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No, seriously how can you afford a brand new iMac?

C

clamchowderz

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 7, 2008
42
0
Mountain View
Like most of you I am enamored with the new iMacs. I'm eyeing the i7 27-inch with SSD+HD Combo.

Which brings me to my question; where do you get the money to pay for these machines?

I am a student, so I dont have much money. I dont own a credit card and work approx. 20 hours a week @ $35 an hour. I live with my girlfriend and have the regular bills to pay. Rent is a modest $550 a month.

So, how do you do it? How can you afford to drop 2g's and still survive?

Maybe I am young and naive but I would really like to know how you can afford one these bad boys:)

Cheers!
 
Save money a couple of months before a refresh is usually my strategy. This time I'm thinking about getting it on a 3 months payment plan ($15 one time fee, 0% interest) from one of the big online stores in my country.
 
Hey,I'm in the same boat.I'm still wondering where I'm going to get the $400 dollars after selling my MB to get a 13"MBP for school,because I'm a AS in CIS networking and minoring in programing and need FW.If I had the cash I would through it down on a 27" i7 myself.I'm drooling over that high end ATI card with 1GB of VRAM.
 
Uh, 2,800 bucks a month and you can't afford one?

Where does all that money go? You said rent is 550 a month... okay just for fun, throw on another couple hundred for utilities. Let's even say 1,000 a month just to live at home... Where does the other 1,800 bucks go?

(yeah, I know you probably don't take home 2,800 bucks a month after taxes, but seriously, I don't see how it would be hard for you to pull it off.)
 
Macs are an investment - save up enough to buy your first and then sell it while it still has a high value and throw in a few hundred of your own dollars to upgrade (do this every year or two). If you're a student get the free ipod and printer and sell them to offset a few hundred dollars of your costs. Get a credit card like discover to get 5% cash back. Maybe if you feel the price is too high - get a less powerful model than the one you are lusting after. At least to me it seems like Macs can do a lot more with a lot less powerful hardware. In fact the old c2d iMac (2.16 GHZ 2GB DDR2 ram - white kind) I am typing this on feels only slightly slower than my powerful windows 7x64 desktop (core i5 3.33 GHZ 6GB DDR etc).
 
You are a student, and you have managed to secure a 35$/hour job. How? Are you not competing with other candidates that have 3 masters degrees?
 
I'm in a similar boat, but $35 per hour doesn't sounds bad to me (im a kiwi). I have no shame and am borrowing about 1/4 the cost from my younger brother for a i5-quad im thinking.

He got the sweet deal on my old gaming PC im replacing. I tried the PC thing but I like the idea of boot-camp, best of both worlds for work & play. Bit overpriced but i NEED logic.
 
Matthew Yohe said:
Uh, 2,800 bucks a month...
Click to expand...
Um, I might have missed something, but he said 20 hours at $35 per hour. (That's a great rate!)

35 x 20 = 700
35 x 20 .ne. 2800 (I miss the option-equals-sign on this WinPC)

If you're living on $700 per month even after paying that much rent, I think you're doing pretty well. No wonder you probably can't afford a new Mac. I found myself another cheaper hobby until my studies were finished, and made do with five+ year old machines (I'm using a G4 at home still).

The crazy thing is that some people really don't understand these situations. They seem to have NEVER been in the situation where they can't just get what they want whenever they want it. Crazy world huh?

Good luck saving dude, if that's what you intend. Or instead, go buy your gal a dinner and enjoy life a bit.

Cheers, A.
 
Ravich said:
You are a student, and you have managed to secure a 35$/hour job. How? Are you not competing with other candidates that have 3 masters degrees?
Click to expand...

his whole question sound hypothetical....the other way that I kind of took it is that $35 is their hourly wage/rate so they try to work at least 20 hours a week. $35 isn't that difficult to come across for a lot of professions if you are working for yourself...it's when you work for others that all that money disappears!
 
Matthew Yohe said:
Uh, 2,800 bucks a month and you can't afford one?

Where does all that money go? You said rent is 550 a month... okay just for fun, throw on another couple hundred for utilities. Let's even say 1,000 a month just to live at home... Where does the other 1,800 bucks go?

(yeah, I know you probably don't take home 2,800 bucks a month after taxes, but seriously, I don't see how it would be hard for you to pull it off.)
Click to expand...

This.

If your making as much money as you say and cannot afford an iMac, you just need to make it a priority to save up and get one. Start at $300 a month and within 6 months it's yours.
 
OP, what do you have over after all the utilities, living expenses? like other people suggested, we save up for a couple of months. the younger members around here work in the summer and use the ash from that to get the macs because they don't have to cover living expenses.
 
aggri1 said:
Um, I might have missed something, but he said 20 hours at $35 per hour. (That's a great rate!)

35 x 20 = 700
35 x 20 .ne. 2800 (I miss the option-equals-sign on this WinPC)
Click to expand...

20 hours per week. So 700 x 4 = 2800 per month.
 
US student? get a subsidized student loan and throw a little bit of cash at it every month until you're done with school. shouldn't have much debt left when you're done, and even if you do you can negotiate something like $100/month until it is paid off.

this is, of course, coming from someone who accumulates student loans like he'll never have to pay them back.
 
clamchowderz said:
Like most of you I am enamored with the new iMacs. I'm eyeing the i7 27-inch with SSD+HD Combo.

Which brings me to my question; where do you get the money to pay for these machines?

I am a student, so I dont have much money. I dont own a credit card and work approx. 20 hours a week @ $35 an hour. I live with my girlfriend and have the regular bills to pay. Rent is a modest $550 a month.

So, how do you do it? How can you afford to drop 2g's and still survive?

Maybe I am young and naive but I would really like to know how you can afford one these bad boys:)

Cheers!
Click to expand...

Hang in there. Rome wasn't built in a day.

I am 32, been working solid for 14 years and will be buying my first iMac in the coming weeks.
 
protox said:
Wife and I earn a six figure salary each. Both Sr Software Engineers.
Click to expand...

Myself, my parents, my dog, my cats and pet hermit crab earn six figure salaries. Parents are Sr. Software Engineers. I'm a Software Engineer and the pets are Jr. Engineers. :rolleyes:

Seriously, who cares!?!??! I hate "money" discussions like these. Only leads to people bragging about how much money they make...
 
I have my own company and pimp my services out to entertainment companies the world over :)
 
clamchowderz said:
Like most of you I am enamored with the new iMacs. I'm eyeing the i7 27-inch with SSD+HD Combo.

Which brings me to my question; where do you get the money to pay for these machines?

I am a student, so I dont have much money. I dont own a credit card and work approx. 20 hours a week @ $35 an hour. I live with my girlfriend and have the regular bills to pay. Rent is a modest $550 a month.

So, how do you do it? How can you afford to drop 2g's and still survive?

Maybe I am young and naive but I would really like to know how you can afford one these bad boys:)

Cheers!
Click to expand...


$35 an hour is an awesome wage. I dont even make that with a bachelors and 8 years experience. My rent is $950 and my truck payment is $550. I managed to buy a few Apple products with my measly wage
 
Hey I'm 41 and getting my first Mac!

Going for the 27" i7

I've just signed up for a new credit card that gives you 0% interest on purchases for 12 months. This is the only way I can afford to do it. I'm also getting the Student Discount by enroling on a free part time college course, which knocks a couple of hundred £'s off the price.

It is expensive but hopefuly it'll be worth it as I'm replacing a battered 10 year old PC.

Rav:)
 
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