Is Cheaper really Cheaper?
That is a question I’ve been asking myself lately. I don’t think it is.
Case at point #1 -
I recently have been provided with the privilege of watching my Mom’s house while she visits her parents down in Texas. This watching of the house includes the task of cleaning out her cats litter boxes. She has 4 cats and for some reason she feels that she needs to have 4 separate litter boxes. There really is nothing wrong with that but i think its twice as much work as necessary to keep them clean. Anyways she chooses to go with a cheaper cat litter called Tidy cat (clay type). There is nothing wrong with the brand Tidy cat but I can say that the clay type versus the clumping/scoopable type is a place that I wouldn’t pick to save some money. I personal use a clumping/scoopable type of cat litter and will continue to use it. She probably saves about $6 more then me per bag of litter. I think I gain that $6 back that she originally saved by not wasting as much litter as she does. Her litter doesn’t clump together nice so when scooping out the cat piss you pretty much so have to just scoop out loads of litter weather it is soiled or not. With the clumping/scoopable type all the wet soiled litter sticks together nicely making it easy to only scoop out the litter that needs to be discarded. The other downfall of clay type is it much more dusty then the clumping type making it much more unpleasant to breathe while cleaning the box…… You make the choice, is cheaper really cheaper?
Case at Point #2 -
With the recent cold snap it’s a given that my furnace will be running a lot more than normal. I have noticed that my furnace not only began to run a lot more but was failing to keep up. I had my thermostat set to 60 degrees and after the first night of -0 temps I woke up to hearing my furnace running non-stop for 3+ hours. Only after looking at the temp in the house did I discover that the furnace wasn’t keeping up with the cooling of the house. With the thermostat set at 60 and my house’s temp only being 57 degrees I began to worry about why this was happening. I did recently replace my furnace filter but I decided to try and save a buck by buying the cheaper filter that only costed $1. Come to find out that the reason that my furnace couldn’t keep up and was running constantly was because of the lack of air flow the cheaper filter was allowing. I did a test and removed the filter for a bit and discovered how much faster the house heated. I have since went and purchased a better quality more expensive filter and now my heater doesn’t run constantly. So by trying to save a couple of dollars by purchasing a cheaper filter I probably lost multiple dollars in the cost that it took to try and keep the place warm……….
You make the choice, is cheaper really cheaper?
-B-rad
