One of the cornerstones of mindful spending is long-term thinking and awareness of the value of whatever you plan to buy. When it comes to home gadgets, in Nigeria, our first instinct is usually to furnish the home based on what everyone is already doing. TV, TV stand or console, couches, dining set, sound system, humidifier, fridge, air conditioning. It’s not to say any of those gadgets are outright bad; it’s just that we don’t put too much thought into them. Sometimes we buy based on what other people expect a home to have. People buy based on the trends, what they see in movies, and on social media. While some of the things we buy have value, many of us are not conducting a cost-benefit analysis. We are not prioritizing; instead, we buy the first obvious choice that pops into our mind, usually a TV, next we want the TV console, then the cable, and sound system, next a couch, then maybe a fridge, and others.
The whole point of gadgets is utility. As far as utility goes, value comes first, so you should optimize for the gadget that brings you the most value in lifestyle, cost, and usage. Before buying any new home items, ask:
1. Does this reduce long-term costs or stress?
2. Does this expand my options or independence?
3. Is this more valuable than the alternative thing I’d spend money on?
Let’s explore some spending categories and case studies on how to approach thinking about purchasing home gadgets to help you understand the point I’m trying to make.
Category A: Similar gadgets, but one has more long-term value
Case Study 1: Oven-Grill-Cooker Combo vs the Regular Gas Cooker
The cooker is the central gadget in the kitchen because it is used at least once a day. For a lot of homes, especially with young adults, when it comes time to make a purchase for a cooker, the regular cooker is the first choice. In Nigeria, the regular cooker can look like a camp gas or the popular two-burner stove. It does the job: you can boil, fry, steam, and make all your basic meals. At first glance, spending extra on an oven-grill-cooker combo seems unnecessary. Why pay more just to bake or grill? You may think to yourself: I don’t even bake. And if I want grilled fish, or grilled chicken and chips, I know where to buy it.
But this is the hidden cost: when you buy the regular cooker, you are limited to meals that can be made on a stovetop. With an oven-grill-cooker combo, it opens up a whole new world of possibilities. Roasting, grilling, and baking. You could roast tubers like yams, roast and grill proteins like chicken and turkey, while using less oil than frying would require, and you could also bake bread and cake.
Think about it:
- That friend’s birthday cake you outsourced? You could make a project out of it and bake it at home.
- Your favorite snacks that you are used to ordering on ChowDeck, like suya, asun, chicken and chips, can now be made from the comfort of your home
- You can finally try baking the pastries (cookies, burger buns) that you are fond of buying within the comfort of your home.
The oven-grill-cooker, depending on the year, likely costs twice as much as a regular stove, yet it’s the better choice. It may feel counterintuitive to suggest that you buy the combo cooker over the cheaper option, especially on a site like Mindful Naira, but mindful spending isn’t just about cutting costs; it can mean going for the item with a higher upfront cost because its overall long-term value is very high compared to the value output of a regular gas/kerosene stove.
Most people eventually buy the oven–grill–cooker when their income rises or their family expands. But by then, they’ve already sunk money into the first purchase and missed out on years of extra options. You end up owning two appliances. You’ve spent twice, taken up extra space, and carried the opportunity cost of years without the ability to bake or grill at home. The real cost of buying the cheaper option is all the money you spent on ordering grilled or baked food you could have made at home yourself.
For example, I used to buy grilled chicken and chips back when it was 2000 Naira several years ago. It felt worth it. It came with a grilled chicken portion, fried potatoes, and shredded cabbage mixed with cream on the side. It was a treat. It’s probably now worth around 4500-5k naira in 2025 if not more, depending on the vendor.
Fast forward to when I bought my combo cooker, I realized I could marinate chicken in the fridge overnight, next day grill it, shred the cabbage, fry/roast my Irish potato, all under 45 minutes. Suddenly, the urge to buy that particular chicken and chips vanished. It’s almost as if my making it myself demystified the process. Once I saw how straightforward it was to make, I couldn’t unsee it. This is what I call the Transparency Effect: once you see how something is made, the outside price loses its magic. You stop outsourcing by default and start valuing what you can create for yourself.
Case Study 2: The High-Powered Blender vs the Regular Blender
High-powered blenders are the type of blenders that are able to handle most kitchen blending of difficult ingredients like beans, ice, seeds, nuts, and even grains. They are usually in the 1000-2000 watts range. Popular strong blender brands like Vitamix, Buchymix, and Kenwood are examples of high-powered blenders. The regular blenders are still able to blend softer food ingredients like banana smoothies and pepper, but for harder foods, the internal motor may burn out. They are usually in the 300-500-watt range.
At first glance, choosing a high-powered blender over a regular blender may look like indulging in luxury, but here’s the trap: people who start with a regular blender end up replacing it again and again. It can’t handle nuts or seeds. It breaks down after a few years and limits what you can make.
A high-powered blender, on the other hand, pays for itself several times over just by the value it creates. It opens up a world of options in meal preparation.
- You can make your own moin-moin and akara at home without having to buy them on the street or blend the beans at a pepper mill.
- You can make your own peanut butters, coconut milk, tigernut drink, and stop spending so much at smoothie shops where a cup can go as high as 3000 Naira.
- Blend your own spices and soup ingredients in the dry mill attachment of the blender, eg, chilli pepper, black pepper, ogbono, egusi
- It lasts for years without a replacement.
High-powered blenders can be very expensive, especially for the well-known ones like Buchymix and Vitamix; but there are cheaper ones that are being produced that are still high powered eg, Silver Crest. The key thing is to check the reviews on products and see what existing buyers have said about the product to avoid fakes.
Buy second-hand
If you are wary of buying a cheaper high-powered blender, one option would be to buy a second-hand version of your favorite high-powered blender brand from a trusted second-hand vendor. A second-hand Kenwood blender would still outperform most brand-new low-wattage kitchen blenders. Same with the oven-grill-cooker combo. The used version will still give you options (baking, grilling, roasting, frying) that a brand-new single-burner stove simply cannot. This way, you enjoy the premium capability of the gadget while avoiding the “brand-new” cost. And once you use a truly powerful, multifunctional tool, it’s hard to go back to the “entry-level” stuff. You stop feeling the urge to “upgrade later” because you already own the peak experience.
The lesson here is that buying cheaper gadgets often costs more in the long run. The low-end gadget quietly drains your wallet in subtle, unseen ways, while the right gadgets end up generating savings, options, flexibility, and even new business opportunities (some people even turn their blenders or combo cookers into small businesses, selling smoothies or baked goods).
These two case studies under the category of “Similar gadgets, but one has more long-term value” are just two of several examples like this when making gadget purchases. The takeaway here is to think long when you decide to make a purchase. Ask yourself, is there an alternate version of the gadget that I am trying to buy that could possibly serve me long-term term than this one?
How to think about gadget purchases will be a series, where I’ll be sharing other thought processes that could go into deciding how you buy your gadgets. In the next post, we’ll be looking at another angle: buying a gadget vs outsourcing a service.