Personal Money Tips

The comments in my last 2 post prompted me to write this article about deciding what you want. In my previous article, I wrote about a person who, in moments of indecision, would buy both things , if he can’t decide which he really wanted. Obviously, Joe Flashy is not his real name although he exist.

Pondering it over a few days, I felt I should write this article. I felt, deciding what you really want, is an important skill everyone should develop. If not, I think we don’t enjoy and value what we own.

Let me illustrate my point. If you are reading this article and it is the first article you read on this site, you probably don’t know that I’m pretty darn frugal and something bordering in stingy, according to some. So when I buy stuff, I really make sure I enjoy it and get the most mileage out of it. I rarely buy stuff I don’t really want, and seldom make mistakes on my purchases. You see, I research the heck out of things I want to buy especially bigger ticket items.

One purchase fell into the category of “should not have bought it” is my present PDA. If you read this post, my previous PDA decided to die on me after several years of use. I bought a new PDA last year and I would say, I’m not particularly happy about it from the beginning. You see, I’ve always been a fan of Palm OS PDA’s. Both my first and second were Palm OS based PDA’s. Although they are not perfect, they are close. My third and present PDA I own, is Win Mobile based. This should give you a hint why I’m not happy.

This was what happened when I when shopping for a PDA last year. In deciding which PDA to buy last year, it was a toss between sticking with what I knew worked well vs trying something new. Using the old and proven would cost me less money and a slightly older tech. Who cares as long as they work.

The main reason for me to switch camps was I’ll be getting two PDAs. One for me and one for my other half. My other half preferred the Win based iPaq since it is smaller, lighter and newer compared to the Tungsten. It had newer hardware but cost more. The sales guy at the booth swayed the decision a little by saying Palm is going the dinosaur way, which it was at that time. Palm did not release new gadgets fast enough. (Read this Palm. You have die hard fans you are losing because you did not keep up to date with what customers want.) On the forums online, already they were 2 camps. Win CE is making real inroads to Palm OS and many did switched camps. It did not make choosing the PDA any easier for me.

The decision to go over to Win CE was made because I did not relish the idea of being tech support for 2 PDAs with two different OS. So I went against my instinct and gave the iPaq a try. First time I switched it on, I had my doubts. Several days later, I found myself already less productive. It is still so 1 year on.

The pro’s of Win CE is it connects better to the desktop, but only just. But I had to use Outlook, which can’t do a decent job compared to ACT, the contact management system I was using for several years. After doing all the sorts of database transfer and learning to work with the PDA, I finally got it my date sorted out and running satisfactorily.

Today, a year down the road, I’m still not quite happy with the PDA and should have bought the Tungsten. It would have cost me less money, worked faster and be more productive.

I didn’t really wanted the iPaq since I thought the cheaper, slightly older Tungsten would do a better job. Over the one year, I have to say, I don’t enjoy using it. I hate waiting for programs to load. I hate how it sync. I hate how it eats up power. In short, I hate the iPaq and Win CE.

This is totally different compared to my last 2 PDAs which I thoroughly enjoyed using. I enjoyed showing it to others, I enjoyed telling others what a great tool it is, things I can do with it. How it generally made my life better. In fact, I felt a tinge of sadness when they gave up the ghost. This won’t happen with the iPaq when its time is up.

Which brings me back to the start of this article, “Deciding what you really want.” I believe that the stuff you want, should improve your life be it making it easier or faster or to get something done or both. If not, then stuff you buy should at least bring enjoyment to you or to others. If it does not, then why bother in the first place.

P.S. After several months of use, my other half is not using the PDA I bought her. She decided she doesn’t really need one. Now we have 2 of the same stuff I hate

P.P.S I hate wasting money more than I hate the iPaq, so I’m still using it

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