My budget has been “don’t spend too much” for the last 10 years and it’s worked out wonderfully. You don’t need a clever laid out plan, you just need to ask yourself “how can I spend even less ?”
Cancel every subscription immediately unless you actually need it. Pirate everything. Get everything on sale or thrift it. Either buy the cheapest thing you can, or spend enough to buy the indestructible version you’ll keep for 15-20 years. Fix problems immediately for cheap before they get expensive.
As a result I’m still managing to save up money while my income is under 10K a year.
I’m in the Savage camp. Get the cheapest tool first, use it until it’s insufficient. By that time, you should have figured out which features you actually need, which you don’t, and what a good tool looks like.
I’m not always certain which tools will get significant usage (some, yes, but not all). If I bought the “good” tool every time, I’d have thousands of dollars sunk into tools I rarely use.
If you have a determined field, yeah sure, spend the money up front. But if you’re a dabbler, you spend less overall cheaping out on entry models.
My budget has been “don’t spend too much” for the last 10 years and it’s worked out wonderfully. You don’t need a clever laid out plan, you just need to ask yourself “how can I spend even less ?”
Cancel every subscription immediately unless you actually need it. Pirate everything. Get everything on sale or thrift it. Either buy the cheapest thing you can, or spend enough to buy the indestructible version you’ll keep for 15-20 years. Fix problems immediately for cheap before they get expensive.
As a result I’m still managing to save up money while my income is under 10K a year.
For tools you need it is so important to keep in mind that if:
you definitely need it only once - get the cheap one.
you will use it in the future - get the expensive one that laborers use.
Cheap tools are a money and a time sink
I’m in the Savage camp. Get the cheapest tool first, use it until it’s insufficient. By that time, you should have figured out which features you actually need, which you don’t, and what a good tool looks like.
I’m not always certain which tools will get significant usage (some, yes, but not all). If I bought the “good” tool every time, I’d have thousands of dollars sunk into tools I rarely use.
If you have a determined field, yeah sure, spend the money up front. But if you’re a dabbler, you spend less overall cheaping out on entry models.
Same. My philosophy has always been to spend as little as possible and got my debts paid as soon as possible so they’re not hanging over my head.