Responsibilities and the New Computer

I'm going to post my 'year in review' later, but I've finished writing it already.  Two things came up in that post that I realized I needed to share here.  One is for you (whomever you are that's reading this) and that's updating you on the computer.  It's here, it's great.  One is for me and that's starting to consider financial planning.


Let's start with the computer as that's really fun.  The ordering process and waiting for it to get delivered was awful, but it IS fun.

I wrote in this post about how my computer was flaking out and my conclusion of buying a new one.  The next post I referenced the build and some of the story of ordering it, but let's back up to October 7th where I decided to let the pros build my computer and as Marcellus Wallace said about my computer tech abilities... Fuck Pride.

Deciding on letting the pros build my system was difficult as it always WAS a source of pride.  I would do all the research on what processor to buy, what motherboard to put that processor on, what RAM would work best with that combination, what power supply would power all of that plus the video card, what video card would fit my budget AND do what I want for the foreseeable future, what data storage solutions I would want, and then move on to the minutia like the case and cooling solutions.  And then if I want to get fancy, there's always adding some LED lighting.

With that type of effort and research in mind, you can see why I wouldn't accept something off the shelf from Best Buy or ordered from Dell.  It's not to say they're necessarily bad computers, but they'd be what they are and nothing else.  I might be able to alter them, but they most certainly would not start out as what I want.  As I thought about that though, it did make me consider what I WOULD want.  In the rough sense I came up with this:  The most modern intel core i5 processor that's unlocked and overclockable.  I've talked about these before and I don't believe the i7s are worth the extra and while it might be years and years ago, I just don't trust AMD to make as good of a processor (especially for what I do on them).  So if I get that processor, I'd need a motherboard that supports overclocking.  I really enjoyed my Asus ROG Strix, so I'd probably stay with that brand and sub brand, and just the more modern version.  I liked the mini-ness of my current build so I'd stay with the mini ATX format.  For the power supply I'd want something 80+ rated, and probably go up to 80+ Gold as that not only makes sure it's as efficient as all get out, it also makes sure the power is good and smooth for overclocking.  I'd also want the powersupply to have completely modular cables... that way I don't have to have a lot of extra cables just hanging out in the small space of the computer.  For RAM I've been sold on the whole 16 GB experience and I'd get the current 'fast' RAM.  I don't see any need in getting the fastest as it doesn't make much difference and it costs a whole lot more.  My current HyperX RAM was serving me well and stayed nice and chilly even though it was overclocked a bit, so that would be my starting point.  Video card was simple as Nvidia had just released the RTX 2080 and 2080ti cards.  They were a generation past the GTX 1070 I had previously and getting one of those would practically guarantee playability for the next 3 years even with the newest games.  Plus the new cards now did ray tracing so if more games took advantage of that in the coming years I'd be ready for it.  I'd want some LED lighting, but that would depend on the case and other parts.  Data stoarge was going to be an upgrade as well.  Years ago I went with an SSD drive and that is BLAZING fast compared to a standard Hard Drive.  Well now they have the M.2 drives that are another level of fast above the SSD as the SSD is above a normal Hard Drive.  So I'd want one of those for my boot drive then a standard SSD for a storage solution.  I know a lot of builds have a huge Hard Drive for storage, but honestly I've gotten away with a little over one terabyte of data storage with no problem, so why get a four terabyte drive just because most people do.

So, with all of that in mind I went to look at who builds custom computers.  I went through a LOT of computer companies.  Many were thrown by the wayside as they either didn't have anything smaller than a standard ATX or they skipped the mini ATX and went with ITX for their small builds.  I believe ITX is too small for what I want, so that was a no go for me.  I finally came down to two computer companies.  Cyberton and Origin.  They both offered mini ATX and even had a good case to go for that size.  They offered very similar systems with similar options.  The big difference between them was that the Origin one offered a 3 year complete warranty.  They both had lifetime phone support and even had lifetime labor warranty.  For extra I could get both up to 3 years on the parts and I thought that to be a reasonable length of time.  After three years if the system breaks down, I can always junk it and go with a new one.  But these are boutique computer integrators.  It's not like they have a shop in my town where I can drop the computer off.  They don't even have one in Michigan or the Midwest as a whole.  No, if I needed support I'd have to ship them the computer.  As I wanted the computer to come in good shape I had ordered them in wooden crates... and shipping those to and from their service center would be VERY expensive.  I never wanted there to be a point where I considered doing the work myself just because it was going to cost me $70 to ship it to and from.  Origin offered an upgrade so that the shipping would be free for the full three years.  Cyberton only extended that courtesy to 90 days and wouldn't extend it for any price.

