Not just rich people buy Playstations and Xbox’s

Rob: I do live in a luxury bubble, something I’m very grateful for. But I’m gonna let my post stand cause it’s reflective of my experience.

@77. Wait! Don’t tell me. When you opened up your 19% interest account with Best Buy you also purchased the extended warranty on your TV they were offering,right?

Man,

Looks like are motivated to promote BestBuy 10000 USD credit.

You used to post about this about 2 months ago – http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/08/29/wired-on-sonys-ps3/

I agree with a lot of posters here that buying a game console and TV on credit seems like a really bad idea.

However, I generally agree with Scoble that a game console is not that expensive.

The entertainment value per hour is FAR cheaper with games than with movies or with eating out, especially if you buy the used games at Gamestop, EB, etc. Eating out in a restaurant or watching a movie in a theatre is $5-$10 per hour, per person, whereas games are $0.50-$1.00 per hour. My recommendation is to stop eating out and stop going to the movies, and invest a little bit in a game console instead. I’d recommend a Playstation 2 instead of a Playstation 3 though, and I would recommend using a cheap TV instead of a big screen TV. (I have a secondhand Playstation 2 hooked up to a secondhand but nice 27″ TV I got for $75.) You’ll get almost as much entertainment value at a far lower cost.

A side effect is that many games bring people together. I interact with my kids when we’re playing Guitar Hero. When I’m in a movie theatre we’re watching a movie without talking to each other. The game is a much better “family” activity.

Amit,

The counterpoint is that movies and dining out are some of the last communal activities we share as a society.

We’re all going to become net-connected, game playing shut-ins.

Dear sir/mad,
Please,i need the money,please.

$10,000? Are you mad? That’s a good chunk of my take-home pay from my last year of work!

I can’t say not having the latest games console or an enormous hi-res television has really damaged my enjoyment of life. Wise up. It’s the biggest low-benefit-return money sink industry since the snake oil peddlers. Or indeed, the buying-a-new-car-on-finance one.

(Mark is a uk resident who has a used car, that’s 8 years old, bought for the equivalent of ~$3750… it’s run beautifully for the 22 months since then and has represented a fantastic return on investment, even after 2 1/2 services including a cambelt change. In the same time, a family friend has got through two brand new Saab 95s. I doubt his motoring enjoyment improved by anything like the same magnitude as the spend. Similarly my brother has a room filled with consoles and a 32″ widescreen. My PSX, bargain bin dvd player and 21″ standard are doing me just dandy thanks, there’s still classic games and movies (at 4.99 – 9.99 each) I haven’t got to play yet, mainly because I’m usually doing better things with my time. One day, I will get a PS2, or maybe a GP2X handheld. Yes… I did pay ~$1400 on a new laptop… but only because the old pentium had finally hit a wall of obsolescence – AND I HAD SAVED THE CASH IN ANTICIPATION whilst researching the absolute shiniest, appropriately specced machine that offered good value and plenty of useful freebies. I fear for just how much of my remaining income after rent, food, fuel etc would have been swallowed up by interest-inflated repayments had I fallen into the usual “new! shiny! buy it on credit and pay (a hell of a lot more) later!!” traps. Given my wages thus far, and current unemployment (being remedied on monday with a casual building site job, whilst I continue applying for better paid technical things), I’d likely be well below the poverty line and having my various material goods repossessed at much below their true value)

Good god man… borrowing 10 big ones at in-store finance prices (I almost laughed right in the PC World guy’s face when he offered me the option and I saw the interest rate! Sorry mate, you’re not getting any commission off this one, here’s my DEBIT card)… to get something that is, in effect, a toy that has no use other than entertaining you in a slightly more overblown fashion than what your neighbours can manage. It won’t mow the lawn or get you some food, and when the power’s off, it makes for a pretty ugly ornament. All the while you’re chucking the best part of $2000 in EXTRA payment at the shop (assuming a common 15-20% APR) simply because they think you should in return for buying the thing in chunks rather than putting a little aside each month (and if it goes into a savings account, your available cash INCREASES as if by magic, rather than the other way around – my “Mini Cash ISA” savings generated nearly £100 extra on a £6000 balance last year… or about $160 on a $10k balance, i.e. $2160 benefit ) and rewarding yourself for being so good with that selfsame toy… and a little something extra along with it.

Besides, all the early adopter stuff is always crap and overpriced. By the time you’ve saved you’ll be able to afford something that, today, would easily cost twice as much, and what you can buy right away will look primitive in comparison.

Have I made my point yet? Stop scorning those who are smart with their money as being cowardly, when, in fact, they are going to end up *considerably* richer than you. Stop being such an advertisement-hypnotised, brand-led sheep. Or at least, continue.. but don’t get on your high horse about it, like a heroin addict may slight a “straight” man for not wanting to feel the same rush… as they vainly try to push another needle into a collapsed vein.

Mark: here’s the deal. My mom saved everything during her life. Never had any fun. Never bought herself anything nice. Rarely came and visited us. Didn’t listen to rock and roll. Went to church every weekend. Ate healthy food.

She died when she was 66 and left her money to me and my brothers.

So, excuse me. By the way, I’ve done the used car thing. Drove an Acura I paid $4,000 for four years. I’ll tell you, yes, the BMW IS that much better. So is my big screen.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, this whole post was a repudiation of my mom’s choices.

