Ah, well. Think of it this way: Money is not the only currency, (or cost) that you pay (or save). Most people forget time......which is also of considerable value. (What are you doing when you get a taxi, rather than waiting for a bus, or tram? You are spending money to save time.....just as when you walk for hours, because you couldn't afford the bus/tram/underground metro (other spending - books, coffee, booze, jazz clubs....took priority) as you undoubtedly did when a student, you were spending time to save money.....)
Re a washing machine, the first question to look at is what are the alternatives.
In practice, these boil down to : 1: Stay in dirty clothes, immune and impervious to society's preferences. Problem is, friends and colleagues may find this a bit much, too, after a while. After all, this is no longer the Middle Ages (the Roman Catholic Church had a bit of a problem, historically with the concept of bathing and those who delighted in cleanliness; something to do with touching yourself, I think.....)
2: Wash the clothes yourself, by hand. Tedious, time-consuming, and exceedingly uninteresting. There are good reasons why no-one likes housework. Besides, when you wash clothes yourself, there is a strong possibility that wimps from the west are quite likely not to do the best possible job of it, either, in my experience.
3. Pay someone else to do your washing. Requires money. And those of us who labour under a leftish world view might struggle at the thought of foisting on those less powerful than ourselves the work we'd prefer not to be burdened with. Right wingers never, ever, really know how much those of us from the more colourful side of the rainbow's political rainbow, occasionally suffer, from such dilemmas, (before drowning our sorrows in something liquid and muttering 'sod that; I can't spend the rest of my life squaring these theological/ideological circles'....)
4. Set the machine yourself, and marvel at the fact that it is saving you hours and hours of drudgery.
5. Buy a cheaper machine, and when it breaks down (one month after the warranty has expired) curse yourself. And the buy the one you know you should have bought, in the first place.
Time...is money. *puts on cool sunglasses*
