Why do people cheap out when they know they shouldn’t

My husband and I continue to have this conversation. We both want to be thrifty and frugal so we can pay off our house quickly, save for retirement and live a comfortable life.  However, in our quest to do this we end up being cheap about certain things that don’t pan out very well, but keeps us laughing.

This is what it makes me feel like

I’ll give you a few examples to visualize:

1. We’ve had 3 garden rakes in 5 years.  We buy the $15 ones and they don’t last.  My dad is still using the same one from my childhood – I’m 46!
2. Were now on our 2nd wheel barrel in 3 years – our old one almost broke my husband’s thumb because it’s well let’s just say not well made.  It’s now being turned into a garden planter (it won’t fit in our trash bin I’m calling it my recycling program)
3. I’ve gone through 3 little garden shovels in 4 years – I finally bought one that cost $20 and I’m hopeful it will not bend back words like the others.
4. This one really hurts! It’s our Bamboo flooring.  We’ve had it 3 years and it’s the worst investment. It expands and won’t go back together,  scratches horribly even though the sales guy took a hammer to it at the store and it didn’t dent.  We now have to replace it,  lucky us!

Does anyone else do this or is it just us? We laugh about it and when we went to replace our wheel barrel we consulted with an employee of the store and did a google search on reviews to hopefully avoid replacing it next year, but man we can’t get out of our own way….

It’s too bad companies don’t invest in quality and rather focus on quantity! It’s also too bad I’m cheap, but at some point we won’t have any place left to put all of this useless junk that breaks.

Love to hear others stories!

XOXO