Bit the bullet.
Yes, I bit the bullet and ordered myself a new computer. A laptop nonetheless.
I haven’t purchased a computer since before my oldest child was born. Even then, I bought it well over a year before she was born.
That means my computer is over six years old and is a dinosaur by modern standards.
When I bought my old computer, it was a state-of-the-art gaming monster. I hand-picked all of the components, and it owned in multi-player games.
Fast forward to now. My solid state drive is struggling because it’s not big enough. My other hard drive is plenty big, but that doesn’t much matter when you can’t upgrade to Windows 10 because there isn’t enough boot drive room.
I’ve also lost data lately. Once it was over 3k words of a novel I’d been working on.
Then, my cooling fan on my processor started acting up. Keeping a processor from overheating is critical. So, it’s time.
I started saving up for it, putting a little aside each pay period so we could pay cash for it.
But see, it’s still hard. I like to keep things until the absolute end of their useful life. Cars need to last at least ten years. Fifteen is decent, twenty preferable. We keep our appliances until they die (man, I love that goldenrod refrigerator in our basement. Older than me, and I’ve already had to replace the refrigerator, dishwasher and stove at least once since buying them new).
While I’m not a gamer much anymore (hi kids!), I do need a functioning computer. I use it to do our household bills, pictures of the kids, my writing, etc. I also use it when websites start hating on my iPad.
So, I spec’d out a new machine. I did my research on who makes quality stuff as I won’t be building it myself and knowing exactly what components are going into it.
Then I waited.
Stuff went on and off sale.
My husband started to fuss at me to buy the thing already. I needed a new computer. Once the processor fan went, I’d be really be living on borrowed time. Better to have time to transfer everything to a new machine.
Still I waited.
I put my spec’d computer into my cart. Looked at the specs again.
My husband walked by and caught me doing it. “How much do you have saved?”
I told him.
He looked at the cart. “What you have in there is less than $40 more than what you’ve saved.”
“Maybe next pay period.”
“I don’t care about $40. Press the buy button. Get the new one before that one goes. Then we’ll have time to transfer everything without being in panic mode.”
I hesitated.
He gave me ‘the look’. “Do you want to lose all the pictures of the kids you have on there?”
“I’ve backed all of those up.”
“I appreciate that you’re careful with money. But hit the damn buy button already.”
I did.
Should have my new baby in about two weeks.
How about you? Do you get nervous over larger purchases? Maybe wait too long to make them? Or do you know what you want and seize it?