We’re all going to end up in a cardboard box someday heading into the fire. Hope you enjoy that money you’re saving. Or maybe your kids will.

@64 … I agree on the charity front… given the rock bottom prices of some things I saw when buying a few electronics essentials online — things like 1000Gb hard drives and max-speed dual layer DVD drives that, only two or three years ago, would have been somewhere on the border between fantasy and hellishly expensive — followed up by a TV advert for a store selling 14.99 DVD players and 24.99 3-megapixel digital cameras… it did prompt me to comment to a friend: Look at how far we’ve come. All this mindblowing technology that, given a couple months sacrifice of bubblegum, an 8-year-old could afford. Yet people still die of hunger in their millions. What the damn hell are we doing wrong?

The good thing about being wise with your money – and, i guess, hanging on to your 35mm camera and VHS player until these particular products came along – means you have much more left over with which to be generous. I can’t claim a great superiority in these stakes, as I have to be careful until I’ve got a steady job again. But I don’t stinge either, as I know I can at least afford some, and when I’m settled, comfortably afford quite a bit.

PS what would Scoble’s view be on the “get out of debt now! buy that new TV/Car/etc! We can give you credit even if you’ve been previously refused!” doorstep collection loan sharks who specifically target the poor and money-clueless with their relentless ad campaigns and very shiny, legit- and caring-looking businesses… that quietly charge them a frankly otherworldly and almost completely unaffordable 177% annual rate (or far, FAR more!) ??? Surely one of the best examples that mindless reliance on credit is a bad thing.

Don’t totally cut up your credit cards – they can be handy to get you out of a scrape (saved my ass once or twice when an urgent, beyond-bank-balance emergency payment was needed QUICKLY, I had no chance of getting an equivalent loan, but knew i could comfortably pay it and it’s interest off ASAP later).. but don’t go purposely putting large luxury items on there, that you WANT but don’t NEED and can’t easily afford otherwise. That’s just dumb.

Mark: I shouldn’t have advocated getting into debt that way. But, for a family who goes to the movies twice a month in a major city, this is an entertainment choice that makes a lot of sense.

As for saving the hungry, I support that too. But most people are self interested and want to have decent entertainment, nice meals, good transportation, etc etc.

I’m not going to apologize for buying a big screen on credit. Even expensive credit.

Heck, even that’s helping someone feed their families and stay employed.

Lol, where did I say I’m going to follow your mom and save all my money my entire life? No. A sense of balance sir. I’ll save for my retirement, because unlike her tragically early death, the overwhelming likelihood is that I’ll live into my 80s, and there’s no sense betting on a short, fun-filled life only to be in abject poverty later. And I’ll save up for the things I want, to have a sense of pride and acheivement that I managed to do it, rather than relief and release when it’s finally paid off later.

But I’m not going to pour every last penny into my savings and not have some fun now either; that’s just scroogelike and is saving for the heck of it, just like spending for the hell of it. I’m enjoying life, while I’m young enough too. I’ve just also got one eye on the future and am not being suckered into the idea that I need to get an HDTV so bad that I’ll put it on credit and ultimately pay way over the odds.

Just because your mother went totally to one extreme and then found the choice was wasted doesn’t mean you have to go completely the other way and preach to us to follow it. Besides, you have the liberty to do all this stuff, as you had that inheritance. My GRANDPARENTS are still alive, let alone my parents. Inheritance – what little I’ll get, as they grew up in poor neighbourhoods and had little money left even WITHOUT buying masses of stuff – is still a long way off.

And just to belatedly climb off my own hypocritical high horse… you folks all do what you want. I don’t really give a crap, which is why this is the first time I’ve felt motivated to make such speeches (in response to your own post). Wreck it if you like, or work hard, buy stuff on credit, and still come out shiny side up because you have the leeway. But I know which way I’m going, and it involves giving as little needless payment to moneylenders as possible.

PS My dad, before he nose-dove into bankrupcy, had BMWs, Mercedes, whatever, in a brief fling with thinking he knew how to spend big and not lose out. The SLK was quite nice, but impractical for most daily use. The Beemers were mostly awful pieces of metal that he couldn’t get rid of fast enough; the modest Citroen that replaced them and ran for a good 10 years was a far nicer, more comfortable (cruised all the way across europe and back, no problem), and more reliable vehicle, if just not as fast or as “bling”. Plus it had this neat trick where you could make it go up and down when stuck in traffic thanks to it’s standard-fit air suspension.

Eh, never mind. Disregard that. I don’t fancy getting into a flamewar and hope i haven’t started one. It’s past 4am for gods sake – not a good idea to be on the net at this time

Heheh. A good flamewar is fun once in a while.

One thing I appreciate is I have smart readers. I expect that they’ll make their own choices to fit their own lifestyles.

Me, I haven’t splurged on a whole lot in my life and so I have an HDTV screen that costs me $140 a month and a BMW that costs me $750 a month.

I used to pay $1,100 a month in alimony (that ended in July), so I’m still ahead of the game there.

And I really don’t care that I paid too much in interest. I have my big screen now and can enjoy it for four years while you’re saving up and waiting for Moore’s law to bring yours down into reach.

And it is beautiful. When you get yours you’ll ask, like my wife did “why did we wait so long?”

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LOL! That is why most people are now in foreclosure. This is the most stupid advice I've read in a looong time!