I never thought I would write an blog for my shopping habits, especially for the last twenty years. Part of reason that I can do this is that Amazon/Gmail/Ebay help me to pull records from the past so that I can put them on an online sheet.
After I collect the list, I’m very curious what the list tells me. I don’t need big data because I almost remembered every gadgets that I bought and I happen to know whether they are worth or not based on whether I still like them or not today. This is an interesting discovery for myself.
Computer isn’t worth to invest
I know this conclusion is quite controversial even to myself, considering I’m doing computer business. But computer cost too much overall on my list. An investment on a computer could weigh about ten to twenty other items. But the most shocking news is that I’m not using any of the computer I purchased in the list, even including the one that I purchased four years ago. Man, it’s in about $10,000 category, I don’t really want to add them up to be honest to get accurate number. I found it hard (or shame) to accept.
Part of reason these computers are not used any more is that these days I work with company assigned computer, so I always get better computer every time. Another part of reason is that I find computer isn’t that useful in terms of the number. One computer might be good enough. So if you have multiple computers hanging in the house, it’s a sign of inefficiency for sure. This analysis is only from my past experience.
This list also includes Game consoles, I rarely find time to play large games after I turn 30 years old. These days I only play games cost at most $5 over the years. I know I’m cheap, but I just don’t find large games that attractive in any way. I don’t even have time to figure out what they want me to do, sadly speaking. They are designed way too complicate for my little old brain to comprehend.
What is worth then?
Next question that I found it shocking is, what is worth then? Weird.
Small things. A knife, a book, a keyboard, and all cheap things believe it or not. I can list couple of examples here:
- Mac wireless keyboard comes with iMac 27" purchase on 2013, $0
- An used wireless Sony headset purchased on 2023, $148
- Rocketbook notebook purchased on 2023, $22
- An used iPhone 12 Mini 128G purchased on 2024, $228
- Usb C to USB adaptor purchased recently for $8
I have twenty to thirty favorite items that I marked as useful, or what I declared as worthwhile. An interesting discovery is that the higher purchase value of the item, the less tendency I would keep them as favorite over the years. This is counter intuitive. I can’t explain it. But this is a fact when it comes to the computer/digital related stuff.
In general anything above $400 isn’t going to be in the list. There’s exceptions. Tv and monitors are exceptions. Maybe I only purchase high-end monitors, sometimes from eBay. But most of my purchases turn out to be worth-while:
- LG 21.5" UltraFine purchased from Ebay on 2022, $225
- LG 40–50" TV purchased from Bestbuy around 2014, $2000 (yeah it was quite expensive at that time)
I don’t know, I tend not to throw away tv/monitor that are still working, I guess.
Things can’t be throw away
I think whether things are worth might be related to whether you can throw them away when you can and whether you want. For instance, all furnitures are not in the list. Yes I tend to keep most of the furniture. So maybe it is worth to invest more money on furniture even when they are expensive.
If things are too large or too expensive to be thrown away, things that are small can’t be hard to throw away when they are extremely useful, such as a small adaptor. My recording cables/adaptors and even mic are still with me. My screw drivers yes. Interesting, you can also replace them with others, but you know what, as long as they are working, who would want to throw them away.
So if things don’t break, and continue to be working, we’ll keep them. Best of part, they are cheap almost negligible comparing to others. So I should buy more and more often in the future.
Conclusion
Funny, my style of living has drastically changed over the past twenty years, but there’re things that I continue to keep with me. Over all the items, the cheaper the better chance that I keep them with me. This is really annoyingly strange and this would change my view of shopping in the future as well.
