How do you budget for tech items?

[VirtualLarry]

Just curious what people's strategies are for buying tech items ("toys").

I'm on a fixed income, and I often spend money that should be allocated for food, for tech toys. Thank goodness for my stash of ramen noodles.

I have trouble actually saving money, I guess it's kind of a willpower / instant-gratification issue.

I'm semi-addicted to ebay. Not bidding, I don't bother with that. But just buying stuff.

I've been thinking of breaking down my budget, and allocating money weekly, "for food or toys". Hopefully, I'll leave a little for food.

I do pay my rent on time every month, and my bills.

 

[PremiumG]

I try and spend no more than $200 a month on tech toys like upgrades, TVs, video games, etc.

It's kind of relative depending on how much you have left over after bills, and savings. I'm 36, have a decent job, and kind of thrifty though. I have a mortgage too, so in my mind, every dollar I spend on toys, I'm paying interest on it because it could have gone towards the mortgage.

Though my wife spends more than me on her fashion toys, so I might have to readjust what I spend

 

[Grooveriding]

I don't, but I buy infrequently so it's manageable. Generally a CPU, motherboard & RAM every 2 years and 2 video cards every 1.5 years. Other tech items last forever in my experience and I don't feel compelled to upgrade/replace them; HDTV, blu ray player, cameras, laptops etc.

 

[JimmiG]

1. Buy expensive item
2. Look at bank account
3. Cry
4. Promise to never do it again
5. Water and bread for the rest of the month
6. See: 1.

 

[ponyo]

I buy if I think it's a good deal. But I don't buy many tech items anymore because I have everything I need and plenty of spares just sitting unused in a box.

 

[edro]

You should get more credit cards and just pay the minimum each month.

 

[Exterous]

Both the wife and I get a bi-weekly allowance to spend on whatever we want outside of essentials and household items. That way I can buy whatever tech item I want or have a big bar tab with friends and she doesn't care as long as it comes out of my allowance. It works in the reverse as well as I don't really care how many purses she buys as long as it comes out of what she saved

So I save up by not going out to lunch at work or only getting whatever drink is on special etc

 

[twinrider1]

There is no budgeting.
Buy it.
Use it until it breaks.
Buy the mid-pack performance level replacement.
Use it until it breaks.

<--running XP on an AMD Athlon II X4 640 in an Antec Plus1080AMG case.

 

[rh71]

I guess I'm not as big a techie as some of you anymore. I can't imagine spending $200/mo. on toys since having kids and it's not like I have a big yearning to either. I'll spend maybe $1k max a year on toys - no budgeting because it's just savings. But my PC is over 7 years old and I still play games on it (albeit on low settings). Last thing I bought was an XBox One more for the boys back on Black Friday.

Sorry to judge, but it strikes me - talking about fixed income, and renting... how could you buy toys regularly? Do you never plan to buy a house and raise a family? I know it's not something you're thinking about, but maybe it's time to.

 

[nickbits]

I don't budget anything. Granted, I usually don't want very much, although when I do, it is usually $$$. Luckily there is a natural balance.

 

[pete6032]

There is no budgeting.
Buy it.
Use it until it breaks.
Buy the mid-pack performance level replacement.
Use it until it breaks.

<--running XP on an AMD Athlon II X4 640 in an Antec Plus1080AMG case.

I'm running an Athlon II X4 635 with Radeon 5450 in my main rig. Almost all of my components are 4+ years old. My tablet and laptop are similarly outdated, but they get the job done.

 

[Kaido]

Just curious what people's strategies are for buying tech items ("toys").

I'm on a fixed income, and I often spend money that should be allocated for food, for tech toys. Thank goodness for my stash of ramen noodles.

I have trouble actually saving money, I guess it's kind of a willpower / instant-gratification issue.

I'm semi-addicted to ebay. Not bidding, I don't bother with that. But just buying stuff.

I've been thinking of breaking down my budget, and allocating money weekly, "for food or toys". Hopefully, I'll leave a little for food.

I do pay my rent on time every month, and my bills.

