Buying something with my first salary!
I got my first salary after my graduation. I had never made that kinda money in life before, so I wanted to buy something memorable with that money. Something which can last with me for a long time, which I can carry every day, and will remind me where I started. After few random searches and some random YouTube videos, I realized, I can buy a watch!
From childhood, I had this little attraction for watches, on my thin wrist, I could add some ‘mass’ to my body with those bulky watches. Those cool-looking lights, an alarm clock was my attraction. It was fun.
Over the years, I bought many of these watches; most of them were not that great quality, they used to break after a year or two. I am not that big watch-nerd tbh.
This time, however, I wanted to buy something which can last longer. With that first salary in my pocket and tons of options on online & offline stores, I started my watch-finding journey.
Surprisingly, it was a lot more than just buying a watch; it was a mind-opening experience for me. This blog is about that experience and the things I learned in this process.
A reason to buy!
The first question I asked myself, “why do you need a watch?”. As I said, it was a memory for me. It stores time, good as well as bad; it will always be with me.
I was not gonna buy these expensive luxury watches tbh, I have a limited salary. So, I wanted to spend that wisely too. Yet, I didn’t want to buy something which will break in 2-3 years; that was clear already.
When I started my research, I found these fascinating watches, luxury price tags, but they were really well made. I was amazed to buy the amount of work they put, the engineering, that craftsmanship, that design thinking, all of it!
Obviously, I was not able to buy those; my pockets were not that deep. But I found another reason to possess these watches, inspiration!
These watches are made with a high level of detail in them, with a high level of engineering. All of that just for something which tells time. A pointless thing, if we just look at it as a time-telling machine. because we can do it on our phones too. But, when I will look at this ‘machine’ I should be able to see that craftsmanship, that engineering, and that perfection for this otherwise pointless thing. It should remind me that there are things in life that are not meant to serve a purpose, but just add some value to life, that I can create things that can be free from practical rules.
Once I got my reason, I was wondering the second question…
What to buy?
There were literally millions of options for a watch. I started looking for that one in this ocean (cheesy). That was, however, was an easy task. Once I knew the reason behind buying it, it was easy to eliminate things that I don’t like. To my surprise, there were a ton of these cheap watches. By cheap, I mean, the ones which don’t really serve the purpose of a watch.
There were many of these Chinese watches, most of them were just straight-up copies of these iconic expensive watches for fraction of the price with really bad quality. I crossed out these watches from the list, now, I had a few of these watches to select from.
Then I went for those watches which will fit on my wrist. what the purpose of buying something if it doesn’t fit on my wrist?
So far so good, things were going smooth, but now I had to choose with this parameter which was essentially the most important aspect for a middle class freshly graduated salary person like me.
What’s the worth?
I can admire many things about these expensive watches, but if I don’t have money to buy them, it’s no use. I was receiving my first pay-check, I had ‘limited’ money to spend, could not afford to pay all my salary on a watch.
So, here I am, asking that question which controls almost all of us, how much should I spend?
The real question should be, how much does it worth for me? Sure it’s great to have a watch with all the non-materialistic, philosophical reasons, for these non-materialistic things, but at what cost? should I be spending all of my money on that watch and live on the streets for that month? Obviously not! So I had to set a figure, that limit to spend on this watch. So I set the limit, I wanted to spend 1 week of my salary on this watch. That’s almost 25% of my monthly salary, but it was one-time spending, so it was okay with me. That kinda money gave me the freedom to buy something worth buying and could check all of my boxes.
All set! now it’s time to apply the search. all the filters were added, and I found the one!
Real catch
As buying something for the first time with my own salary, it was a really important process for me. To buy something I had to give myself a reason to buy. It was not any tool, it was a memory. I wanted to apply philosophy to it. By backing up with some emotional connection, I had to think about the practical side as well. As a first-time ‘spender’, it was really a great experience.
We live in this consumer-centric world where everyone is trying to sell their things. It’s really easy to get lost in this ocean of things. Buy this, you will look cool, buy this you will change your life, buy this, you will be super happy…all of this marketing can be overwhelming at times. We should have a reason to buy something before buying it. That reason should be our own, it should not be a shadow of someone else’s thinking. It should be personal.
We don’t have to be philosophical about everything we buy but we should have some kinda connection with things. It should be a personal connection. While thinking about all of that, we should think about practical things as well. Spending money is an art to master but we should treat money as a tool. In my opinion, I would not be chasing money to buy that expensive watch that I wanted to buy now, but couldn’t. There are many other important things in life. I just want to have that connection with these things that I buy now. Even if I become rich, I want to keep that connection intact. I don’t want to buy without reason, without connection, without inspiration.
Obviously, it was my first time, and I need to learn a lot. But I think it’s a solid good start for me as a spender.
Next time, when I will buy something, I would have some experience. I will try my best to make this process clearer so that I can buy something which will be worth buying!
What are your thoughts? let me know at [email protected]!
Leave a Reply