Cybertron also had far more blatant branding on the computer while Origins was more subtle.  At the end of the day Origin was $500 more but worth it with the shipping cost and overall look.  So I went with Origin.

I ordered the following system on October 8th (it was really the evening of the 7th, but it was after midnight so the 8th):

Mini ATX system.
ASUS ROG STRIX Z370-G Gaming WiFi AC
Intel i5 8600k that will be overclocked by Origin's pros.
16 GB DDR 2933MHz HyperX Predator RGB memory.
500 GB Samsung 970 EVO NVMe M.2 SSD
1 TB Samsung 960 EVO SATA SSD
8GB GeForce RTX 2080 Founder's Edition overclocked by Origin's pros.
650 Watt EVGA SuperNOVA G3 Power supply with blue sleeved cables.
An LED light strip
A 240mm All In One water cooling system for the processor.
Windows 10 Home
Lifetime 24/7 Support and Labor warranty.
3 year parts replacement warranty with free shipping.
3 Years parts upgrade service which allows me to have them swap out parts at cheaper prices.

It included some goodies like free shipping and a couple games, but it was more or less just the PC.  No keyboard, no mouse, no monitor, no speakers.  It was invoiced out at $3809.49.

If I went to a combination of New Egg and Amazon and got the same or very similar parts and put it together myself I could have built this for under $2800.  BUT that extra $1000 gets me three years of peace of mind.  If the system flakes out at all, I just call them and send it back.  They do the fiddling and screwing around and then fix it and send it back.  It also saves me the hassle of buying all the parts individually, unboxing all the parts individually, hoping all the parts work individually, putting everything together, installing the OS, installing all the drivers, overclocking the processor and graphic card and RAM.  And most of all, if anything is defective I have exactly one number to call, not 8 or 9 different numbers.

It's a hefty price.  There's no getting around it.  But I think it was worth it.  So I ordered it.

Funny aside, I didn't want to put this on my credit card as it would all but max it out, so I figured I'd apply for the credit through the system integrator and just pay it off quickly.  Yeah.  No.  The 'offer' they had was either lease it for two years (paying full price), and then buying it for that price again for another 3 years (with no option to turn it in after the 'lease' making it a double payment over 5 years), or pay it off in one year with the total payment being 'only' $6000.  I maxed out my credit card and to date have paid off about a quarter of it.

A few days later I got an email and a support ticket telling me the build process has started.  I watched with nothing happening for a week when I noticed that not only did they now have the Intel i5 9600k available, they also had a brand new shiny case that looked really sweet (it's the case in the title graphic to this post but is painted bright yellow!).  Their initial estimate was that it would ship in 9 to 11 days, but they still hadn't gathered all the parts (according to the support ticket) so I went ahead and asked if I could swap out the processor and case.

A week later they told me that it would be no problem as they were still waiting on the previous case.  So at that point their initial estimate was long by 3 days.

A week later, with nothing changing on the support ticket, I asked if there was any motion on the system and they told me that it was just about ready to move into integration stage where they'd actually be putting it together.

A week later... this keeps going on.  They were beyond late without reaching out to me with an explination.  They were happy to tell me about the delays when I asked, but I was getting upset at having to ask at all.  Finally the weekend before Thanksgiving I told them to have it to me by Black Friday or they could just return my money.  To show them my seriousness I emailed them screen shots of two builds I had on Cybertron and NXZT... both hundreds of dollars less than what I was paying with the NZXT one being for a more extreme system.

