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Comment by Newky | Hacker News Reader

I loved this article as it clearly demonstrates Jeff's love of all hardware. There is no real hatred for any brand here, and he complements all the major devices while remaining objective.

One comment I would make is regarding this, "I knew that the Nexus 7 was really working for me when I gave mine to my father as a spontaneous gift while he was visiting, then missed it sorely when waiting for the replacement to arrive.". I know that Jeff is above my pay bracket, but even still, this makes me wonder what sort of money stream this is, if he can simply hand away Nexus 7's. I earn a respectful living but that sort of money is still substantial enough that I can't afford to simply give one away.

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Say he buys these gadgets in a year:

  1 high end laptop - $1500
  1 netbook - $500
  2 phones - $500 X 2
  2 tablets - $500 + $250
  1 ereader - $100
  1 cool TV device - $250
  accessories $500

  Total: $390 per month

It's a lot more than I spend but it definitely isn't super rich level spending. If someone spent $390 owning a nicer car, a fancier kitchen, slightly better apartment, a Harley Davidson, etc. you wouldn't even think about it. I knew students that spent $390 more than me (I spent 0) on clothes.

He has money. He likes computers.

Wow, you just absolved me of a lot of guilt over my tech purchases this year so far.

de nada

To be fair, he also owns at least one desktop with several 30 inch screens and probably a nice TV. I admit, when you make it a monthtly cost it's not that high, but 390$ a month is still almost 5k a year, which means most people would be working full time for between 1 and 5 full months a year just to pay for gadgets.

Sure you can. You must spend, over the course of a year, spend E300 on nothing (fancy meal you forget about as soon as your eyes close that night, pints in the pub, that vacation you planned for a month but wasn't as much fun as expected). That could've gone in that give-away Nexus 7.

Maybe for you this is not true and maybe you spend consciously, but people usually don't do real personal money management; if they pretend they do, they usually kid themselves by leaving things out conveniently. I don't do it because I find it an utter waste of time, but I tried it for a year and I was amazed and frightened how much I spend on completely nothing and for no apparent reason than instant gratification. Which can be important, but too much of it is like an addiction.

What I do as gifts is go on Ebay (or something like Ebay locally) and buy broken devices. People who's Nexus 7 doesn't work anymore, who's iPad 2 croaked, netbooks / laptops died, TVs 'just not turning on'. We live in the throw-away age, so often even WITH warranty people cannot be bothered to have things fixed. Especially when they cost < $300 it's not worth 'going to the other side of town' for. And usually (almost always) it's simple to fix. So you buy something broken for $10, figure out what is wrong (in my experience it's almost always related to the power supply/battery) and fix it. Then give it as a gift. Effect is the same, it's a nice hobby (well I like it) and I can make more people happy than buying new things.

I've recently bought some financial software for my Mac, can't recall its name but it's pretty good. I can import my credit card statements into it and categorise all my transactions so I can see (and report on) what my money is going on.

Gives a great incentive to see where savings can be made

Jumsoft Money?

I didn't try to automate it; I just wrote everything down in a little book, even $0.50 at the grocery store and put it all in a spreadsheet at home. Unless you really pay everything with your CC (which here, in Europe, would be very strange), you would miss things, or at least not know where they went.

For instance; I get $100 from the ATM, I pay part of a business diner with that for $90, then I have $10 left. The $100 is registered on my CC so $100 goes into my business account, while $10 I spent on some magazine at the train station while I was bored. The $100 for the business would be; 'wow we got the client, well spent!' while the $10 went into the black hole as I won't ever touch that mag after getting off the train.

He gave it to his father. That's a bit different from handing them out on the street.

I imagine he's doing quite well though.

After reading his post on quality chairs, I have no doubt he is well off.

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/07/investing-in-a-qual...

Not sure why, you don't need to be rich to want a good chair when you spend hours on end in one. Of course you do need a bit of disposable income, but it's a question of priorities and necessities. I've been foregoing cars for a decade now because I try to live close to work in places where there is sufficient access to public transportations, it's a hassle for some things (going back to the family, fetching "big" groceries) but it avoids other issues and saves money which I can spend on more books or a better chair. I got myself a humanscale liberty a few years ago, I found it a good investment and amortized over the years I've owned it, it hasn't been that expensive. More expensive than getting a $20 chair every year, but it still looks and feels mostly brand new.

because when you're poor you worry about food and medical bills, not chairs.

come on, it's not hard to understand that other people may have less than you.

