I tend to be someone who runs at the base of what I need until I begrudgingly have to up that base for some reason. I don’t like to spend money even though I can afford to do it now and again. To be clear, I am not skimping on the basics by any mean. I don’t have to worry about my next meal or putting clothes on my back. My cat lives a life of luxury with many cat perches and the best food possible. In fact, he’s sitting in front of my keyboard right now (slightly blocking one of my monitors). My brother said I spoiled him too much, but why the hell not? I love him and can afford to spoil him. I don’t have kids so he’s the main object of my affection. So if I want to lavish him with beds and treats and whatever else, that’s my choice. It’s still not that much money in the grand scheme of things, however. The only thing I buy him on the regular is food–and litter.
I grew up thrifty. Everyone in my family acts as if we have nothing. For my father, it stems from the fact that he grew up in a very poor family. His father was a farmer who refused to work for years. Why? I can’t quite remember why, but it had something to do with moving? His wife wanted to move and he didn’t? Or something to that effect? Anyway, he didn’t work for many years so the family was even poorer as a result. He had four brothers and sisters (two of each) and he was the only one who was allowed to go to grad school in America. He and my mom sent money back to his family every month. My mother came from a solidly middle-class family, but she had seven brothers and sisters, so it wasn’t as if they had money to spare, either. Half of the eight kids ended up in America for post-grad (and remained on this side of the ocean), including my mother. I think it’s the oldest four, in fact, which is interesting.
The point is that both my parents are from humble beginnings. We were dirt poor when I was a kid. We slowly became middle class over the years, but the “we’re poor” mentality persisted well past the point where it was true. My father is weird with money. he would pinch pennies ruthlessly, complaining about kiwis being two for a dollar. Then, he would turn around and buy a fifty dollar water pick without a second thought. I think I have a bit of t hat in me except I think a long time before I buy anything. Then, it seems as if I did it on the spur of the moment because I go all in once I actually make the decision. Like when I adopted my cats. I went on Petfinder and looked at black cats by the dozens. My only criteria were that they be brothers and not very clingy. That was it. I saw hundreds of black brother cats and my eye was caught by the description Shadow’s foster mother had written for him. It said that he knew what I was thinking because he was psychic, which immediately endeared me to him. And that I needed two cats. I fell in love and when I found out that they were going to be at the local Petco (or PetSmart) the next day, I knew it was fate. I went and loaded down on everything I needed, but not the boys. Their foster mother didn’t bring Shadow to the event because he hated them and no one ever looked at them at the five or six previous events. I went to her house a few days later to pick up the boys and brought them home. Yes, it seemed like I had made the decision on an impulse, but I had been looking for a few months before actually adopting them.
I live a pretty spartan life. for the most part, I only buy food on the regular–and my meds once a month. I have insurance so the latter is a few bucks a pop. I give a few bucks to a few different content creators on Patreon and I have my monthly Taiji fees. Other than that, however, I don’t spend money. It’s not a Puritan thing; it’s just that I don’t want for anything. I will say that the one time I splash a bit of money is when I get a new computer. Even then, however, I try to do it as cheaply as possible. I will always get an SSD (my god. How did I live before SSD?) and at least 1 TB of storage (it goes alarmingly fast, what with games being upwards of 100 GB these days).
Side Note: I do think FromSoft did its PC users dirty by not releasing the specs for PC until a week-and-half before the game drops on PC. It’s not that surprising considering that Japanese developers don’t give a shit about PC players in part because the PC is not popular in Japan by far. The first Dark Souls game was ported to PC only after a lot of cajoling on the part of PC players. It was a notoriously shitty port and could only be playable with the DSfix by modder Durante. It was a god send and believe me, it made an unplayable port playable. With each successive game, the ports got better. But I still can’t help but feel that they don’t really think of PC players first.
Anyway! the last time I upgraded my laptop, I tried to do it as cheaply as possible. I wasn’t skimping by any means, but I was trying to keep the costs down. The thing is, though, that I spend most of my time on my computer. I use it for everything, ranging f rom writing these posts to writing fiction and other non-post-related works, and for doing my work for my brother as well. I watch YouTube vids on it and communicate with friends on it, too. Yes, I could get by or make do, but I really need to get a lot out of my computers. Not just the computer, either, but the peripherals as well. On any laptop I buy, the keyboard breaks in an alarmingly short amount of time. The last one broke after two weeks, I believe it was. I always have an external keyboards, but they aren’t much better. The cheap ones last me less than a year, for example. So when I bought my last laptop, I decided to upgrade the keyboard and buy a mechanical one with Cherry switches (clear). They’re supposed to last up to 50,000,000 keystrokes and are pleasingly tactile as well. They click as you type and are fairly firm–which is how I like it. The one I bought when I bought my laptop lasted two-and-a-half years, so make of that what you will.
My brother showed me a gaming keyboard that was half-off (President’s Day sale). The keys are mechanical, but not Cherry, and they are softer than the Cherry switches in my laptop mechanical keyboard. I was a bit skeptical about them being softer, but I love them. I love the keyboard. It’s still wonderfully tactile and clicks as I type. It’s supposed to last twice as long as Cherry switches so we’ll see about that. The letters are red and when I use a key, the letter turns from red to green–which is just cool. I’m sure there’s a ton of other things I can do with it, but I’m very pleased with it already. This is another way in which I will never go back again, by the way. Mechanical keyboard. It’s just heads and shoulders above a regular keyboard. The clicking. How durable it is. How great it feels to the touch. This is the problem with upgrading. Something new and probably more expensive quickly becomes the norm. I will never go back to a non-mechanical keyboard again. Just as I will never EVER not have SSD. 1 TB is the basement for storage space and two monitors has quickly become a need. I sort of jury-rigged something similar on my laptop by doing two sets of tabs side by side, but that’s on a screen that is smaller than one of my two screens in my desktop situation.
This is how it’s easy to justify upward creep in expenses. For me, it’s not me catapulting myself up several steps the ladder at one time. One of the issues with people winning lotteries is that they don’t change their habits once they get that big influx of cash. So if they already spend 100% of their influx, they are going to do the same when they make ten times the money. That’s just human nature. Even being aware of it, I upgraded several things when I bought my desktop. Yes, I could rationalize why I needed them, but did I really NEED them? No. On the other hand, could I afford them? Yes. Will they make my life much easier? Also yes. I think that’s what I need to realize as well. Yes, I’m upgrading in a way that’s not strictly necessary, but it’ll greatly improve my life.