I do 2 things:

1. Weekly allowance: We have a basic his & hers allowance system, pretty easy to setup to automatically transfer a set amount of money weekly to our AMEX Serve cards (basically reloadable pre-paid debit cards). That covers going out to lunch, buying geeky stuff during the month, etc. If I want something within that budget this month (I am a kitchen appliance junkie, for example), I just wait a few weeks (or months, if it's something pricey) until it builds up to get it. My rule for anything other than a house mortgage, student loans, and car payments is cash-only. This way bills get paid, a portion actually goes into savings, etc. & you never get in trouble financially of your own accord.

2. Automated savings program: I also use SmartyPig, which is similar to ING/Orange/whatever it's called now, where you get a percentage of interest like a savings account, but it also does auto-withdrawals & gives you the option of cashing out to a gift card with a discount. For example, you get you get a 3% cash boost at Amazon, 3% at Lowes, 2% at Best Buy, etc. Here's a list of gift cards:

https://www.smartypig.com/how-it-works/retailer-offers/retailer-gift-cards

I'm in the same boat as you OP, regarding fixed income - my job pays what it pays. Could get paid more at a more specialized tech position, but I love my current job & don't mind making it work budget-wise. Thus coming up with creative strategies to be able to afford stuff I want. It's not as instantly gratifying as buying whatever I want on impulse on a credit card, but it also lets you avoid getting into trouble financially because the allowance & online piggy bank gives you a completely effortless safety net.

For example, I wanted to jump into VR this year, so I pre-ordered a headset back in like January. 6 months out from shipping equals 24 weeks, divided into $800, equals setting up a SmartyPig account for about $35 a week. One less pizza a week in the budget means a VR headset down the road, plus I don't have to choke out eight hundred bucks all at once. I used to do this with computers too...the "new every 2" plan. $20 a week into savings equals $2,000 every 2 years to spend upgrading my computer system. It was harder to do back in college when I was making minimum wage because $20 hurt a lot more when you were only making $250 a week after taxes, but that system enabled me to fund my computer hobby for years without killing my finances.

You mentioned having trouble saving money due to willpower, but personally I don't like having willpower be a part of my equation because it's subject to fail based on emotion (how you feel at the time). It's easier to setup systems that funnel you into doing what you want automatically, like auto-withdrawing money towards a goal into something like an online savings account or putting cash weekly on a prepaid card to use as your mad money for the month. The same thing applies to other areas of your life. Like with food, I largely do all of my meal prep at home so that my healthy food portions are prepped & when I get hungry during the day, I can cave to that rather than hitting up a fast food place & wasting money (although I use my "allowance" for going out to eat too, if I'm in the mood ). With exercise, although it's more about habit, I roll out of bed & do my exercise routine first-thing in the morning based on a schedule. That way it's not something I have to fight myself to do. TL;DR: not a fan of using willpower as a financial strategy because that junk is fickle!

One of the things to remember when building your financial system is that you're gonna die someday. Not saying that to be morbid, but to realize that there's a balance there: first, don't just endlessly save money without saving towards goals because you could be hit by a trunk ten years from now & never got to enjoy life. Second, don't just endlessly save your money because you could live to 105 years old & need that 401k to survive on. So basically, a structured savings plan is probably what you're looking for. You might want to look up some introductory financial stuff like Dave Ramsey's material. For example, do you have a $1,000 savings buffer for emergencies? If you're working for a living, do you have a 401k or IRA that you're actively contributing to? If not, there are things like Betterment that you can setup by yourself easily. This lets you tuck stuff away for when you get old & retire, but also have some money leftover to buy a pizza & video game you want this week.

It all depends on what your income situation is & what your goals are. If you're loaded, you can hire someone to manage it for you. If you're well-off, you can optionally spend as desired & have things kind of balance out every month because you have a large enough buffer to make it work. If you're tighter on funds, then it pays to setup some systems for yourself to meet your goals. Per your OP, you've stated that you pay your bills & rent every month on time, that you have a fixed income, and that you spend perhaps a little too much on tech toys & are looking for help on that. Well, if you really like buying nerdy gadgets, then figure out a way to make it work rather than cutting back! For starters, read up on how to save money on food:

https://www.reddit.com/r/collegecooking/

https://www.reddit.com/r/budgetfood

https://www.reddit.com/r/EatCheapAndHealthy/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Cheap_Meals

