10 Luxuries That Are Actually Cheaper To Own Than You Think

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Luxury items can be a smart purchase, if you’re able to spend the money. While these goods can seem pricey at first glance, when you break down their costs, some luxury items are actually cheaper to own than you’d think and offer a good return on investment down the road. 

GOBankingRates looked at everything from espresso machines to pearls to find these 10 luxuries that you may be able to buy sooner than you thought.

Espresso Machine

At $1,800, an espresso machine may seem like a luxury purchase, but when you break it down based on what you could be spending for pricey coffee shop lattes, it’s actually a better investment in the long run. Melanie Musson, a finance expert with Quote.com, shares that “a good espresso machine is attainable, especially for people who can justify spending money on coffee shop coffee several times a week.” If you’re not ready to go all-in on an automated espresso machine, you can get a ROK Presso Smartshot that pulls delicious espresso shots for just $179. 

Designer Purses

You can go to a lot of different stores and find cheap purses that won’t hold up, but high-quality purses will last for years and retain their value if you care for them properly. Musson said that even purses that cost between $500 and $1,000 “as a special, once-a-year type of purchase” are affordable to people in the middle class. Plus, if you care for it properly, “it will last you for years and retain value so that if you want to get a new one in the future, you can fund it by selling your original purchase,” she said. 

Nugget Ice

TikTok is full of videos of people buying bags of Sonic ice to get their nugget ice fix. If you want this type of ice but don’t want to lug bags of it home, you can buy your own nugget ice maker. These machines range from $100 to $400, so if you use a lot of this type of ice, buying your own may be worth the cost over endless trips to the fast-food chain.  

Automatic Pet Feeder

If you have a cat or dog, you know that feeding them multiple times a day can take up time and brain space. An automatic pet feeder can give you your time back and make sure your pet is fed. More expensive models can cost around $150, but Cats.com tested a lot of different feeders, and their budget pick costs just $46. 

Whole-Home Water Filtration

Whole-house water filters can be $2,000 or more, but Shu Saito, founder of All Filters said that you can actually opt for a quality two or three-stage filter for between $200 and $300 upfront.

“The real luxury,” he said, “isn’t the price tag. It’s eliminating the chlorine taste and odor you’ve been living with, protecting your skin and hair in the shower and having cleaner water throughout your home without the ongoing expense and waste of bottled water.“

Sauna

Hot and cold therapy has been all the rage in recent years and for good reason. Regular sauna use, according to the Cleveland Clinic, can reduce stress and improve cardiovascular health among other benefits. Barrel saunas and infrared saunas cost thousands of dollars, but a SaunaBox uses steam to give you the benefits of a sauna session for a fraction of the cost, presently at $320 (regularly $449). 

If you do decide to go with a more expensive sauna, Ashley Geinstein Gerstley, a shopping and savings strategist at Rakuten, says it may be more economical than you expect.

“Let’s say you’re paying $100 for a gym membership just to get access to a sauna,” she says. If you purchase a $3,000 sauna, “it pays for itself in 2.5 years.” 

Robot Mop Vacuum

If you can’t afford to have a cleaning service come to your home, you can get a robot mop vacuum instead. These can be pricey, but when you think about the time it saves you, it’s easier to justify the cost. The 3i G10+, for instance, is $450 (currently on sale for $256), and it vacuums and mops your floors for you. If you use it weekly for just one year, it breaks down to a little less than $10 per week, which is much less than the cost of a cleaning service.  

Linen Sheets

Linen sheets, like these from Baloo, cost hundreds of dollars. The upfront cost of $116 may seem high, but for the sake of argument, say you sleep on these sheets every night for five years, though they’ll likely last much longer. That’s 1,825 nights. That means that the cost per night to sleep on high quality, luxury sheets is just $0.18 per night. And the longer the sheets last, the lower the cost per night is. 

Bamboo Pajama Set

Climbing into bed in cozy pajamas is one of the best feelings, but pajama sets can seem expensive — especially since you might be the only one who sees them. This is another situation where the cost per use really balances out the upfront cost. A set of Motette bamboo pajamas costs $116 but can last for years. If you wear them three times each week for 5 years, that means that these pajamas only cost $0.15 per use. 

Pearls

Matt Harris hears it all the time — people tell him that while they’d love to own pearls, they just can’t afford them. As a pearl expert, pearl historian and jewelry designer at Matt Harris Designs, he’s happy to share that pearls aren’t actually as expensive as people believe them to be. The trick, he reveals, “is that most pearls aren’t quite perfectly round and buying them ‘off-round’ or baroque will save a ton of money.”

Editor’s note: Pricing and availability may vary. Prices are accurate as of Nov. 17, 2025.

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