The false economy of buying cheap

Just recently, I was surprised and somewhat annoyed to find that some relatively new footwear has started to fall apart. Not just a loose stitch here and there, but just falling apart. For those of you that know me, I go most places by bike, so it’s not like I’ve been running marathons in them! This got me thinking about the false economy of buying cheap.

There’s an oft-used phrase that springs to mind and that’s ‘buy cheap, buy twice’. It’s something that’s proven to be true, from furniture, to appliances, tools, computers and of course, footwear!

In the effort to save some money on a purchase, we unwittingly set ourselves on the road to a series of running repairs or an untimely replacement.

If one saves 20% on a product or item, only to have to return the product or have it repaired, the saving vanishes. And that’s before we take into account the value of our own time!

It won’t surprise you to know that the same can be said of private tuition. Of course, there will always be good tutors out there who under-price their expertise, or simply don’t do it as a full-time role and therefore do not need much income from their endeavours.

However, what I see time and time again is parents who opt for a cheap tutor, only to return later due to less than stellar results.

I completely understand that paying for private tuition is often an unbudgeted expense. Life is increasingly expensive, and I can see the attraction, based on what one sees on CVs, of going with a low-cost option.

However, if the initial decision doesn’t pay off and your child hasn’t reached the levels hoped for, what then?

Let me help you with some perspective as to the real situation. One simply can’t get the wasted time back, so now the student still has much work to do but in a shorter time period. In addition, you would be shocked if you knew just how many children suffer from guilt at not only the cost of private tuition, but feeling in some way responsible when a tutor fails to deliver.

Combine this with the inevitably negative effect on your child’s confidence, and it is clear why cutting corners with education simply isn’t the way to go.

As I mentioned earlier in this article, I fully appreciate that burden that additional tuition can represent. At Maths and Science Tuition, we’ve been growing our team of tutors to further accommodate a broader range of pricing requirements.

For more information, please feel free to get in touch here, by calling 0207 686 4307 or emailing me at ma@mathematicsandsciencetuition.com.

Muhammad.