Pre-Purchasing: I'm Actively Ruining My Life
Ahh to be rich..
The Problem
I think a big problem of mine is that I see things and I end up really wanting to buy them. I always have. I get a bit of a "financial earworm," if you will. Just yesterday, I heard my computer's fans spin up as I was doing a bit of intense work, and I thought to myself, "Hmmm... This thing is getting a bit old."
Then, I acted like a big dumb idiot – I marched my consumerist ass to apple.com and looked at the new M3 Ultra-Sexy All-Beef McBook Pro. Three and a half grand. But it's shiny... I was in love. A piece of steel slab that moves electircity around. Do you even understand how much faster I could do the same exact things I currently do every day on my 2019 MacBook? I could probably shave a whole 0 seconds off of my day because my computer works just fine. Unfortunately, now I just want a new one. I saw the photos. I read the tech specs. 69 gigatrots of E Processing Power?? Holy hell! With that, I can edit the 3 photos I need to edit on a daily basis much faster! My light use of FireFox will be a breeeeze! I fell deep into the pit of Apple marketing and have now succumbed to something I will now call "Pre-Purchasing."
Nick, what in the financial hell is "Pre-Purchasing"???
Pre-Purchasing is planning your life around stuff you're GOING to buy. You've already made the decision (maybe not even deliberately) to purchase something, you haven't bought it yet, but now it's going to start impacting your life.
I think this style of consumerism changes people a lot more than they may think. They'll avoid looking at competitor products that might sway a decision. Purposefully buying a product that might be worse because of some predisposed bias learned from marketing, and self-reinforcing that idea. I'm now purposely not going to buy a computer for a while until I have saved enough money for the one I saw online. I'm going to go out of my way to save more money, avoid going out, spend a little bit less on trinkets and other gadgets so that I can get this computer. I've already bought it. I've looked at the balance in all of my accounts and I've done the numbers, and I've made MANY questionable "reaches." I'm forcing it to happen at this point.
Sometimes pre-purchasing can be a good thing, like when you're planning to buy a house or something very important to you. Other times, pre-purchasing can be a very BAD thing. Think about it:
- I see some new shiny thing
- I realize that I really want that shiny thing
- I am now going to convince myself (almost at all costs) that I must buy that shiny thing
Much of this is probably subliminal. I'm slowly going to realize that my computer DOES in fact have worse and worse battery life, as it's 5 years old. It is actually going to start to slow down on certain tasks. I will definitely eventually need an upgrade. I can hang on for a bit, but there's only so much time before the battery on this thing only lasts for an hour. Let's play a little game for a second. I ask a question - you respond:
Nick's Question: "What computer do you think I'm going to buy when I finally NEED to purchase a new one?"
Write your response in permanent marker on your computer screen here:
Yes, that's right! A brand new M3 MacBook Pro. Most likely with the same exact configuration I already looked at. UNLESS the M4 comes out. Then perhaps I will wait a little longer and convince myself I need the best and the brightest.
Here's to the smart folks.
I think people who are financially solid don't really have this kind of behavior. Perhaps it's by nature, maybe it's a learned thing, or maybe some other reason like they just actually hate new stuff (too clean). There are people who are simply allergic to spending money. They don't WANT to do it, so they will go to great lengths to NOT do it. That's probably one of the best allergies someone can have in life. They don't think about buying something brand new, because it's just going to cost money. It doesn't matter what it is. They're not buying a bottle of water at the store because they're thirsty, because it costs them. They are not driving around a car from the last 2 years because it just costs that much more, and they did not fall for the marketing because they will have less money after buying something. This is a good problem to have.
Unfortunately, many other people, like me, really enjoy spending money. We talk about what we would buy if we won the lottery. Big houses. New cars. Shiny jewelry. Fancy meals. Whatever... To us, spending money is one of the goals in life. We just want to buy the next newest thing. I literally have a list in my spreadsheet that says "To Buy" and it lists a few of the larger purchases I want to make in the next few months. Let me tell you, none of them are life-changing. Just products that I want to spend a bunch of money on. At the end of the day, maybe it's just not worth it to dedicate so much of our lives to chasing that next financial burden.
I wrote this because I realized I had been thinking about getting a new computer for a week or so now - fully convinced that it would be an M3 MacBook Pro. I thought about selling some of my old stuff to help pay for it. And to be completely honest, I looked at financing it with the Apple Card. (I could buy it NOW and pay for it over the next 360 months!) I realized that I do this for a lot of my larger purchases. I am truly a consumer at heart, and I'd like to stop doing that – maybe I can retire by the time I'm 97 if I don't buy stupid shit right now. At least this time I noticed it happening and am trying to avoid it. Maybe in a few months, I'll be able to buy an M2 chip laptop or something. Or, more likely, I'll be writing a blog post about how much I love my brand new M3 Apple MacBook. Good luck out there, folks.