The Hidden Cost of Purcashing

After I bought my house I started to buy tools as I needed them for various projects. For example, the first time I painted I bought three decent paintbrushes, a spinner for drying them out, a good paint rolling tray, etc.

This process of accumulation seemed reasonable until I started to run out of shelf space in my garage.

I recently needed to sand my garage doors in preparation for repainting, but found myself unwilling to buy a power sander because of the trouble I would have trying to store it. This resulted in a discovery that Home Depot (among many other companies, no doubt) rents power tools in increments as small as four hours. $15 later my garage door was sanded and I didn't have any extra crap lying around.

Looking back, I suddenly regret a lot of the junk in my garage. Those paint brushes, which I have just used for the third time in three years (and are seemingly at the end of their life), could have been replaced with disposable foam brushes for a fraction of the price and removed any need for cleanup and storage afterward. And suddenly I don't need that brush spinner anymore either!

Back when I made the purchases I would have said with confidence that purchasing and reusing was going to save me money. Now I suspect that purchasing and reusing was a money loser even without considering the storage cost.