Headphone Lessons

FIRE bloggers often warn against sacrificing things that bring you real joy (so long as they’re not harmful to others, of course). Maybe you can be creative and hack the expense. Or enjoy the item/service less often but more intensely. But it can be counterproductive to give it up altogether.

I agree.

Unfortunately for me (and sometimes The Family), I occasionally don’t follow this advice. I recently was reminded of the folly of this dumb behavior on my part by, of all things, an inexpensive pair of headphones.

Listen up

I listen to a music for several hours a day almost every day. While I’m working. During dinner. In the car. And at random other times. I’m wearing headphones most of that time. So those headphones are on my head for a lotttttt of hours most days.

About 15–20 or so years ago, the dominant style of inexpensive headphones moved firmly to earbuds. I hate earbuds. In part because of their generally poor sound quality. Maybe it’s a different story with $50–100+ earbuds. But I’m not spending that much on headphones. Mainly because of the primary reason I hate earbuds: they constantly fall out of my head. Any item that stands a high chance of getting lost and/or crushed is an item I am not inclined to purchase, no matter the price.

But my alternative options dwindled as the earbud style became more and more dominant. Then, one day, I found a nonearbud pair that had a style I liked. And at $10, the price was right. So I bought the pair.

They were great. Exactly what I was looking for. Good sound quality, comfortable fit, and almost no chance they’d fall out of my head and be lost or crushed. I purchased several of those pairs over the years and remained a satisfied customer.

But a few years back, the pair I was using broke. At the time, I happened to have a few other pairs of headphones with different, but tolerable, styles. So I decided to use what I considered the best of the bunch. They were comfortable enough and I grew used to them, notwithstanding their inferiority to the headphones I liked so much.

Eventually, I grew so used to the new pair that I forgot how much better the old pair was. I told myself that once the new pair broke, I’d buy the old-style pair. But the new pair is durable. So I never did buy the old-style pair.

And time marched on.

It’s a gift

Then, last month, I was asked to participate in a holiday gift exchange. Each participant was asked to list a few things that someone else in the group might purchase for him or her. I picked the old-style pair of headphones as one of my wish list items.

During our (virtual . . . because the ‘rona) celebration, each of us took turns opening our gifts. When it was my turn, I opened my box and discovered that my gifter had sent me the old-style headphones. The group offered some half-hearted (or unimpressed . . . or confused) “ohs?” and “oohs!” Understandable. I mean, we’re just talking about an inexpensive pair of headphones after all.

But I was happy. Quite happy.

Given that I was listening in on the gift exchange event with the headphones I’d been using for a few years, I decided to swap them out for the new (old-style) pair.

BOOM!

It was like the scene in “The Wizard of Oz” when the movie goes from black and white to technicolor. The fit: so much better and comfortable. The sound: louder and so much richer. These realizations were revealed the instant that I put the headphones on and heard the sound emitting from them.

But the moment was a bit bittersweet. Because in that same instant, I kicked myself hard for depriving myself of such joy, available all along for such a low price (now about $15).

Looking back, however, I’m very grateful to have had this experience. That’s because the stakes were so low. In other cases where I’ve considered cutting expenses, the savings would have been significantly higher, but so, too, would have been the stakes.

Bad move

For example, the rent for the house we live in, while far from what I’d consider outrageously expensive, ain’t nothing. From time to time, I’ve thought about how we could move somewhere else in our general area and save a decent chunk of change each year on rent.

But we really like our house. It has ample and well-laid-out space, and great amenities. The location is excellent, too. Most places we need to get to regularly are a within a mile’s distance. And the majority of other places we need to get to aren’t much further than that. Also, our landlord is nice, and responsive. And our neighbors and neighborhood are great.

So, while I’ve been tempted to look at less expensive living accommodations (and at house hacking, which we’ve rejected), I’ve never pulled the trigger.

My recent headphones experience has quieted these thoughts. It made me appreciate that the joy we get from our house doesn’t come just from the attributes I mentioned above, but also from the fact that we have a really great bird in the hand.

Could we get equal (or even greater) joy from a less expensive house or apartment? Maybe. But that’s a gamble. And I’m not willing to move to a new place that I end up feeling is the equivalent of the new-style pair of headphones that I grew used to but never was satisfied by. Worse still would be if any or all of the rest of The Family didn’t like the new place. That’d be truly awful.

So barring some unforeseen event, we’re staying put and I’m banishing from my head any thoughts of moving. Unbeknownst to her, I’m also thanking the person who gifted me the old-style headphones for also gifting me with the reminder to be frugal but not cheap.

And in the end . . .

As I mentioned, one reason that we love the house we live in is the ample living space. Unstated was that were we to move to a less expensive place, we’d all but surely sacrifice on that feature. That’d be a huge bummer. And while Thing One (The Elder) and Thing Two (The Younger), might be elated if we moved to a tiny house, which they’ve long pined for, I’m certain that regardless of the cost savings, for us, a tiny house would truly be awful.