The Chronic Consumer

One topic my husband and I have been discussing a lot recently is whether or not we should spend money on expensive home electronics or simply settle for the cheap stuff. For instance, we decided to go with a high-quality Sharp Aquos LCD flat-panel television instead of a cheaper model because we didn’t want to run into any problems down the road. However, our DVD player is just a piece of junk $79 model that we bought on sale about 7 years ago.

The question is: are we losing out on anything by not having a “real” entertainment setup? I mean, I suppose we could pay a few thousand dollars for a Bose home theater, but how much value would that add to our viewing experience? Are good speakers and so forth worth the investment?

I’ve talked to a couple of friends about this issue, and as far as I can tell, opinions are divided on this matter. Some people think it doesn’t matter at all, while others believe we’re shortchanging ourselves (and our television) by not having proper accessories to go along with it.

Hey, if money wasn’t an object, I’d go out and buy the most expensive home theater equipment I could find. But that’s not the case here, so we’re really going to have to think about how much we’re willing to spend on these products.