A pet peeve of mine that reduces my everyday spending

 

This may seem irrelevant to the younger crowd from the picture ( disinfectant? What??), but the purpose behind this post is something that can help you save a buck or 2.

When I started my FIRE journey back in July 2022, I took over the household chores at home as we were paying good money to the part time helper. (Something like 400 bucks for 4 x cleaning a month, it's crazy I know.) I started taking stock of the cleaning stuff we have a home. The part time helper was doing it previously. 1 thing that stood out in terms of cost is antiseptic disinfectant liquid. We love the smell of it, it smells really "clean", maybe it is all in the mind. However, it is really expensive. 1 of my pet peeves is overpaying for things when there are similar alternatives. I tend to do a mental calculation of the per unit price, maybe because I was an engineer for a long time. Like for example, when buying vitamins, I will look at the cost per pill.

For this category of product, there's walch as a close competitor. Both have the same active ingredient, PCMX. I realised the cost for Walch is $4.80/litre whereas for Dettol, it is $9.80/litre. Dettol is twice the cost! To me it is a no brainer that I will use Walch from now on. My quality of life didnt drop just because I opt for a brand that is less known, it does the same job.

Another real life experience is clothing. I saw this really nice dress in a boutique store along an up class shopping mall. I turned to my wife and told her, I am sure this is sourced from somewhere else and price is marked up by more than 100%. I took a picture and did a picture search. True enough, it's sourced from china, like many other things found in our shops nowadays. So why buy from a middle man when you can buy direct from the source? For the price you pay at the boutique store, it could have bought you 3 dresses from the source.

I like to say that I dont really control my spending but in some sense, this in built pet peeve of mine helps to maximise my dollar usage. The best part is, it doesnt take too much effort to find a similar alternative , does the same job, cost much lesser! Dont chase after brands!