Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Save and buy or get 0% financing and buy?

I have been wanting to buy a Nikon D90 DSLR for nearly a year. I know that when we want something, we convince ourselves with bunch of excuses on why we want to buy. I thought about it a lot and came to a decision that I will eventually buy it. However, I didn’t want to get in more debt by buying another expensive item. So, my family suggested that I start a saving account for the camera? They even gave me some gift money to jumpstart the saving. Since I have already cut most of unnecessary expenses from budget to pay off my debt, I don’t have any major places for saving. At best, I can hope to save enough money by end of the year. However, recently I saw that Amazon has 0% one year financing for Nikon D90 DSLR. Should make sense I get it with financing (which means more debt) or should I wait (which means not being able to use it for 1 year)? Rationally, if I am going to buy something after a year, it makes sense to buy it interest free now. It also make sense to pay my debt off with money I will be using to buy the camera (since I'm paying interest). On the other side, we humans are not completely rational and I believe that if I buy now I would not save later. I also think that not buying this camera is some sort of test of my self control. I am still undecided. For time being, it’s out-of-stock in Amazon.
Posted by ::: MeWithoutDebt ::: at 5:22 PM

3 comments:

  1. since you have $16K in debt, I say pay off debt first, then buy using cash. Or sell stuff you don't use and buy using that money
    ReplyDelete
  2. I just had the same situation. I had been looking for a DSLR for quite sometime and ended up going ahead and purchasing the Nikon D90 (body+24-70mm and 10.5mm lenses) on my credit card.

    I can't say I regret the purchase, but it definitely drove my debt even higher. The body was $849, the 24-70mm lens was $1700 and the 10.5mm lens was $750 at the time. I also bought two (2) high speed 16GB SDHC memory cards for $150 each, a polarizing filter for $300 and a camera bag to boot. After everything was said and done I had put about $4500 on my credit card.

    I was up to ~ $12,000 in debt but managed to pay it off with some savings down to $9,000. Now I'm currently between $9,000 and $10,000 and struggling to pay off my debt.

    My credit card is a CapitalOne Platinum VISA with a 4.9% APR. I suggest you wait and shop around for awhile to find the best deal, Amazon does not always have the best for DSLRs. Try PENN Camera or B&H. I would wait until you save at least half the money it would cost to buy what you want, I wouldn't wish this vicious cycle on anyone.
    ReplyDelete
  3. @dwpers. Thanks for the suggestion. I will checkout PENN and B&H.
    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)