Every once in a while, I buy something weird. Not useful-weird, just… weird. A product that makes people ask “why?” A thing that has no practical purpose but exists anyway.
These purchases used to make me feel guilty. Now I’ve embraced them as an essential part of a balanced buying diet.
The Joy of Uselessness
Not everything we own needs to be optimized for productivity or functionality. Sometimes a product’s only job is to make you smile when you look at it. That’s enough.
I have a desk toy that does absolutely nothing useful. It’s a little kinetic sculpture that moves when you tap it. I’ve had it for three years and it still makes me happy when I fidget with it during phone calls.
Is it practical? No. Is it worth the space it takes up? To me, yes.
The Line Between Weird and Wasteful
There’s a difference between buying something delightfully weird and buying something that will immediately become clutter. I’ve learned to tell them apart.
Good weird purchases have staying power. They continue to bring joy or amusement beyond the initial novelty. They have a spot in your life, even if that spot is purely decorative.
Bad weird purchases are funny for about ten minutes and then become a guilt object. You keep them because you spent money, but they bring no ongoing value. These are the things that eventually end up in donation bins.
The One-In-One-Out Rule
I allow myself weird purchases with one condition: if it doesn’t earn its place within a month, it goes. This prevents accumulating novelty items that seemed fun in the moment but don’t hold up.
The ones that stick around are genuinely worth having. They passed the test of continued interest. The ones that don’t get donated to someone who might appreciate them more.
Finding Good Weird
The best weird products come from independent creators and small manufacturers. They’re made by people who had a strange idea and decided to actually make it real.
Mass-produced weird is usually bland weird. It’s designed by committee to appeal to the broadest possible market of people who want “something different.” The result is forgettably quirky.
Real weird has personality. It reflects someone’s specific, odd vision. That’s the weird worth buying.
Permission to Be Impractical
We live in an era that worships optimization. Every purchase should be researched, every item should serve a purpose, every dollar should be maximized.
Sometimes it’s okay to buy something just because it’s interesting. Not every purchase needs to be defensible in a spreadsheet. A life with no weird in it is a boring life indeed.
Just don’t let the weird take over. A few choice oddities are delightful. A house full of novelty items is a different situation entirely.