Proverb / Kotowaza
安物買いの銭失い
Buying cheap items leads to extra expenses because they break easily or are of poor quality.
Buying cheap goods and losing money
Quick Answer
Buying cheap items leads to extra expenses because they break easily or are of poor quality.
- Literal Image
- Buying cheap goods and losing money
- Closest Equivalent
- A cheap purchase is money lost
- How to Use It
- Used to caution against buying something just because it is cheap, or to reflect on a situation where a bargain purchase ended up being a waste of money.
Meaning
When someone chooses an item solely because of its low price, they find that the product is poorly made. This results in the item breaking quickly or needing replacement, which ultimately costs more than if they had bought a higher-quality product from the start.
Literal Image
Buying cheap goods and losing money
Equivalent Proverbs
A cheap purchase is money lost
Matches both the literal image and the lesson.
How to Use It
Used to caution against buying something just because it is cheap, or to reflect on a situation where a bargain purchase ended up being a waste of money.
Tone
This expression serves as a practical warning or a realization of a mistake in judgment.
Examples
安物買いの銭失いで、安い靴を買ったらすぐに壊れてしまった。
Because of my 'cheap purchase, money lost' approach, the cheap shoes I bought broke immediately.
安物買いの銭失いにならないよう、多少高くても品質の良いものを選びたい。
To avoid wasting money on cheap goods, I want to choose high-quality items even if they are a bit expensive.
安物買いの銭失いとはこのことだ。結局買い直す羽目になった。
This is exactly what they mean by 'buying cheap and losing money.' I ended up having to buy it again.
Learning Notes
Key Vocabulary
The kanji are relatively simple, but the compound structure and the use of 'zeni' (an older term for money) require some idiomatic knowledge.
安物
やすもの / yasumono
cheap goods
買い
がい / gai
buying/purchase
銭
ぜに / zeni
money/coins
失い
うしない / ushinai
loss/losing
Usage Profile
Usage note: Using this towards someone who is struggling financially might come across as insensitive.
Misread Risk
It does not mean that all cheap things are bad; it specifically targets the act of choosing low price over necessary quality.
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Origin
The proverb serves as a piece of practical life wisdom, teaching that buying only cheap items leads to waste because they break quickly or become unusable. It advises that choosing quality over immediate low cost is the better strategy.
Index
Topics, Situations, and Tags
Topics
Situations
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Source Note
Where did this entry get its data from? The reference links are listed below. To understand how to read this section, see Data Sources.