The world isn't divided into "poor" and "rich". A chair for a programmer, particularly an independent one, is one of the tools that you need to work effectively.

A friend of mine is an independent auto mechanic who has been in the business since he was 15 (about 20 years). He now owns a small shop, and probably nets a good "salary" similar to many IT professionals ($90-150k). Not rich, not poor.

Guess what? He doesn't use a Craftsman mechanics toolkit from Sears. He has an long-term investment in high quality tools from vendors like Snap-On to the tune of $50-60k. Cheap tools would cost 1/3-1/2 that, but guess what -- a broken wrench means that he isn't working, and his time is worth $90/hour, and the high-end vendor comes to him, so he doesn't waste time in stores.

As a programmer or IT type person, your brain is your primary tool, but it depends upon the working order of all of the supporting tools in your body to perform optimally. When your job involves sitting on your ass for most of the day, a proper chair is just like a $75 high quality wrench for a mechanic -- a good investment.

My buddy in the construction business spends way more on his tools than I possibly could as a software engineer, even if I bought a new Aeron chair, latest Mac Book Retina, and a 30" display each year.

I would also agree, the cost of being a mechanic is much higher than the cost to be a programmer of almost any kind.

I'm pretty sure not worrying about food budget isn't what SquareWheel meant by "well-off".

Perhaps "well off" was the wrong term. I simply mean that a ~$1000 chair is considered a "luxury purchase" that many aren't able to make. Even as a programmer who sits for the majority of the day, there are many other priorities that tend to come first and you would need a fair amount of financial comfort to make said purchase.

But I feel it's not appropriate to speak of how someone else should be spending their money. I regret the initial comment.

AKA. "I can't afford to buy cheap". I also think that bed mattresses are worth investing in, since you spend 1/3 - 1/4 of your life in it, and being well-rested helps in being productive.

Closer to "I can afford not to buy cheap" I think.

On the other hand, don't discount cheap ones simply because they are cheap.

I got my old memory foam mattress from Woot. It made me sleep so soundly that after a couple years, I started waking up with back pain. Slept all night, but woke up in pain. Gave it to my Mom (best sleep she's ever had, too) and bought a hybrid from Ikea. Still way better than any other boxspring mattress I've owned, and ridiculously cheap.

So yes, they are worth investing in... But that doesn't mean you have to pay a lot.

Sadly, I cannot find an Ikea chair/couch that's comfortable. Still working on that purchase.

I really get that sentiment—there are an awful lot of ways to be penny wise and pound foolish in this world. You can go through a lot of $150/pr "dress shoes" before you even need to resole a good pair, for instance, and if you need to be dressed up (for work or even for frequent meetings) you can go broke saving money. And trying to save money on your tools (and for a full-time coder, even a chair is a tool) is going to cost you in productivity over the long haul.

On the other hand, I've found that there's nothing better for my back (or my sleep in general) than a properly-inflated air bed (and I had severe back problems for years). (It started as an interim solution when I beat my furniture to a working location by nearly a week.) That works out to about $30 per annum around these parts, and although there are "real" versions with long-term guarantees and fancy fabric coverings (a standard mattress pad gives the same feel) the price differential isn't an incentive to give up the "replace annually" variety.

Depends on the person, a few years ago I spent over $10k in a year on other people[1], I bought people iPhones, TVs, laptops, flights, all manner of things. I was only making $100k/year at the time. There are people making 5x that who would never spend that much money on other people... it's entirely plausible someone could be making an average tech salary and have no problem arbitrarily handing out "expensive" things if they don't really care about money.

[1] I got over this awful habit and no longer do it, thankfully.

According to the profile, you live in Ireland. PayScale says your salary should be at least in the 50.000 euro range.

I think you could definitely give a Nexus as a gift to your father if you wanted to.

It depends on whether you think it would be a gift he'd appreciate and use, I guess. I've given a laptop as a gift to my grandmother, and a Kindle as a gift to my uncle (we're very close), on a salary of U$ 10.000 yearly.

In both cases the devices were used extensively, and it was something they wouldn't have bought or couldn't have afforded themselves, and it made me very happy to see them use the devices (especially my grandmother, everybody was betting she wouldn't learn how to use it).

I have only one tablet, if my dad asked (thankfully he does not read HN), I would give it to him immediately. Being 'well off' is not synonymous with generosity.

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