Purchase vs. Investment

To purchase. To simply acquire or buy. If you are purchasing stuff that means you are just acumulating things in your life without thinking, “Will I need to buy this again soon? Or, when I am done using it, do I have the opportunity to resell this to someone else in the future for more than what I bought it for?”

An investment however, is the ”thoughtful” accumulation of stuff but, the catch is that usually a higher initial price must be paid than the cheaper short-term alternative. For example, owning your home (versus paying rent) and buying in bulk (versus purchasing single items). These are prime instances where a return on investment is created by paying a higher premium on day one.

 Treating your purchases as investments will pay off because either the investment has increased in value since the day you bought the item (like real estate) or you bought something (like toilet paper) in a large quantity that costs less than buying it individually. There is another type of investment that pays off too, and that is the purchasing of high quality items.

What’s interesting is that sustainable items like LED lights, programmable thermostats, and eco-friendly computers are extremely great investments for homeowners and businesses because they are high quality; which reduces maintenance costs, increases product lifetime, and decrease energy costs . An added benefit of investing in green products for your home is that many products increase the resale value of the property.

So before you make your next buy, just think, “Will I need to buy this again soon? When I am done using it, does this item have the opportunity to increase in value?” Then, you can consider yourself an investor (but not quite Warren Buffett…yet).

For Sustainable Product Investments Click Here