My cell phone bricked itself this morning. Just completely shat itself out. Coma-inducing diarrhea. One moment it was running just fine, the next it was black-screened, and after several half-successful attempts to turn it back on, the damage seemed final. It even feels slightly lighter now, like its soul has leapt from its fleshly bonds to wander the ethereal plains.
Like most Westerners, I freaked out a bit. With no land line, how was I going to communicate with people? And what if I was involved in an accident while driving?
I felt silly, of course. It’s one thing to know that you are too dependent on the internet; it’s another thing to actually combat that fear when “disaster” strikes. I keep an old flip phone on hand for emergency calls, so I powered that for a bit and took it with me on a great quest to find a new phone.
What was most tragic about today was that I found myself having to spend money. Rage! One day your cell phone is working just fine and you think you’ll have it for several more years, and the next minute it’s dead and you are forced back into consumerism. Hmph! What’s more, my old crappy laptop is on the verge of death as well and is probably not worth the new battery it might take to get it to charge higher than 55%.
I had been thinking about splurging on a new laptop. My work computer is a high-end Dell that probably runs around $2k, so although I didn’t want to spend that much, the thought of going >$1k definitely occurred to me. Go big or go home, you know? Nothing beats a laptop that can handle several instances of Visual Studio and several databases at once, and do it all in style.
And yet, it’s hard to spend that much money when really all you do is program, store some stuff, and surf the web. Spend $1500 on a computer when my Roth IRA still isn’t maxed out? Puh-lease.
(Bear with me, there is a point to all this.)
Not wanting to spend $700 on a Pixel 2, I managed to find one last original Pixel at a large, local electronics store. They price matched from $380 to $320 thanks to the Pixel being old and better deals existing online. They didn’t exactly search for the best deals, but they did fine one and honored their match. Also, I found a refurbished, slightly older version of my work computer for $300, and it’s freaking sweet. I’m typing on it right now. It’s silver, and has an i5, and if I need to upgrade I can buy the i7 for this socket for $50 on ebay, and it runs Visual Studio smoothly and doesn’t sound like it’s going to croak and…and…I could keep talking about it. Cha-ching, money-saver! I got home, popped my sim card into the Pixel and was back in business.
So what I first want to talk about is the power of cash position. By ‘cash position’, I mean having cash on hand that you can spend. Although I preach investing your money, it’s really not wise to do so before you have a strong cash position. Dave Ramsey’s 7 baby steps start out with #1 being to have $1000 saved for an emergency fund. Step #3 is fully funding this to 3-6 months of your expenses. This I think is great. I also think this is extremely important because most people simply do not save money at all, sometimes because they can’t but usually because they won’t. But for me, because security is so important, I almost have an emergency fund for my emergency fund. Fighting against this instinct, I have been saving into a “Personal Development” savings account that functions as an “Opportunity Fund” for expensive things I may want that fall outside of my budget.
I was at first terrified that I would buy the phone at full price and buy a pricey Dell laptop too, which would wipe-out my Opportunity Fund. I’m planning to visit my sister and her family next month. I also want to go to Nepal maybe next Spring in 2019. How could I wipe out my Opportunity Fund in one go like this? What if I were laid-off and didn’t get a chance to rebuild it for awhile?
Well, that’s the power of having a good cash position. When your phone dies, you buy a new phone. When your laptop sucks, you buy a new laptop. These are really not emergencies, but they are worth saving up for. When you want to visit your family, you make plans and go fly to see your family. Don’t sell investments to do this; have cash on hand for these things.
Now, my frugal instincts did kick in and saved me a ton of money. But that it took me so long to do something like replace my crappy laptop is perhaps to my shame. That I have put so little into my Opportunity Fund ($2k) compared to my retirement accounts (about $30k) is possibly not the best way to go through life. You should build a good emergency fund first, but after that, do save a little for yourself. I personally think I could have gotten a better deal on the phone if I had calmed down and waited a week for an online purchase to arrive. But sometimes fear does take over, and having the cash on hand can be really nice. Within 3 hours postmortem, I had a working phone up and running. This was a huge relief to me. I’m also super excited I don’t have to program exclusively on my work laptop anymore. $700 is a lot of money, but it’s not so bad when you have saved up the money to spend. For the record, I recently saved $700 by dropping the Hebrew class I mentioned in my last post 😉 . I am sure glad I did not spend the money on that. I might write sometime about what I have learned trying to distinguish wasteful spending from good satisfying spending.
Anyway, be frugal but have money to spend. Don’t be a tool like me and lose your mind because you have to spend money. Life costs; deal with it.