To Origin's credit, my sales guy had a very sincere sounding apology minutes after I sent that message and promised me it would ship out in that timeframe.  And when I got the shipping number that Wednesday I was really excited.

Until UPS lost it.  I ended up getting it the following Monday.

My frustration level was really extreme at that point because now I could simply stare at the damned computer for a week as I wouldn't have time before or after work to get it up and running.

Anywho... it's here now and it's blazing fast.  The processor is overclocked from 3.6GHz to 5.0GHz with it being fairly quiet.  It's much louder than my old system, but I bought fans, a water cooler, and a case specifically to make it quiet.  This one isn't about being quiet, it's about being fast and flashy.  So I'm happy with the compromise.

Unfortunately I really cant' test out the gaming ability.  I was playing one of the most graphic intensive games before my old system flaked out (Assassin's Creed Odyssey) at max settings and was getting a very playable 40-50 frames per second.  With this new system that has jumped up to 60-90 frames per second.  Better?  Yes.  Noticeably better?  No.  And only Battlefield V takes advantage of the Ray Tracing (seriously, no other game has that feature in it) and I don't like the Battlefield series.





Okay, so that's the computer.  Now, on to the financial responsibility.  And the computer is a good example of NOT being financially responsible.  You see, over the past five years I've gone by the financial philosophy of "I can afford that so I'll buy it" without considering the consequences of those decisions.  I can afford this computer.  That's true.  But did I need to?  A $1000 premium for support?  I could have even gone with one of the Cybertron or NZXT builds and saved hundreds of dollars.  But I could afford it so it's not a bad thing, right?

Well, that's making some other decisions harder.  For instance, I know at one point I'd like to buy a house.  Let's say in five years Mom passes away and my brother R is ready to move up north.  That leaves me in this house which I really don't like.  If I wanted to stay here I'd want to dump tens of thousands of dollars into the electric grid, the plumbing, the basement, the floors, the kitchen, the doors, and even the walls.  It's just not worth it from my standpoint when I can get a smaller place for similar money without any of those problems.  But if I had several thousand dollars saved up, I could do that even better.  I could get a better house or at least reduce my monthly payment on said house.

If I had been saving, I could have purchased this computer outright instead of paying interest on it.  The same could have been said about the refrigerator, dishwasher, washer and dryer, and range that I purchased over the last few years.  And when I bought those appliances, I probably didn't need to get the ones that I did.  I spent a nearly $500 premium on the dish washer because I didn't like how the other ones looked.

I recently went through my jeans.  I wear my jeans every single day, but about four pair of them had holes in awkward places making them only suitable for wearing around the house.  That's four pair out of 8.  I didn't even really hesitate before logging onto Amazon and buying four replacement pair.  The problem is that I only wear them around the house.  I still have four perfectly fine looking pair that I can wear when I go 'out'.  I haven't been hurting for clean 'good' jeans... I just saw the holes and needed to replace them.

And the urge to spend money is so invasive that it keeps on going and going and going.  Even when I fight the urge off, I still want to spend the money.  For example, the volume knob on my keyboard is a little less reliable.  When it rolls up it will sometimes not change the volume while other times it will increase very quickly.  I only have to slow down and watch the volume as it raises or lowers to make sure it's okay, but I still want to buy a new keyboard.  I researched out the major new keyboards and decided upon three different ones I'd like to try.  They don't do anything different than my current keyboard and in fact don't look as good as my keyboard.  But I still want to buy a new one and I still have Youtube video reviews of all three qued up.  The same goes for my mouse (the right mouse click tends to fail if I ever hold it for over 10 or 15 seconds, but only when I hold it near the edge of the button.

I've had my iPad Air 2 for a little over a year.  I use it a couple times a week when I'm doing reading more intense than the phone warrants but when I don't want to sit at the computer.  It works just fine and does every single thing I want to do with it quickly.  But I still keep looking at the new iPad Pros.  I mean they don't even have a fingerprint sensor!  It unlocks with your FACE!  And it costs $800.

