If you are like me, I can sometimes become an absent minded professor. My businesses are kept in perfect shape and form, my workouts are always on schedule, and I never forget what I need to pack when I take a trip. However, when it comes to every day household items, I just plain stopped spending money on certain purchases because overspending on the fancy brands of these items assured me that I would inevitably lose them down the road. So I finally succumbed to my own absent mindedness and stop buying nice items in five categories that I always seemed to lose. I thought it was just me, but it probably is a struggle you go through as well.
- Sunglasses – Ray-Ban’s….cool. Oakley’s…..so great when you are out on a boat. Gucci….ever so stylish. While these all look so great when you are out on the beach, at the pool, or an afternoon party, the reality is that people just flat out lose their sunglasses. I almost did again the other night when I left the glasses on the booth seat where we were eating dinner and fortunately some more than truthful server said they found them. Hah! I’ll bet if I came back the next day they would have gone into the sunglasses black hole. Just don’t do it—get a pair for $10 from the local drugstore and nobody will know the difference.
- Pens – This one started with the beautiful gold cross pen set when I graduated college only to have them slip through my fingers not more than a month after I starting using them. I bought both a Watermark pen and a Mont Blanc because in my younger days I thought it meant something when I was signing a deal. Now I have one word for you. BIC! Pens seem to be the one consistency that all of us deal with losing in life. Doesn’t it hurt worse when you see a co-worker who ‘magically’ seems to have the pen that you lost in their hands? Call them out. I dare you.
- Socks – Now that there is a huge trend of socks replacing ties as we move to business casual in the workplace, I have to give you the buyer beware for spending a lot of money on one pair of socks. I don’t really care what kind of Andy Warhol picture is on the color coded socks, the fact of the matter is that one day very soon it will move on to the wounded warrior of one sock land. That’s the place that all pairs of socks go to die. You can’t figure out if the sock embedded itself in a pair of your shorts or got attached to the fabric softener sheet, but you’ll still remain befuddled on how you lost another sock in the laundry.
- Headphones —Yeah, I know that Beats and cool persona identifying headphones are all the rage. However, headphones and wall chargers are two technology gadgets that we constantly need to buy more of because we either left them plugged in somewhere or we can’t decipher where was the last place we had them. That is why Walgreens and CVS now sell dirt cheap wall chargers and headphones right when you check out. They know you need them and they know you will lose them.
- Umbrellas —I’ll spare you the keys, wallet, and credit card spiel and just tell you spending expensively on an umbrella is just plain lack of common sense spending. If an umbrella actually makes it with me more than six months (or one rainstorm) I’d be amazed. You either leave them at the doctor’s office, your friend’s house, or at the sporting event, and only end up having to look for another.
I’m wondering if you have spent money on expensive purchases that you keep buying, but always seem to lose. These five are great for advice on what NOT to spend money on knowing that they will slip through your fingers.
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Ted Jenkin is a frequent guest columnist for the Wall Street Journal and Headline News Weekend Express. He is the co-CEO ofoXYGen Financial. You can follow him on LinkedIn @ www.linkedin.com/in/theceoadvisor or on Twitter @tedjenkin.
Securities offered through Kestra Investment Services, LLC (Kestra IS), member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through Kestra Advisory Services, LLC (Kestra AS), an affiliate of Kestra IS. oXYGen Financial is not affiliated with Kestra IS or Kestra AS. Kestra IS and Kestra AS do not provide tax or legal advice.
