A friend sent me this piece of news. “This guy paid RM39,999 for a laptop” His remarks go along the line of ‘this guy must be xxxxx.” I replied, “It’s just a choice which he could afford.” Seriously, when it comes to buying things we like these days, it’s all about affordability of that choice. We could not buy because we could not afford, period. Of course, now we have credit cards which makes buying easier and paying back HARDER. Haha. I must admit that within 2017 itself, I have bought three new pairs of shoes but it is really because of their massive discounts. I did not pay full prices for them. Now imagine that guy who bought the RM39,999 for the laptop did not buy the laptop, he may not have enjoyed the fastest gaming speed possible to play his most favourite game He may have even lost in some of those multi-player games because he was slower by quarter of a second? He may then lose his bragging rights or even the prize money that was offered. This may just be the reason he bought the laptop. This is why we should just let it be… (Beatles’ famous song)
iPHONE X (Pronounced as TEN and not X, ok) has been launched. The base model should start from RM4,200. Many friends have indicated in Facebook that they are thinking of getting one. See, this is another way to tell everyone that they could afford this new smartphone. Perhaps all of them already own a property or two and thus no longer need much savings. 😛 Okay, plus the fact that this is what all the iPHONE supporters would call a perfect phone in the world of Androids. They even have a term for the photos taken on their ‘powerful’ camera, íPHONOEGRAPHY.’ A few actually grumbled that the new iPHONE is too highly priced already. Well, they can buy the current models which prices have been slashed. Still iPHONE lah. As for how much is APPLE earning as a company, here’s one. APPLE is a listed company and this is their gross profits. Pretty decent and based on my usual readings so far, it should be within the top 10% of all companies.
Whether it’s RM39,999 or RM4,200 or even my three pairs of shoes at around RM600, it’s really just a choice which we could afford. As for key learning, let’s just note that what we could afford now would affect what we could afford in the future. Take a look at this savings chart to have an idea how much just RM1,000 can grow to. What we could afford in future may just be lesser because of what we bought today. However, if you really need that something, buy that something. Just make sure you could afford it today, tomorrow and future. Yeah, its true. We may be earning much more money in the future too. Just remember that that RM50 note you have today may just buy you one meal in the future, even in Malaysia. My mum told me that a bowl of laksa was just ‘sepuluh sen’ 10 sen. Haha. Today it can buy you ONE sweet at the mamak restaurant. Happy buying whatever we could afford.
written on 14 Sept 2017
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