https://www.reddit.com/r/studentfood

If you're not a foodie, then you can get by on oatmeal, ramen, etc. and have a lot more free money for your techie toys. If you really want to get serious about it, then look into OAMC (once a month cooking), meal prep, freezing casseroles, bulk shopping (BJ's, Costco, Sam's), bulk supplies on Amazon (Hoosier Hill Farm, Barry Farm, Anthony's Goods, etc.), etc. Food is probably the most variable expense on the planet because you can spend as little as $100 or as much as $1,000 (or less or more) depending on your eating habits. But if you'd rather have more geeky toys & live off ramen, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that & there are literally TONS of resources out there for helping you along the way. So again, it boils down to goals. It doesn't make sense to save up endlessly for no reason, but it also doesn't make sense to blow all of your money every month so that you're living on the edge with no emergency buffer & no plan for the future.

 

[Kaido]

I'm running an Athlon II X4 635 with Radeon 5450 in my main rig. Almost all of my components are 4+ years old. My tablet and laptop are similarly outdated, but they get the job done.

With certain things, you plateau after awhile. Our main computer rig is a circa-2011 Hackintosh. i5, 10 gigs of RAM, small SSD boot, big storage drive, etc. Have had absolutely zero reason to upgrade it because it still boots up in under a minute, still has plenty of free space, and is still crazy stable. I think once we got to that point of quad-core CPU's, 8 gigs of RAM, and SSD boot drives, that's about as fast as you need to go outside of DCC or gaming. Same with my personal main rig, which is a Chromebook...works awesome, have had it for years, don't need to upgrade every couple of years like before because it's already hit that point where it does the job I want it to do really well.

 

[dullard]

I like the delay tactic.

I'll use haircuts as a neutral example. Suppose a person gets a $15 haircut every 2 weeks (fairly common for men with short hair). That would cost $391.35 in a typical year. Suppose that person decides to delay them just a bit, just enough that probably no one would ever notice, to a haircut every 3 weeks. Now it costs just $260.90/year. A savings of $130.35/year. You still get regular haircuts, you still look good. But over a lifetime that is saving $10,000 just by doing a very slight delay in each purchase of a haircut.

The same is true with technology. Just delay each purchase a little bit. Then you'll save tens of thousands of dollars in your lifetime. But, even better than a haircut, technology gets cheaper and better if you delay. So, you might have better technology and more money.

You can take it even further and put the technology you want into camelcamelcamel.com or fatwallet.com or similar and use that to show you when to buy. This slight delaying tactic can actually be fun as you hunt down a better deal.

 

[Kaido]

I like the delay tactic.

I'll use haircuts as a neutral example. Suppose a person gets a $15 haircut every 2 weeks (fairly common for men with short hair). That would cost $391.35 in a typical year. Suppose that person decides to delay them just a bit, just enough that probably no one would ever notice, to a haircut every 3 weeks. Now it costs just $260.90/year. A savings of $130.35/year. You still get regular haircuts, you still look good. But over a lifetime that is saving $10,000 just by doing a very slight delay in each purchase of a haircut.

The same is true with technology. Just delay each purchase a little bit. Then you'll save tens of thousands of dollars in your lifetime. But, even better than a haircut, technology gets cheaper and better if you delay. So, you might have better technology and more money.

You can take it even further and put the technology you want into camelcamelcamel.com or fatwallet.com or similar and use that to show you when to buy. This slight delaying tactic can actually be fun as you hunt down a better deal.

Hmm that's an interesting insight. I've done this myself on video games. Back in high school & college, I did a ton of gaming. Counter-strike was all the rage, so many hours wasted With new games being like $59 a pop, it's not exactly the cheapest hobby to keep up with, especially if you tend to go bonkers on Steam Sales like a lot of people do (cough cough). But eventually I got married, got a really fulfilling job, etc., and didn't find myself needing games nearly as much. Which has turned out to be awesome, because whereas something like Half-Life 2 was $50 when it first came out, it's only $10 today, and I can binge a lot more on holidays, vacations, and other free times when I have time to really veg out.

