Here’s why spaving is probably not the best financial strategy for you

Spaving, where you spend more to save more, is the latest financial trend. But this new strategy is really just an old marketing trick.

Sometime in the mid 1980s, my stepfather was in need of a 15mm socket. At Sears, he discovered that it would cost about $8 to purchase the specific socket he needed. But a 299-piece socket set cost him about $200. He proudly pointed to the 15mm socket in his new set and told us it had only cost him 67¢. This was my earliest introduction to “spaving”–although no one called it that at the time.