Two years ago I wanted a laptop. I thought my life would easier if I could write during my 50-minute bus rides to the University of Washington.
But then I examined the potential purchase the way I examined all others:
- Can I really justify the expense vs. the payoff?
- If I got it, would my life be significantly improved?
- If I didn’t, would my life by substantially diminished?
No, no and no. Buying the laptop would have meant dipping into my nascent emergency fund. It also would have meant one more thing to carry – and a backpack jammed with textbooks and my daily brown-bag lunch already had me feeling that I was toting my house on my back.
In other words, it would have amounted to a very expensive shoulder ache.