Price Per Use
Judge what you buy by what each use costs, not the sticker.
Cheap things you never use are expensive. Expensive things you use daily are cheap. The price tag tells you almost nothing on its own.
Dividing price by realistic uses turns two very different purchases into one comparable number. It also forces you to be honest about how often you will actually use something, which is the part the sticker price lets you avoid thinking about.
Guess the uses, then discount it
Knock your first guess down by a third or more. People tend to be optimistic about how often they will use something new, especially for a hobby they have not started. This is a rule of thumb, not a measured correction.
Divide the price by that number
A two hundred coat worn two hundred times costs one a wear. A forty gadget used twice costs twenty.
Compare against the thing you already own
The real comparison is not against nothing. It is against the version you already have and would keep using.
Apply it hardest to hobbies
Equipment for an activity you have not started yet is where this saves the most money.
Go deeper
What the paid version adds to this one.
The categories where price per use gives you the wrong answer
How to factor in resale value, which changes the maths on big items
The version for subscriptions, where uses are harder to count
Worked examples across ten real purchases