djnotts wrote: ↑2 Dec 2022, 11:32am
Vantage wrote: ↑2 Dec 2022, 8:58am
djnotts wrote: ↑1 Dec 2022, 7:58pm
Given my life expectancy can't justify more than a few '00 quid now.
I've been on benefits for over 10 years due to health issues. I genuinely can't see myself living to retirement age and if by some miracle I do, I'm certain I'll either be in a wheelchair or blind.
For those reasons, I can justify the huge cost of my bike. I'm going to do everything I can to enjoy life while I'm still able.
That's the other response and very admirable! Mine is driven by need to leave as much cash - and as little hassle selling stuff - as possible to my children. If both were as well placed as one is I would spend.
Good luck to you.
I've never scrapped a bicycle, despite having owned several over the decades. Ditto for many other items associated with hobbies; and now anything we buy must have this resilience from a scrapping-end. Unfortunately, it does take a certain amount of capital to buy such well-made things - but me and t'wife have always been savers and somehow failed to waste oodles of cash on ephemera such as foreign holidays and fashionable (for a couple of months) clothes, not to mention gallons of grog and packets of lung-rotters.
Here's a lesson I learnt about buying stuff: buy the best you can afford but avoid the law of diminishing returns. The advantages of doing this are:
* You get a proper thing that functions well, for a long time and might even look good.
* Such things tend to retain their long term value far better than do the cheaper things, which can often tend to dross.
* Retained (or even increased) value in things, even used, allows you to sell them on easily when you want a change.
* Retained value is not just monetary but also in quality - someone else now gets to use the thing for another decade.
* Good quality things, passed on when no longer needed, avoid the landfill.
As mentioned, it does take a wad of capital available for such purchases - but the advantages of saving for such a thing are great. The capital remains and you find that after you've sold on the well-made thing, you have a wodge to spend on the next well-made thing. You also have to practice maintenance. Being "kind" when using the things also helps.
Buying for fashion or because other Jones have got one is a big mistake. The rascals only get a different one next month and you have to keep up.
Cugel
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes