I read something at the weekend which described how spending money on an experience brings more happiness than spending it on products, even though the experience is fleeting but the product lasts longer. But what happens when the product directly leads to the experience? Since I enjoy wearing wellies, the £20 I spent on the blue wellies last year can be thought of as both money spent on a product and on enjoyable experiences.
Since the new year I've been recording how often I wear each of my various pairs of boots. I've worn the blue wellies a grand total of 10 times this year, which is less than I thought. 7 of those occasions were the week when I had the house to myself. I haven't kept track of how many times I wore them last year but since I bought them in september, I must have worn them around 15 times.
So far that works out at over £1 for each time I've worn them, although the length of time I wore them will have varied from under an hour to almost all day. As soon as I got home from work tonight, I put the wellies on. By the end of tonight I'll have been wearing them for 6 hours.
The blue wellies aren't as comfortable as my green wellies, but they did cost less than half as much. I might start looking for a new pair of wellies soon, but I should probably try to wear my blue wellies a few more times. I think under £1 per wearing is probably decent value, especially if I think of it as renting the boots.
If I buy a new pair of wellies, I'll look out for a fairly snug fit, rather than a looser 'flappy' pair of boots. With any luck I'll see a pair I like in a sale somewhere.
