, but when I moved in with my mom, we didn’t have that much money and neither did I. So I had to buy clothes from Wal-Mart that were on sale and from consignment shops. At first I was disgusted by the idea, a sad thing to admit, and I refused at first. But finally, I had to give in when they economy forced my mom into unemployment. They were cheaper clothing with not as much taste, but they still looked good and saved us lots of money each year when it came to winter and summer clothes, and school clothes as well. Now I feel so much better buying from places like Wal-Mart and consignment shops. I learned that it isn’t the worst thing ever. This trade off was pretty good in the end. I saved and money and still could get clothes I found stylish.
ReplyDeletei love to snowboard and my gear is my baby. i normally buy new equipment every three years or so and use my gear until it breaks or falls apart. i found a nice pair of boots online, not too expensive only about 120$ and i put off ordering them until it was too late. i was spending money on items that i eiter did or didnt need. the boots now were gone and i had to buy a pair off of my buddy for 50$. i can only get 1 season out of these boots instead of the posssible three so that was a trade off.
ReplyDeleteI have always had trouble buying baseball cleats. I would always want to get the newest cleat that came out each year. My problem is that I am a catcher, and when your a catcher the toe part of the cleats seem to wear out fast. After spending $100 on one pair of cleats that were not even going to last me a full year, I decided to change things up. I started to buy last year model cleats. The benefit with buying the older model cleats, was that I could get two pair of those cleats for the price of one pair of the new models. This was a good choice on my part, became now I have two pair of cleats that will last me a whole season, instead of having to wear cleats with holes in them.
ReplyDeleteAH, like noted above, the infamous ugg trend. I was extreemly anti "fuggs" but my mom thought that it was completly impractical to spend the 200$ on the reall uggs and so i was stuck wearing these ugly "fuggs" that she had bought me in order to make her feel better, and like said about i went through those boots in such a short amount of time. Which i was excited about because i thought that this meant that she would see they were worse and get me the real deal, but sadly no. And then... the knitted uggs came out and i thought that they were the cutest things ever! and i begged her to buy me a pair. But yet again she didnt and i ended up getting knitted "fuggs", but with these boots, they somehow made it long enough for me to get through my "fugg" stage they lasted almost 2 or so years, which is the longest that i have ever seen a pair of "fuggs" last. In the end the knitted boots were a great trade off!
ReplyDeleteI bought my first car for $65 from my neighbor. He drove it everyday back and forth to work from Barre to Derby Line everyday. He didnt trust it because it had over 100,000 miles on it. I ran the car for a year, and I ran it hard. I even wrecked it once. I drove it up until this past summer when the inspection ran out. I sold it to a kid for $250. It was a great trade off, but I wish I would have been a little smarter with the car. I learned a valuable lesson from it too. Just because you payed little for it, doesnt mean you cant treat it for higher value. If I kept the car in good shape I could have sold the car for $1200 and made an even bigger profit. Nevertheless you cant change the past and you have to take the best of everything and I did.
ReplyDeleteI kind of had the situation Kyle had above, but with basketball sneakers instead of cleats. Usually me and my friends would get the newest sneakers out for basketball and what not. But my jr. year it got a little tough so we bought basketball sneakers they may have came out in the summer or the year before to save money, rather than paying 120 dollars for a new pair of sneakers. Also we could buy a second pair for cheaper also if we wanted too. It all worked out.
ReplyDeleteSimiliar to Kyle every year i need to buy basketball sneakers for the season. i would always buy the top notch sneakers that were out. i would spend so much on but they will only last for that season because i would practice with them and they were my game sneakers also. i usually payed about 120$ for my basketball sneakers. so i changed up my method i would buy the cheapest ones and just get two pairs. those two pairs will cost about the same as the top notch ones i would get the previous years. i bought two pairs so that i could have a pair of practice ones and game pair so they dont get as messed up quick. this helped alot but i found out i was still paying the same amount.
ReplyDeleteI've had this cost-benefit trade-off thing with computers. My friends would ALWAYS go out and buy parts for their computers on the internet and put the whole computer together. Like lazy old me, I would just get the premade computers made by Dell and such, then think nothing of it. But then I found out that my friend's computer, which had the same exact specs as mine, cost less for him. I asked what he bought and how much it was. They said they bought all the parts for the computer and cost a lot cheaper than buying the premade computer. I now know that if I buy separate parts for my computer and fix it up myself, my computer will be a lot cheaper than the premade ones! The only reason the premade one cost just as much is because they want to get their name out. Like Alienware. I can buy all the parts that Alienware has in their computers and it would be a hell of a lot cheaper than buying the Alienware computer. Hooray for Newegg.com!
ReplyDeleteFor my Senior prom I was going to have my dress made from scratch, but then the dressmaker told me it was going to cost $450!! I couldnt afford that, so I went to Needlemans and found a simple black dress on clearance for $125. At that point my cousin took the fabric, I had bought for the dressmaker, and she transformed the black dress into exactly what I wanted! In the end it only cost me about $200 to get my dream dress :)
ReplyDelete