What an interesting mindset/scenario this was. Imagine that you are currently using a pre-paid phone plan that costs about $12/month where you get sixty minutes of talk a month and it auto renews. Every month that you have unused minutes it carries over until you use up the minutes or cease to pay for a month. There is then this other plan that gives you the same minutes except it is about $7 a month and unused minutes simply get thrown out. Now for the person’s usage they barely even use 30 minutes a month. Which one do you think is better for them?

Interesting thing was I thought the second option would make more sense. However, the person was adamant in keeping the $12 plan because they insisted that since they get the minutes carried over that it is a better deal. Points were then brought up that if it ever turned out that they did need more then 60 minutes a month then it would be worth it. From what I saw though that has never been the case for years the person has been on that plan.

I suppose it is just hard for many people to give up having more even if they don’t use it. Makes you think at how many other things like this we do which ultimately just ends up making people spend more.

So today I attended this event to learn a bit more on how to fully use this digital DSLR I bought. For the most part, I am glad that I forced myself to learn as much as possible about it as in my mind it would simply be a waste to pay all this money for high end features in a product and not using it to its full capacity.

What was interesting was that there were a lot of of people there as well and it is kind of humorous when you think about it where so many people didn’t even know that some of the most basic functions existed. It’s almost like buying a HD-PVR box where you had no clue that you can record TV clips or even watch things in HD.

Even I felt a little silly about some of the most simple things that I didn’t know about since I am so used to using a basic point and shoot camera. All went well though in the end and now it’s time to practice my new found knowledge.

Funny comment I received today as a person who I was working with on a project saw that I was using a cell phone that is about three years old which does not have the latest features that you would see in a more current phone. He immediately commented by saying that it was time for me to get an iPhone. I then responded by asking why I would want to get that just to spend more money? Sure enough, there was no real answer to that.

While granted I am still in the market for a new one, this is almost like peer pressure spending for adults I thought. Imagine how much money a year you would waste if you ended up buying things like this simply because people say you should have it since so many others do. For myself it usually takes me a good week of thinking before I ever plunge into a purchase like that. This gives you time to make sure that you are buying it truly because you want to as opposed to hype or pressure from others.

The other day I saw a person carrying what looked like three replaceable batteries for his cell phone. I guess evidently he is on it all the time. Therefore, he wants to make sure that he can use it without the fear that he will run out of power. As strange as this may sound, in some ways I am inclined to say if you need like three batteries for the day you are using the product too much which ultimately means spending more money.

It’s almost like over indulging where I feel this habit will just lead to careless spending and dependence on something. Therefore, I usually think about it with things like a cellphone and my usage. If I know the battery will last for 5 hours straight of phone talking for the day and it seems like I need more batteries then my thought is that I am using it way too much to begin with. Therefore, this makes me think of what I can do to not have to use it so much while avoiding to buy and carry more products just to satisfy that habit.

It’s usually about moderation right? With this example in particular I would be inclined to find other means of communication such as actually meeting people face to face if I intend to speak with a person for a great length of time. It’s not even so much about self control I’d say too as opposed to thinking of different ways to accomplish the same goal without having to spend more simply because you can.

Today I went to a restaurant as someone wanted to introduce me to another person. On the way he appeared to have lost the address to the place in question and his friend wasn’t picking up the phone. Therefore, I just started browsing the Internet with my phone and found the exact address of the place.

He then told me how he should subscribe to service plans like that as it must be very useful. I was just thinking how data plans are super expensive here and if all you are using it for is to find the address of places in rare instances it doesn’t really seem worth it.

That reminds me of most items that we buy where we read about all these features that we try to justify to ourselves in buying when really for the most part we are not getting the full use out of it. I suppose it’s like saying what is the point of buying an expensive GPS device if the person usually goes back and fourth to the exact same places all the time while not traveling much?

In some ways having too many gizmos and fancy features make you lazy from doing the simple things. Like this I’m sure the wiser thing would have been to do is write down the address. No need to spend more just for little usages on items like this.