Beware Associated Costs When You Buy Something

As we are trying to figure out what the most frugal way to fix our fish tank is (the lights burned out on the hood and they aren't replaceable...a new hood costs $20) it got me to thinking about the additional costs of buying just about anything. 

In the case of the fish, we were at Walmart a few years back and hubby decided to buy some cute goldfish.  They were feeder fish so they only cost 15 cents each but the ongoing costs to keep those suckers alive is orders of magnitude more than what they originally cost!  So far we have bought two complete tanks/hoods/filter systems as they have grown, fish food is a regular cost, and when we travel we need to find someone to feed them, not to mention that they are messy so hubby cleans their tank once a week which is a major undertaking.  So much for fish who started out costing a couple of quarters!

Pretty much everything we buy has additional costs.  When you buy a cell phone you then need to buy a cover for it, buy an additional memory card, maybe buy a car charger for it.  When you buy a laptop there are additional costs for a padded cover, maybe software costs, etc.  When we bought our new car we needed seat covers, a dash cam, an emergency kit, regular car washes and regular maintenance service like oil changes...

So today's lesson is to think about all of the associated costs you will need to pay when you buy many consumer items.  You might think buying an item on sale is a great deal but it pays to calculate the additional costs associated with the item to figure out if it really is the great deal you originally thought it was.