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What is a money pit purchase, you might ask.  It is a term I just borrowed to refer to a purchase that just keeps on costing after it has been made.  Now, to some extent, most of the stuff that we buy has a cost that continues to mount even after you’ve made the purchase and brought it home.  For example, after you shell out $1500+ for that brand new LCD tv, you have to pay for the electricity to use it and maybe even for cable TV with HD service to enjoy it.  Some items, like swimming pools and pets for example, end up costing thousands and thousands of dollars over long (15-20 year) periods (although the joy these items add to some people’s lives can far outweigh the cost). But, there are some particular items that just scream out “Money Pit Purchases” to me- items that continue to cost us money without really adding any noticeable value to our lives.  I’ve made a list of a few of them here:

1. “Swiffer” Cleaning Products

By “Swiffer,” I mean any cleaning product that requires you to continually purchase refills in order to continue to use it.  Some other examples of this are those Pledge Dusters, and that Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner (and these are just the few that I happen to have in my house right now).

The $9.99 initial investment of the Swiffer Sweeper seems like a decent deal, especially with coupons or drug store savings programs.  But, each day that you use the Swiffer, you have to throw out its little dust cloth and put a new one on.  A pack of 25 refills costs about $5.00 at my local Wal-Mart.  Thats .20 cents a cloth.  If I sweep with my Swiffer Sweeper every day, it costs me either between $6.00 and $6.20 a month to sweep my floors. The mopping clothes are a little more, lets say an average of .25 a cloth, so if I mop once a week then there goes another $1.00 a month.  Now, if I really go crazy and dust with a Pledge Duster, clean my toilets with a Clorox Bath Wand, clean my shower with Scrubbing Bubbles Cleaner, and so on and so forth….

Well you can see how quickly this has the potential to add up.  Sure, you can buy generic store brands to make this a little cheaper.  But, these are still not reusable and you typically can’t easily make your own at home.  And they certainly cost more than mopping with your old mop and a bucket of water, sweeping with a simple broom and dust pan, and cleaning with a toilet brush (items whose continuing cost after purchase is negligible).  The ease of using these “Swiffer” products, and the idea that they somehow work better than products our parents and grandparents have used for generations, make them popular purchases.  But the continuous cost makes them number one on my list of Money Pit Purchases

2. Dry Clean Only Clothes

Unless you work at a very specific job with a very strict dress code or need to wear fancy silk and exotic fabrics on a regular basis, you can find washer-friendly alternatives for almost every type of clothing.  Sure, it might cost you some money in electricity to run your washer, and even perhaps some time to wash and iron clothes, that cost is negligible compared to the cost of dry cleaning a whole bunch of clothes.  With dry cleaning prices starting at about $1.25 a shirt, and going all the way up to $5.00 or $6.00 for a simple sweater, this just seems like a crazy way to guarantee continuous expense with little added value.  Sure, for special occasion dresses and maybe even nice winter coats, you still may need to know where your local cleaners is located.  But, for your average daily wardrobe there’s really no added value that I can see to purchasing clothes with that dreaded tag.

3. Ink Jet Printers

If you print enough to need a printer at home, then invest in a black and white laser printer.  I have seen some great deals on laser printers, so this investment could be anywhere from free-after-rebate to $100 depending on how long you can wait to get one and how many fancy features you need to invest in.  And, once you have purchased the laser printer, your cost per page is about $0.02 a page, compared with about $0.16 a page for an inkjet printer.*  If you don’t print enough to make the investment in a laser printer worth it, then you may be better off just going to Kinko’s or your other local copy shop and printing there for about $0.05-$0.10 cents a page (still cheaper than the $0.16 average for inkjets).  If you print a lot of photo’s or colored pages, then this breakdown might be different (but you still might be better off shopping around for free-digital print deals online and trying to reduce your color printing)

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Welcome readers from MSN Money, and (all of those who are new wherever you came from!).  I encourage anyone stopping by for the first time to subscribe to my RSS feed or to subscribe via email by registering.  I try to write about 4-5 posts a week, and share information on saving money, debt, spending, and frugality.  I also let my readers in on my personal quest to get out of over $100K in student loan debt (darn that Sallie Mae!).

I also encourage you to check out some of my favorite posts:

Step By Step Guide to Grocery Savings

Why Its So Important To Track Your Expenses

My Comment on a Discover Card Commercial With a Terrible Lesson

Lessons My Parents Taught Me About Money

How We Finally Stopped Fighting About Money

How to Save Energy and Impress Your Friends Using X10 Home Automation

Ways to Pay Down Your Mortgage Faster

*See this article for a comparison of ink jet versus laser printers: http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/testdrive/article.php/3521141