So what I'm wanting to do is first and foremost just get a handle on spending my money.  I'm not going to completely give up my frivolous spending as I do really enjoy that.  But any purchase over $100 is going to need some serious consideration.  For example, maybe not replacing all four pair of jeans, but only replacing the two worst ones.

One thing that really spurs me on to spend money like that is having it just sit in my account.  When I get paid I see about $2500 in there.  I use a spreadsheet to keep track of my bills (it dates back to when I was making choices of which bill to pay as I couldn't afford them all), so I know that with that much in my account I can pay all my bills and end up with about $900 left over.  Well that's $900 to burn!  So I think I'm going to start putting half of that 'extra' cash into another account.  Sure, I'll still see it and it will grow fairly quickly... but it will change my mind on quick spending as that other account won't be tied up to my debit card.  If I want to spend it I'll need to first transfer it to my primary account and THEN I can spend it.

I also need to start budgeting for 'extras'.  Lemme go over an example.... this month is bad as it's Christmas and I bought a bunch of gifts, so let's look at they paycheck I got on October 20.  After paying all of my bills, between the extra I already had in the account and the extra on this check, I would have ended up with $1700.  What did I do with that money?  Well I keep track of money I spend and I spent $885.00.

Eight hundred eighty five dollars.  I can guess at some of that.  I went up to watch the Michigan at Michigan state game with a friend (GO BLUE!) and I probably dropped about $150 at the bar (I'm a big drinker, nervous eater, and big tipper during games!).  I likely spent about $100 on groceries for my work lunches.  But I couldn't say what I spent the rest of that on.  I can't say gasoline as I account for that in my spreadsheet.  I can't say it was cigarettes as that's accounted for.  It's not for insurance, my Google Music account, Netflix, my monthly donation to public radio, my cell phone, my share of the television and internet, my car payment or student loan payment as those are all accounted for.  It's not even my credit card payments, insurance, or rent that I pay to mom as those too are accounted for.  This is purely 'extra' money I'm wasting.

It's not as though it's that much every paycheck.  That particular pay period I only had about $700 in bills, so it left quite a bit left over.  Some pay periods, especially ones where a lot of bills are due, I will have 'extra' money spent in the amounts of $300 or $600 or $400 or numbers closer to those.  But even then, I don't go out all that often, I generally spend only $100 on groceries, and I still end up with amounts like that.

So I think every pay period I'm going to take the effort to account for all of that extra money and internalize it's worth.  For instance, this past pay period (December 15th to the 29th) I spent:

• $99 donation to Radiotopia.  They make a bunch of podcasts I listen to.  
• $15 for Origin PC.  That's so that I could play Battlefield V without paying the full $60.  It's a monthly fee if I choose to continue paying it. 
• I bought a $200 wireless headset for my computer.  My old one had a flaky volume rocker and was getting hard to plug into the computer.  It's a great headset but that's still a LOT to pay. 
• $344 for my Mom's Christmas gift (Google Home Hub, Google Home Mini, Nest thermostat and a smart lightbulb.  That's a fit that was split between my brothers and I. 
• $39 for a couple board games.  Mom wanted Relative Insanity to play on Christmas Eve and instead of paying the $5 shipping charge from Walmart I added an $18 version of Trivial Pursuit so that I'd get free shipping.  Yeah... $13 extra for 'free' for a game that is still wrapped up and will likely never get played. 
• $75 for a medical bill.  Duh, it was due and I pay my medical bills on time. 
• $20 for the newest "You Don't Know Jack" trivia game to also play on Christmas Eve.  I have the two previous party packs from Jackbox games and we all love playing them.... there was no reason to get another one to play. 

That's about $800.  Some of that $344 was given back to me in cash and I'll be depositing that back.  Plus that was a gift, so I don't consider that a bad payment.  But let's look at those others.  

