The Best Sucking Money Can Buy
Why Spending More is Sometimes Worth It
It all began the night our friends invited us over for dinner and I brought a chocolate caramel tart with a pretzel crust.
If you’re not familiar with tart pans, they come with removable sides so you can pop the tart out and display the beautiful, fluted sides. While this is great for aesthetics, it’s not so great if you’re trying to graciously transfer the dessert to your hostess and get distracted by niceties and the five children now running around a small apartment.
In the process of handing my friend the tart, I spaced out. The middle popped up and the sides of the pan fell away, resulting in a cascade of pretzel pieces all over the floor. (Don’t worry, there were still enough to enjoy. The tart was not ruined.)
My friend whipped out her Dyson cordless stick vacuum and sucked it all up so fast I hardly knew what happened.
That was the day my husband and I knew that we needed one of those.
Of course, when you have limited resources you have to be smart with your money.
And we didn’t. We waited a couple of years, occasionally reading reviews of cordless stick vacuums online, and finally purchased one several years later when the wheel of our upright model started coming off. I’d been looking at less expensive brands, but Dyson was having a sale with a discount and free tools, so we went with a V8 Absolute.
Our floors have never been so clean.
You might think that the reason our floors have never been so clean is due to Dyson’s reputation as top dog of vacuum brands (or due to their reputation for extraordinary sucking ability). Indeed, we are constantly surprised at how fast the canister fills even with more frequent vacuuming. It’s so satisfying.
But the suction is only part of the reason why the new vacuum is so amazing.
(Gen Z likes to troll Millennials for talking about “adulting,” but what other word is there to describe the joy that can be had with a new home appliance?)
The new cordless stick vacuum has transformed my life in multiple ways:
First, my kids suddenly wanted to vacuum. Their previous love of vacuuming came only from when my husband and I would chase them through the living room with the old, clunky machine. The Dyson ushered in a new era where they actually wanted to use the vacuum. As it charged on its new docking station, we negotiated a plan for who would go first and which room everyone would get to vacuum.
Second, we can now vacuum things that haven’t been vacuumed, well, ever. It’s magical! I can now vacuum in between the radiator slats. It flattens out so I can get under the bed without contorting myself in awkward positions to reach the dust bunnies with the too-short attachment. I can reach where the ceiling meets the walls without lifting up the entire, heavy, upright vacuum.
It’s not just that I can reach more things, it’s that it is so much easier to do so. It went from being like pushing three kids in a stroller up the hill because they’re “tired” to being like that moment when all of them can finally strap themselves into the car and you can just climb in and drive away.
Before the Dyson, I’d have to mentally gear up to do some vacuuming. Usually what finally motivated me was the nagging feeling that it had been too long or seeing the dirt by the front door for several days in a row, thinking “I really should take care of that” before I’d finally drag out the vacuum.
My husband, who actually vacuumed as much as, if not more, than me, agrees. Taking out the vacuum was a whole production, from hauling it up the stairs, to finding the outlets, to trying to reach awkward places. It was definitely not what anyone would call fun.
So while the Dyson does suck up an amazing amount of dirt, its power is only partly responsible for how clean my house is now. The true magic of the Dyson is in the ease of grabbing it and just sucking up some stuff and putting it away without breaking a sweat.
In other words, the truly magical part is that we actually use it.
As a personal finance writer, you might think it’s strange to find me writing about buying an expensive stick vacuum. (Annie, are you seriously telling me to buy something expensive? Aren’t you supposed to tell me to save money?)
But if there’s one lesson I want you to take away from all this, it’s not that you should buy a Dyson. It’s that sometimes it is worth spending money on a quality product that makes your life a little better.
As my son said, “Wow, I think this was a good use of our money.”
Of course, now the excitement has died down and the kids aren’t quite as excited about using the vacuum. The other day my youngest was pouting and trying to do a bad job so we would take over (good luck with that). Maybe this way she’ll learn to eat over her plate…
