Do you budget personal compute power?

[ksj1]

I don't mean electrical power, though I suppose that would be part of the computation. The question though is, am I the only person who has a line item in their budget for what they spend on computers each month?

I have seen a lot of posts about how people don't need the power of these processors. I'm a dev and know the power will be used. Just wait.

In any case, I have a budget and I include what I spend on computers as part of it.

I went with 16/max/32/64/1tb since all other computers are paid off and it was within my 2 year budget (assume trade-in to M-X). With the trade in of my 2018 i9 it will cost me ~$104/month for the next 2 years.

This is simply a no-brainer for me. The time savings for my workflows will easily pay for this several times over. And I will have a high value trade-in in a couple years.

Am I the only one who looks at their compute resources this way?

 

[branchus]

I don't want this in my budget, but my wife budgeted all my electronic needs. not just computers, it breakdown to wires, accs, MCUs, keyboard, dock, graphic card, etc. the list is much longer than her beauty stuff.

I guess the difference is my income not rely on my computer... so she got a point

 

[Chancha]

Even so you may spend some time on that machine doing stuff that does not directly make you income. In that case it would be abstract to quantify how much power is used adequately since the return is just entertainment or happiness. Other times it is still not work, but just time savings in daily life that indirectly makes you money in a sense. Imagine if someone does use this new MBP purely not making money with it, he could still benefit financially by having such a machine.

Therefore I think this question becomes fuzzy once we entered a digital lifestyle probably as early as the original iMac or iPod days. Most Apple products are convergence devices that you can do so much with them, it is hard to simply classify it as a single purpose tool and calculate how much value its computing power has for you. It is for similar reason that "normies" find it justifiable to get the 1TB iPhone Pro Max since they use it all day all year, it is like an extension of their lives.

 

[lixuelai]

I don't keep a strict budget but do have some rough idea of my total spend a year just to keep it within reason. My job does not require personal compute power so it is purely a want. If my income depends on it however I think it makes perfect sense to plan and project the computing expenses.

That said though I've been thinking of the amount of time I'm spending debating about a MBP14 purchase. The amount of time in dollar terms probably could have bought one already...

 

[leman]

I also do something similar and I’m surprised that not more folks do it this way. One likes to complain how expensive Macs are, but the de-facto cost of ownership books down to the price of a couple of beers a month and you get a tool that’s not only great for the job but also a pleasure to use. I already pay the equivalent of 70$ per month for internet. It’s silly to claim that paying more for a laptop is “expensive”.

 

[alien3dx]

we don't budget but as doing business thing , 3 year cycle is important.being to max laptop not important because after 3 years dungeon allready improvement .

 

[wilberforce]

nvm