Quality vs Quantity

This is the very first rule of being a woman: Don't buy anything cheap that will need to be quickly replaced, when you have the option of buying something of higher quality that will last longer if you take care of it.


This applies to everything you use to make yourself iconic: Your clothes, your handbags, your shoes, your accessories, your hairstyle, your makeup, everything.

Let us suppose, for example, you buy a sweater from WalMart for fifteen dollars. This seems like a good price, so you buy two: One in each of two colors you like. You wear them a few times, you wash them a few times, and the knit starts to stretch and pill. You have a couple of options: Spend the rest of the winter wearing a stretched-out, pilling sweater, or buy a new one. Another $15 for a new sweater from a discoutn store doesn't seem bad, but the next winter, you will most certainly need to buy another. And the next winter, another. In twenty years, you will have spent $600 on sweaters.

Now, say you buy two nice sweaters from a department store or cataolgue. But be aware: Not every sweater with a hefty price tag in a department store or catalogue will be of higher quality than those found at discount stores. You ask a salesman or fitter to help you find one of superior quality that will last a long time. You spend between $50 and $150 on a sweater; let's say you spend $200 on the pair of them. You buy two bottles of Woolite each year, and the two sweaters are still in excellent condition after ten years. You decide you want a new pair of sweaters anyway, just to freshen up your wardrobe, so you buy another two sweaters. In twenty years, you spend $400 on sweaters and $100 on Woolite.

After twenty years, you have saved $100, and you have four nice sweaters, two of which will last you at least another ten years.

If you went with the discount sweaters, you have spent an extra $100 replacing them, you are contsantly wearing clothes that are pilly and stretched-out, your closet is full of garbage that you are constantly sifting through or trying to get rid of, and you will have to buy two new sweaters again the next year.

Of course, you have a third option: You buy the two nice department-store sweaters. You wear them and wash them, but you do not buy Woolite. You use regular detargent, warm water, and sometimes you even throw them into the dryer. After 2 or 3 years, your sweaters are showing significant signs of wear, as much wear as the cheap sweaters. So you buy two new sweaters. In twenty years, you have spent more than $1,300 on sweaters that are in just as poor of condition as if you'd skimped and bought the cheap sweaters.

From the math, you can clearly see: It is better, in the long run, to buy something of higher quality and to take good care of it than it is to buy something cheap that will need to be replaced quickly. But, of course, pay heed to the qualifier: It is better to buy something of higher quality and take care of it.

This applies, as I have said, to anything else you may buy for yourself. It also applies to you: your body, your mind, your self. The only difference is, that unlike the cheap sweaters, if you ruin the one you have, you can't go out and buy a new body from WalMart for $15. Treat your body, your mind, and yourself the way you treat your $100 sweater: Cold wash only, Woolite, hang to dry. Metaphorically, of course. It is better to have the high-quality self you take good care of than a cheap self you neglect, because it simply can't be replaced. Treat your friends, your family, your coworkers, your home, and everything else with which you come in contact the same way: As if they are a high-quality item you want to stay good for a lifetime, and cannot replace with something cheap. After all, your body, your mind, your self, and your friends are all irreplaceable.