Everybody wants nice things, but buying nice things isn’t always practical or justified. Since I can’t seem to control my hobbies, I have a tendency to get into something new (and probably expensive) on a whim. This has led me to owning a lot of things I don’t often use. Knowing this about myself, I’ve developed a personal philosophy to never buy the brand name items unless I can justify why I actually need them. So I usually start with the cheapest stuff I can find and use it until it breaks, or I can identify myself what the difference is between the lower-priced items and the brand name items without someone else telling me. This has worked out pretty well for me so far and I applied these principles in a recent purchase I made.