I used to work for a national cell phone company in the US. I was a customer service agent (then tech support, credit, and eventually financial services) who answered the phone whenever a customer called our 800 number. I was just out of high school and this job paid better than any other I had had up until that time in my life. I didn't want to go to college because I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life. I figured if I'm spending thousands and thousands of dollars for school I better have at least a sense of what I wanted to study. I didn't, so answering phones it was.
While working for this company I learned the ins and outs of cell phones. It's good to know how the internals of these companies work.
Know thy enemy, or something.
At that time, I, of course, hadn't ever even heard of MMM, ERE, frugality, saving money, etc. What I had heard of was that if you put your sim card into a different handset it will work! I set out getting new phones almost as quickly as they came out. Because I worked for the company I wasn't on a contract and we also got heavy discounts on phones. But I didn't stop there I took to the internet going as far as importing phones from Europe (at that time European phones where da shizznit and USA phones pretty much sucked). I wanted to newest, latest, and greatest. In the close to three years working there I had
thirty different phones. Yes, thirty. I had more phones than most people will have in their entire life cell phone usage.
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| Not exactly my collection but close. |
What if I had upgraded maybe one a year? Or really pushed it and upgraded every two years? Would it really have killed me to stick with a phone from *gasp*
a year ago?
Of course the answer is no. Recently I've started thinking about the age of my stuff. How old really is the stuff that I have? How often am I replacing something and does it really need to be replaced or am I just anxious?
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| Maybe my suit isn't this old, but it's old. |
I think the oldest thing I own is a suit. If I remember right my grand father bought me this suit when I was fourteen or fifteen. I'm not thirty one so this thing is pushing almost seventeen years old. I still use this suit for work to this day. It's seen me through several interviews, Christmas parties, and now countless English lessons.
After that I think my guitar would be the next oldest thing I own. It's about 12 years old. But the difference is is that I don't really play guitar. It's just kind of followed me around the world. I've replaced the string on it a few time and it was a present so I've never really sank a ton of money into it.
Looking at the rest of my stuff I think I can pretty confidently say it's all less than 5 years old. Some things like suits or clothes I didn't really need more than 5 years ago. Other things like my bike and some videogames are even less than one year old.
Since embarking on this adventure for financial freedom I've really changed the way I shop. I used to upgrade, add on, and sign up for things without even thinking of it. Now, like my stocks, I'm buying for the long run. When I buy something now I really think "Will I use this for 10 years?" "Is what I'm about to buy really so useful it will pay me back over time?"
I have used an iPhone 4 for two years and it is reaching the end of it's useful life according to everyone that isn't me. I'm going to shock my younger self by not upgrading this phone for another for another two years and if it's still working then I just might use it for two more.
What do you think about when you buy stuff? Hold old is your stuff?