 

[Kaido]

I guess I'm not as big a techie as some of you anymore. I can't imagine spending $200/mo. on toys since having kids and it's not like I have a big yearning to either. I'll spend maybe $1k max a year on toys - no budgeting because it's just savings. But my PC is over 7 years old and I still play games on it (albeit on low settings). Last thing I bought was an XBox One more for the boys back on Black Friday.

Sorry to judge, but it strikes me - talking about fixed income, and renting... how could you buy toys regularly? Do you never plan to buy a house and raise a family? I know it's not something you're thinking about, but maybe it's time to.

It's actually way more common than you think. In my field (computers), I work with a ton of guys in their late 20's & 30's who aren't tied down with a wife, kids, or a house mortgage & yet make pretty decent money. $60k a year can still disappear pretty easily when you're single, even outside of an apartment rental & monthly car payment. Some of my buddies basically live paycheck to paycheck despite only having themselves to spend money on & no one to support, partially because they figure they'll be working for the next 30+ years, and if they get injured, there's always worker's comp. Finances get more complicated when you add more responsibilities like a house & kids into the mix, but yeah, it's really easy to sink all of your money down the drain eating out every meal, buying news toys, etc. if you don't have any solid plans for the future. And it's hard to make those kinds of plans if you don't already have a kids or a kid on the way, haven't really met anyone to date, etc.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Thanks Kaido, that's great stuff to digest!

I'm thinking of doing the weekly budget thing too. I had been doing monthly, and while that got the monthly bills paid pretty-much, it left a bit too much leeway with the rest of the money, primarily going towards "toys", when it should have been going towards food + gas and other misc expenses.

 

[Kaido]

Thanks Kaido, that's great stuff to digest!

I'm thinking of doing the weekly budget thing too. I had been doing monthly, and while that got the monthly bills paid pretty-much, it left a bit too much leeway with the rest of the money, primarily going towards "toys", when it should have been going towards food + gas and other misc expenses.

I read an article awhile back about a concept called "decision fatigue" that had a really big impact on me:

(Edit: uhh...it's a link to Fast Company, which is apparently blocked)
http://www.****************/3026265...suit-obamas-presidential-productivity-secrets

In a nutshell:

"You'll see I wear only gray or blue suits," [Obama] said. "I'm trying to pare down decisions. I don't want to make decisions about what I&#8217;m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make."

So basically as the leader of the free world, he's got a lot of stuff on his mind & doesn't want to waste time & energy thinking about stuff that could basically be automated by making the decisions ahead of time. This idea struck a chord with me & I've applied it to a lot of different areas in my life. With finances, it's not something I really want to have to think about every day because I'd rather be neffing here or watching Netflix or really doing anything other than budgeting, haha. So by creating systems that automate the bulk of my responsibilities, it gives me the results I want without having to tinker around with it all the time. Yeah, it's kind of lame having to live on an allowance or a savings plan, but it lets me buy stuff debt-free on a budget, which is awesome. And it's literally a no-brainer because once you set the targets, it mostly takes care of itself.

 

[purbeast0]

i've busted my ass in my career to make a good salary so i can basically buy whatever i want (within reason of course, not going to go out and buy a private jet or yacht). but if it's something like the lens i just bougth a few months ago that was $1k'ish i just waited until my checking account had an extra grand in it after paying bills and right before i got paid again.

recently though i haven't had any tech toys i wanted to purchase other than that.

 

[Away]

Newegg Credit. I get 12 months to pay it off with zero interest so I can budget accordingly.

 

[dullard]

Here is an quote from my brother that might help out:

I can buy anything I want, any time I want, because I don't.

 

[RockinZ28]

Thankfully can just buy whenever I choose without worrying. Don't make a ton of money, but normal monthly expenses are only ~50% of pay, and I'm excellent at saving. Fairly frugal as well, so never get the latest and greatest. Don't do budgets of any kind.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I don't generally budget - if I want it and can justify it, I just buy it. One thing I do try to do is pile up all my daily purchases and bills on credit cards and then use all those piled up rewards to buy toys and fun things.

 

[maddogchen]

selling the stuff on ebay helps. whenever you buy one item, try to sell one item first.

 

[BurnItDwn]

I spend less than I make.