Member-only story
Why Buying Tech Gadgets Makes You Poor (If You Are An Ordinary Person)
What I’ve Learned Today (#2): Buy financial knowledge, instead
For decades, I bought the latest tech gadgets on the market. In this way, I fed the feeling of living in the future of science fiction I read about as a boy. I dreamed of living in Star Trek.
Having dreams is good, as long as concrete goals are born from them. Otherwise, they are expensive liabilities, to put it with Robert Kyosaki in “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”. A liability is whatever takes away money from us.
Considering how much I spent on computers, smartphones, and various accessories, I want to disinherit myself!
What wasn’t clear to me? What is now clear to me after almost 50 years of life?
Well, life is much simpler than we would like to have alibis that hide our mistakes. What wasn’t clear is a straightforward double-question: “With each of my technological purchases, who gets rich? Can I afford those purchases?”
Who gets rich?
Do you know that calculation? If you had invested all the money you spent to buy all the iPhones from the first iPhone on sale, you would have more than €33k given an investment of about €15k.
