This quote by John Ruskin, who lived between 1819 and 1900 is an excellent explanation of what quality really means:
It is unwise to pay too much, but it is worse to pay too little. When you pay too much you lose a little money…that is all…when you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the things it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot…it can’t be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run. And if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better!
We all need to consider what quality we are willing to pay for. If you want something to really work, you must really pay for it. The old saying, “you get what you pay for” is a universal truth that never changes.
One of example of this is when I went to a mechanic to have him fix the shocks on my car. He bid me $450 to do the work. But when I took my car to a reputable dealership, they quoted me $900 for the same job. I unfortunately chose to go with the lower bid and now I feel every bump, plus the new shocks created a different wear pattern on my tires that will require me to replace them one year earlier than I would have had to. I will end up spending almost as much as the $900 to fix everything and get new tires, while not getting near the value and quality I could have 
had if I had gone with the dealership. Incidentally I love my car and have over 200,000 miles on it. It’s a fabulous car that I can realistically plan to drive another 100,000 miles before having to replace it. Every bump I hits reminds of my stupid decision.
How does this apply to your personal finances? Most people think that they have been taught enough or learned enough or been given enough free advice from their brother-in-law or neighbor down the street to manage their own finances. But the truth of the matter is this simply isn’t so. Most people’s finances are a shambles. We live in a very complex world and finances, credit, real estate, and investing have all become extremely complicated matters that require more knowledge to handle than most people have. Many people insist on continuing to try to manage their money with very little quality information. To see the value of quality information and quality dissemination of that information, please visit www.moneymastery.com. Once there you will learn what it really takes to manage your money in today’s crazy world and the value of using financial coaching services to assist you in those efforts.
A good financial coach (this is not a financial advisor) should teach you all the following:
- How to get in immediate control of your spending.
- How to find extra money you didn’t know you were wasting emotionally due to bad spending habits.
- How to apply this extra money to create emotional, emergency, and long-term savings.
- How to apply this extra money to pay down debt.
- How to get out of ALL debt, including a mortgage, in under 10 years (no matter what your debt load, no matter what the numbers).
- How to create a predictable retirement that you cannot outlive and do it without getting sucked into investing in the market or deferring your taxes through 401(k)s.
- How to stop arguing with your spouse or partner over money immediately.
- And most importantly how to do all this at the same time since if you cannot work on spending, debt, and savings synergistically you will never be in control at all.
Remember, you get what you pay for. So I suggest you pay a little bit more than you think you need for a high quality financial education so you can learn how to truly get in control and be wealthy on ANY income. Visit www.moneymastery.com for the facts about quality personal financial management.
