pauperty

The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.

Poverty often deprives a man of all spirit and virtue. It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright.

Content makes poor men rich; discontentment makes rich men poor.

~quotes attributed to Benjamin Franklin

in a world of dollar store 'deals', i'm a bit of an oddity. mom always said i was 'just like my dad' in that i would go for quality before price. (she thought that was a good behavioral trait to inherit from my dad - because she would just 'make do' forever, rather than buy anything!)

i don't like junk. there is a time and a place for buying something that you know is not going to last, but buying a cheap piece of crapola and expecting it to last is just.... hoping for the best, though unlikely. well, uncommon - it has happened to have something of good quality for a cheap price... just not the norm.

case in point: as it was payday last week, and now i don't have dreads and a scalp itching to be brushed, i went to go for a new hairbrush at wally world. i thought, 6-7 dollars for a cheapish brush would be ok.... just to replace the cheap brush i had that has been losing it's little ball tips, making for a very scalp-scratching brushing experience, indeed. so i'm like, i'll probably wind up with something cheap that won't last either, but hopefully it would last longer than a dollar store brush...

....i wound up choosing a hairbrush that cost me $17, lol. it's got copper bristles, that is supposed to clear up dandruff, and the ball tips of the bristles are part of the copper bristle itself, so will never fall off. aaahhhh, a very good detail, indeed. and so i'll postpone for a month the (potential) purchase of anti-dandruff shampoo and see how this does in the meantime, in conjunction with tea-tree oil added to my shampoo (which is actually just liquid soap, no chemicals... but i digress). so i averted another purchase (for this month) with this purchase. and it's much less scratchy on my scalp. hopefully this is a case of quality vs. scam, which is always possible... :P

another case in point: bar soap. i cannot/will not buy ivory or whatnot - there's always something in it that triggers my asthma, and most soaps are full of phony (chemical based) ingredients... so while it's inexpensive, it is, in my estimation, crapola. you get what you pay for. instead, i buy a pure-olive-oil bar soap, that has no junk - especially no fragrance (which is 99.9% of the time from a chemical source) - and does my asthma no harm. ...and while it's a lot more expensive, it's *real* - not a cheap petroleum based product. you get what you pay for.

so back to the three quotes. i read the first one a coupla weeks ago, and it's stuck in my head since. as i was looking for a copy of it to quote here, i came across the other two as well. they all speak well to my battle against a 'poverty spirit' - a poverty mindset... when my Daddy, who is taking care of me, has all the riches of the universe at His disposal?! yes, it's true. i can forget that, and feel so damned poor. and like the second quote, feel "deprive[d]... of all spirit and virtue. It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright." discouragement... even a hopeless feeling.

so it's finding the balance between quality and wise/healthy purchases, and seeking to find contentment with what i have... without having to feel like a pauper who must go without anything and everything (and forgetting that the King of ALL is my Daddy!!)