How to Save Money for Gadgets

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A community member writes: “Being 14, I find that 99.99% of the time, no one will help me buy my geeky gadgets.I have created a list from my experiences on how to save money for your tech-related stuff.”

• If you are short on cash, start a small business. Since I am only 14 and cannot get a ‘normal’ job yet, I sell computer parts on eBay. I have my own eBay store where I make a little over $100 a week, just from selling RAM and Hard Drives. The point is that on some websites, you can make money on the side with little effort. All you need to do is post a blog with AdSense or try to put up an EBay listing. These are very efficient ways to make money without much time or effort.
• Don’t spend your money on stuff you don’t need. You don’t need to go to the movies 3 times a week. You can spend a little money once in a while, but put it towards the things you really want. Also, don’t buy a new notebook instead of paying your rent. Priorities come over tech items. How are you going to play XBox Live if you forgot to pay the electric bill? If you casually watch your money, you will notice quickly that buying your gadgets is not such a difficult task. Buying the store-brand items is not that much of a difference, other than the brand name items. Speaking of this, software is very similar. There is almost always a Freeware or Open-Source alternative. A very good example is GIMP or Seashore compared to a very expensive Photoshop.
• Put a little money away. Instead of buying a fancy $60 meal, put $5-20 away a week. This adds up quickly. You won’t believe how quickly you will have money to buy the latest video game or something similar. Putting the money in the bank is also a good idea as you cannot touch it as easily as it would be if you had it in your wallet.
• Look for good retailers, and discounts. As I know Chris has some really amazing coupons for software and things like that. Newegg is an amazing electronics retailer. I buy almost all of my electronics from them. It is like the Costco for Geeks. I have bought my Hard Drive, RAM, external Hard Drive and more from them. I highly recommend buying from retailers that sell the same product, but at a more affordable price. Just look around, before you pay an extra $100 for an item.
• Most geeks have a bunch of Tech items that we don’t need, but others want. I bought an iPhone a few months ago, so why would I need a 5th gen iPod Classic? Sell the unneeded items on eBay or Craigslist to “save” money on another gadget. This works very well with video games, as EB games. They buy your old games for cheap prices, and you can use that money to buy a new game. Sell your old Hard Drive… get rid of the RAM you just upgraded from… you get the idea. If you don’t need something don’t throw it away… sell it.

POST UPDATE Tom wrote in after this was posted, to offer his method of saving for gadgets to us all!

I wanted to follow up that post by sharing one of my own little methods of saving money for gadgets. I use a simple spreadsheet to track what I have saved, and what I would like to buy. It tracks all the contributions I’ve made to my gadget fund, and tells me how much more I would need to save in order to buy each desired gadget. I primarily use this to save up for photographic equipment, which can be quite expensive. It’s not a very advanced spreadsheet, but it’s not supposed to be… it’s meant to be more of a psychological tool to encourage responsible spending. Sure, I could just grab the money from my short-term savings and pay it back later, but impulse spending is entirely too destructive in the long term. Instead, I prefer to put away small amounts of money over a reasonable amount of time. In the end, it’s much more fulfilling, not to mention responsible.

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