When Paying Too Much Becomes an Art Form

We’re all guilty of paying too much for something at one time or another. But just are there are overpriced gourmet lattes out there, there’s also kopi luwak, setting one back over 100 bucks a pound. Here’s a couple more examples of the ridiculously overpriced for your entertainment.

The $20,000 TV

Here’s the Sony 70-Inch LCD HDTV, which has a picture of Peyton Manning on the front, presumably to imply that you need to have a paycheck as big as an NFL star to afford it. It will set you back a hefty 20 grand — which could buy you about 2,000 movie tickets (popcorn not included).

Much more reasonable alternative: Sure, it’s 12 inches smaller, and plasma instead of LCD (I honestly can’t tell the difference), but the Panasonic 58-Inch Plasma HDTV is also almost 1/10th the cost. Unless you’re building a home theater that also has a concession stand and sells tickets, this is probably big enough.

Crazy cheaper alternative: Read how I got an HDTV for under $400 with a year’s warranty to boot. Smaller? Yes, it’s like 1/4 the screen area of the biggest one, but it’s also less than 1/50th the price.

The $64,000 Turntable

Grandmaster Flash would be in heaven with this 4-armed turntable. of course he’d need two of them and a mixer, setting him back over 128k. It featured a magnetic drive for the platter, plus 4 arms, so you can switch between up to four different cartridges easily. It also plays disks made of vinyl, called “records” which apparently were all the rage in the middle to late 20th century. Retro and ridiculously expensive all at the same time.

Cheaper alternatives: Oh gee, I don’t know. What can you buy that costs WAY less than that, plays digital-quality sound and holds lots of songs. Oh, it plays movies, too. Of course, if you’re anti-Apple, there’s ton’s of choices out there.

Sure, there are people who claim that old-school vinyl sounds better than that fancy digital stuff. Maybe it does, but I’m pretty sure the people who can tell the difference are as rare as those who can afford spending over 60 grand on a turntable.

The Point (and I do have one)

The point here, besides a momentary fascination with the crazy expensive, is to make one think what items we buy that might be just a tad overpriced. We all do it, if it’s that $5 Latte, or gizmo we really don’t need. We don’t need the “latest” thing out there, or the biggest. It’s a trap that keeps us in debt and keeps us from our financial goals.

In short: Don’t buy stuff you can’t afford. OK, I’ll get off the soapbox now.