Comments on: Five Questions I Ask Myself Before Making a Purchase

By: Nabloid.com

Nabloid.com — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 22:40:51 +0000

I would say you worded your question wrong.

“How much do I need the product?” should be changed to

Do I really need the product and can I live without it comfortably and happily?

You’d be surprised how much you can live without!

By: Jamie

Jamie — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 18:27:47 +0000

One more consideration: How does this fit with how my spouse and I have agreed to handle our finances? Is it in the plan? Even if all the answers to your other questions make it a go, if it’s not part of the plan, you shouldn’t do it.

By: WealthBoy

WealthBoy — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:54:13 +0000

Another question to ask yourself is What would happen if I did not buy this? Rather than think about how much you might need something, it is sometimes better to think about how much you do not need it. Imagine yourself in the future without the product, whatever time frame you wish. Five days from now… Five years from now… Would you rather have the money in your pocket or the product you purchased? If you think about it in these terms, you may find yourself wanting to keep the money rather than the product.

By: tightfistedmiser

tightfistedmiser — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 13:30:34 +0000

This is a pretty popular subject for a post. I wrote a similar post a few months ago Six Questions to Ask Before Spending Money.

By: Calvin Froedge

Calvin Froedge — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 05:05:09 +0000

Somewhat similar situation to buying a product today, I have to admit that I tend to not pay attention to my finances (so says my GF). I got into a car accident today and it’s totalled and decided I never wanted to drive again, and just buy an apartment here in Nashville (I live in Cookeville about 1 1/2 hours away) to do business and be close to her, and I would take a taxi everywhere. Well, my GF (Amber, I think she’s a regular poster here?) told me I was being dumb and showed me in numbers how much of a waste of money that would be, even if my insurance does go up to $500 a month. So thanks to her and waiting for a cab today for 2 hours that never showed up, I think I decided to take half the money the insurance company gives me and buy a junker to drive and put the other half in savings. :) I’m proud of having such a smart girl >:P

By: Donny Gamble

Donny Gamble — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 03:05:58 +0000

The only question that I ask myself when making a purchase is how much money is it going to make me? If it doesn’t have a way that is going to make me money in the long run, 9 times out of 10 I won’t buy it.

By: Writer's Coin

Writer's Coin — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 01:38:15 +0000

I just went through this with my most recent purchase, Android’s G1 phone. It was rough shelling out the money for it but, like you said, I had done a lot of the research and got to the point where I knew I wanted it, I knew I had the money for it, and I knew I wanted it more than I wanted it.

Plus it helped that M gave me that last push I needed!

By: Aya @ Thrive

Aya @ Thrive — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 21:15:46 +0000

I am the type of person that always checks the price and spends about a million years trying to decide if I should make the purchase or not. Very rarely do I buy anything without thinking everything you’ve mentioned through. Except when it comes to books. For some reason I can easily drop $12 for a book, even though I’ll only read it once, but I have to reconsider a T-shirt that’s only about $10 dollars more but I can wear a bunch of times. I think now with all our online resources to research and find better prices, we should be more saavy as shoppers – I know I try to be (I’ve stood in a corner at the Container store, looking up staples.com on my ipod to compare prices).

By: Lazy Man

Lazy Man — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 18:09:44 +0000

That’s a great chart, but I hadn’t seen it. If I had seen that I probably would have included the step of checking to see if I had money to buy the item.

There’s also the in between area between the “need” and “want” of “this would be enhance my life.” It’s clearly not a need, but it’s clearly of more utility than the “want.”

And then I’d argue that he kind of missed the step of trying to save money on the item. He does have “research prices”, but I think that’s in researching the item itself. For instance you may find that a new Mustang costs between $25,000-27,000 (I don’t know what they cost), but the save money step says, “Can I get a good quality used one? What about a different similar car? How much is going to cost me in gas and do I really drive enough for that cost to be significant?”

Interestingly though, we both thought of the idea while trying to sleep.

By: dave

dave — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:59:55 +0000

I think you copied what has already been posted here…
http://www.ncnblog.com/2007/08/17/what-does-an-insomniac-who-has-personal-finance-blog-do-at-2am/