• A $99 donation for podcasts?  I appreciate podcasts as much as the next guy, but that's almost as much as I give to public radio.  They were asking for $9 donations.  I listen to four of their podcasts so even if I'm being overly generous and pay $36 it's a lot to spend.  But I saw that they were asking for $9 and wanted to 'up' that amount.  The 'obvious' amount was then $99... get it?  It's two 9s?   Yeah, that's stupid thinking and was generous for no reason.  It's hard to knock generosity but I have a budget and I need to stick to it.  Next time if a situation comes up I'll let myself 'double' the amount to $18.  
• $15 to play Battlefield.  That's actually not to bad.  My normal reaction is to just go ahead and buy it for $60.  I wouldn't have played it more than I already have and the only advantage is that I get to play it again and again without paying more.  BUT if I play it for 4 months (unlikely) I will still only pay $60.  If I don't play it any more, I saved $45.  
• The headset is just ridiculous over the top spending that I"m particularly trying to target.  Yes, they're an awesome headset, but an incredibly good wireless headset goes for $150.  A really good one goes for $100 and a perfectly fine one goes for $70.  And guess what... mine was still serviceable.  I could have waited for a sale and saved even more.  That's a stupid purchase without any more benefit than having my nephews compliment me on my 'baller' status.  
• The board games.  First, I could have driven down the street after work and picked up Relative Insanity for no shipping whatsoever.  It would have guaranteed to be 'shipped' in time and I would have saved more money.  I don't regret buying the game as Mom wanted it, and I don't regret getting it online as frankly I'm tired after work... but buying Trivial Pursuit which I know will sit unplayed, was just stupid.   
• The Medical bill was necessary and I can't work that into the spreadsheet as it's not every week/month/pay-period that they come due.  So it gets a pass. By the way, that was for the last of my Physical Therapy. 
• The You Don't Know Jack purchase was again, over the top stupid.  We already like the version I have, and we love the 'horror' version of it.  Why add another one when we've only gotten about 10% of the past ones?  

Make the Radiotopia donation $18, make the headset $100, make the board games $23, and don't buy the Jack game and I would have saved $217.  Now that doesn't sound like a big savings out of $800, but take out Mom's gift and the medical bill and that $800 comes down to $381.  If I saved $217 out of every $381 I would have enough money saved up for... well I don't know what, but it would be a LOT of money.  

Unfortunately the Christmas gifts and holiday has got me fairly low on cash so I can't start throwing money into savings.  But my next paycheck is January 12 and it's a VERY bill light pay period.  If I don't spend ANY money between now and then I should have my savings back up to $1900.  Now that's a pipe dream as I need to spend some money on food and entertainment, but I think a nice goal would be having that at $1600.  I could easily leave $800 in my main account and have access to it, and put $800 away.  Thats a LOT but it's because it's a bill light pay period.  I think having $2000 saved up by March would be something that's possible.  

So then the next thing becomes what do I do with that savings?  I've heard that you should have six months savings held back for a worst case scenario.  A "I just lost my job" scenario.  I'm not sure I could do that as I make about $75,000 a year.  At that savings rate it would take me five years to save that up.  BUT I could use it to pay down my high interest credit cards.  With the computer taking up a big chunk I currently carry about $8500 in credit card debt.  In addition to paying the $400 a month I have budgeted, I could pay that down to nothing by late Summer.  

I don't think this is a good idea just because of money savings.  Spending money on making myself happy IS worth it... I just need to be more realistic on how much I need to spend to be happy.  I don't need to buy an $800 iPad to replace one that works fine.  I don't need to spend $250 on a new keyboard when mine works perfectly fine. 

This works with what I've been doing this year so far too.  Sure, getting Isabella last year was mostly about getting a new car, but it was also about getting out from under the debt of my previous cars.  A lease made sense, would knock out that debt in 3 years time, and would lower my monthly payment by a little bit.  I did similar on my student loans by tying them to my income and setting myself up to have the remainder forgiven after 10 years.  My student loans went from around $700 to just under $400.  Next year when the lease is up, I can focus on the car payment and not the car I want.  Instead of saying "I'll pay just about anything to have a Mustang" I can say "I'll spend $400 a month on a car that includes an extended warranty."  That would make sense AND keep me happy.

Look at me growing up and shit!