When I was in my high school years I had a friend who sat me in his car and explained to me step by step as to why his new purchase of a mini-disc player was going to the next biggest thing. I think he mentioned that he had paid somewhere in the area of $300-400 for the player. It was “worth every penny” and he was going to make sure I agreed with him by the end of his presentation.

I’m very much a tech guy so I of course was preparing to be blown away, but from the minute he popped in the first mini-disc I realized in the back of my mind that this was definitely not going to be the next great format for music. Call it a vision or a prediction, but I just knew it. He had finally finished his sales pitch and asked me what I thought. I looked him straight in the eye and said, “How is this any different than the cassette player you already had in the car?”

He was immediately taken a back to my comment as if I had questioned his very manhood. I continued to explain why I thought this technology wouldn’t take off yet I couldn’t convince him otherwise. After a while it became obvious to me that his hard sell wasn’t so much to get me to see the future of music recording and playback, as it was to justify him spending $300-400. A few months later mini-disc was nothing to be heard of, and I never bothered with the “I told you so” statement. I had essentially dodged a financial bullet by missing the boat.

This same friend over the years would again and again give me a presentation as to why his snowboard, shoes, watch, video game system, movies, and TV were all the top of the line and why I should be running out to pick one up. But I never bit. Not only were some of these purchases related to hobbies that I had no interest in, but they all came with a hefty price tag. In his eyes their price meant quality and I was always missing the boat.

Looking back on it I can say with pride in my younger self that missing the boat was the best thing I could have done for my future self financially. Sure I technically “missed the boat”, however someone else built the boat and obviously it only got a few miles out before it sank. So before you sink any large some of money into a new gadget or purchase, just do your future self a favor and take a second and think about the quality of the boat you are about to climb into and whether you need to make that trip at all (For those of you into tech I especially recommend heavily researching reviews before any purchase).

We all encounter pressure from marketing, advertising, and those around us to check out “this new item” and hear how it’s going to “change our lives as we know it”. However, the more you look at the concepts of why you may purchase an item the easier it is not to rush a possible ill decision of spending $300 dollars when we live in an age where the next best thing literally just got beat out by the new next best thing a second later. Plus as I mentioned in an earlier post about impulse… If you wait a few months past the craziness of the hype you can most likely make the trip for cheaper and less long lines. But mostly when you’re in debt, every single penny that leaves your bank account should be serving some purpose that facilitates you getting out of that debt, rather than sinking you in further.

A good exercise is to physically look at all the new purchases you have made in the last year and answer a few questions (writing this all down can help you see in a bigger scale the scope of your purchasing history):

• How much was this when I purchased it?

• How much do I use it currently right now?

• How much does it sell for now brand-new?

Chances are a good bit of these items were more expensive than you would pay now for them brand new if they came out tomorrow, are used less than you convinced yourself you would use them when you purchased them, and are now on sale for much less than they cost you on day one.

Over and over again I find that even 6 months after a release day the price of most any hot product comes down enough to be considered a more rational purchase. This only becomes more and more rational as more time goes by. Sure you wont be first to show it off, but do you really want to be that person? Plus with most big purchases its best to let the market prove that the product can withstand hiccups such as faulty manufacturing and software issues while also showing real long lasting functionality.

So do yourself a favor and feel free to miss the boat more than not, because most likely it’s going to save you a bundle and your future self will thank you for it!