Ok, help me settle a debate Frugal people! I am medium frugal and a friend is very frugal. We both have a an electronic gadget for our hobby that's about 4-5 generations behind the latest tech. I was mentioning that I would love a newer one with better features, but couldn't justify it because the old one was still functional. Friend then told me that that they got an excellent deal on a newer used one – think only 2 generations behind. And that it such a shame that they couldn't use it yet because they had to wait until the current one died before using the new one.
I was shocked that they wouldn't use the new thing – they already have it! My stance is that the money's already been spent. Not using the new one is a waste in the better features, and enjoyment for our hobby. And I feel like an electronic gadget's useful life doesn't always get extended by storage – though I could be wrong about that.
Their stance is that you don't switch to the new one until the old one is well and truly dead so that you're not wasting any of it's useful life. So they will still continue to be ahead in the long run.
So where do you stand? Would you continue to keep a newer better thing unused in storage?
Frugality of Backups – When do you switch?
byu/kaizenkitten inFrugal
Posted by kaizenkitten
7 Comments
Estimate how much you’re spending per hour. A $200 upgrade that you’ll use for 100 hours costs $2 per hour.
Then ask yourself if you’d pay $2 to have the better system for the next hour. If the answer is yes, buy the upgrade.
If you’re going to use the first one until it’s dead you should just wait to buy the newer one. By the time the first one dies the second one will be significantly cheaper.
To maximize your enjoyment of a thing, use the one you enjoy more, and keep the one you enjoy less as a backup. The one you enjoy more might not break at all, so you might never have to use the one you enjoy less.
It sounds like you and your friend have different metrics of enjoyment, though. If your friend gets more enjoyment from following their personal efficiency rules than they would from breaking the rules, they’re doing it right.
If this is a hobby that you are sure you will continue, then get the upgrade.
Then you can either keep the old one as a backup for if the new one stops working or sell it. Selling it does mean you have some money to offset the cost of the new one. Also, I’d rather sell it and give someone else the chance to enjoy that hobby rather than keeping it cluttering up my space.
I did this when I was sewing a lot and the person who got my old machine was very happy with it and I didn’t have to find a space to store it. It meant I could enjoy my new machine guilt-free!
I use the first until it dies and then get the backup. If it contains a lithium ion battery and you have a backup the backup is degrading while you are using your old item. If it is something that they make updates to the old one will be cheaper if you wait anyway. For phone storage my phone has not been backed up for years. I do not have enough icloud storage so when I buy a need phone I will likely just be missing some features anyway. My thoughts are if I truly wanted to pay to preserve things like photos I would just get a photo book anyway. So some features do not get used for cost reasons anyway.
I agree. The new one isn’t going to stay new forever. The battery is going to start deteriorating
If I’m upgrading an electronic gadget, I will start using the new one immediately and sell the old one. No waste!