I don’t know what to buy

Save it. If you're struggling over non-essential purchases, always choose to save

Save it for yourself please.
And for the next "Thing" you have the Heart/good Belly Feeling "THATS IT" - take it.

If you have to ask, then keep the money for now for when you find something you just have to have

Save a bit then start on a PC. Consoles are great but so is emulation.

I’d go for a GBA, but just know that you also might want to get a flash cart. That can be another $100. You might find a GBA for $20, it might be a bit grungy though. You just need the motherboard. You can get an ips v2 kit with a new shell for about $45. No soldering is needed to get the brightness to work (at least the kit I got). Just know that you’ll probably end up with a buzzing at low volumes, so a set of headphones with an inline volume might be needed. I found an eBay listing for 2 sets at $10. They are iHome brand, which is ok. Then the ezflash omega DE can be had for $70. That’s pretty close to $130. It’s a rewarding project, but can be pricey.

Or yea, save it if you can’t decide. Save it for Black Friday.

You know, you can always buy something for someone else. That's called a gift.

Save up

@Sonic Angel Knight I spend too much on others
I’ve never done something like this- for myself and only myself


As for everything else
...
I’m surprised no one suggested that I save up
Welp
It makes sense
And none of the options I presented were something that made me go “DAMN I need that now”

The issue is that you have the impuls to buy, so it might not be easy to just save it for you. There is no shame in that, it's a progress you have to go through.

If you aren't able to save, get a cheap Gamecube, and mod it. You should be able to do that under 70 dollars. It will satisfy your need to buy something, and at least give a little bit to save.

$130

Click to expand...

I spend too much on others

Click to expand...

save up and if you don't feel like it uhhh whatever you feel like you'd use more

Wait and save for the Soulja Boy Game System! Gonna be lit!

Honestly, $130 isn't a lot of money. I can understand if you're a teenager with no job, but it seriously isn't a whole lot. At all.

Games will always be there. Anime will always be available. Movie DVDs/Blu-Rays can be had for cheap, especially with all of the "franchise collections" they sell at Walmart and Best Buy, and whatever local stores sell whatever used media they get their hands on for cheap.

If you don't have a top of the line PC, I'd save up for that. You might have to scour the used market and/or get some items that aren't in as high demand because of the current situation in the world, but really, once you have a PC that can do anything because it can technically play every game, watch every video, and do it with or without HDR, you won't have as much of a want for electronic entertainment unless you want something like a laptop. (which I wouldn't recommend trying to save up for, as a good laptop can be in the thousands of dollars)

Coming back to this blog to offer a bit more than before: right now is a downright awful time to buy anything anyway. All those items you mentioned are heavily inflated compared to pre-pandemic. I'm not sure if there's a correlation but random crap is mega $ now. And who knows if it'll ever go down. I wanted a N2DSXL back in January. Now they're worth 2X msrp for no reason.

I still maintain that you save it, but you do want to be aware of things that could have a tendency to become collectable and much more expensive in the future.

To add on to what Chary is saying, I, at my job, tend to get enough downtime every now and then to be able to just browse PCPartPicker and see the various builds people put together, and eventually came up with possibly putting a PC inside a console case, which is why I made that one post in the General Gaming Discussion to see what case other people would use if they had to put a PC inside a console.

Anyways, the main centerpiece of the build that would make everything possible was a Ryzen 3400G, because no other mainstream consumer CPU from them had integrated graphics, and AMD's iGPUs make mincemeat of the ones featured in Intel's CPUs. And no, you're not fitting a GTX 1080 Founders Edition inside a SNES unless you're doing some crazy amount of mod work to just get the actual GPU underneath all of the cooling, thermal pads, and everything else in between soldered onto the board itself and cooled through some other means. The 3400G just went up in price today because Best Buy, Newegg, and I think one other retailer are sold out, and the whatever was being sold as new on Amazon has been marked up by at least $75, which might be about how much a new game for the current generation of systems will cost after taxes, and probably more, depending on what state you live in!

So now that conceptual build has become more expensive to order that particular part for. All because of a chip shortage. Hell, an older brother of mine was telling me about how some car dealerships local to my area are offering to buy some car owners' cars just for the computer chip material inside so they can make more cars sooner rather than later. The chip shortage that we're experiencing is so bad that LinusTechTips said he doesn't expect things to return to normal until 2023, and who knows what the world is gonna look like then, especially after everything that's been happening ever since last year (pandemic, election shenanigans, tensions with various nations because of different administrations' agendas, stuff going on with state leadership in New York, etc.) is still affecting things this year, and we're already about 1/3 through 2021!

Take it from me here; I was in debt for the last half of 2019, and for basically the entire last year because who the hell expected 2020 to be the kind of year it was? I figured I could take my time, make the minimum payments on everything, and just take my time. And then "BOOM!" Pandemic starts. I applied for my current job I think December 2019/January 2020. I didn't even get the position because said position closed up when the pandemic started and the CEO ordered that all hiring be frozen until later in the year when people started leaving and more hands and feet were needed. I didn't join up with the company until late October last year. By the time I had done that, I think two or three of my four big bills were paid off, partially thanks to the lucky tax refund I got that, when combined with what I was earning at my job at the Target DC between my time at Walmart retail and my current job, I was able to make a whole lot more money much more quickly than if I stayed at Walmart and took the risk of being hit by what I perceived to be an oncoming train that would change a lot of things in the store in how it was operated, especially in the department I worked at.

There's nothing worse than being patronized to at that job during the first three months of the pandemic. I worked there for just a month under 4 years. Before, I was just a grunt. Sure, there were some regulars who recognized who I was, and sometimes, family would swing by and say hello.

But now, in the first three months that we're in the pandemic, we're "heroes." We were helping to keep the economy going. We were "saving lives." All because we kept stocking toilet paper that the customers were tearing each other apart over like it was the freakin' gold rush. I worked in the chemical aisles, and I'd stock the Clorox wipes. People would ask where the Clorox wipes are, and I go to grab them from the back because the rest of my department would be unloading the trailer of product that has to get stocked by preferably our shift, and before I even make it to the aisle itself, the cardboard box the Clorox wipes are in would be stripped free of all of them. All because of a virus with a 99% survivability rate as far as my understanding goes even for those with pre-existing conditions.

All of this, and I was only making $11 an hour, and I'd net about $600-700 every two weeks, which is nothing compared to what I make now every two weeks by comparison. I had no relationship with a girl or anything. The one relationship that I thought would make this job worth the suffering had come to an end right before the pandemic hit, and if I had no reason to be working there after that, I definitely had very little reason to be working there when jobs and opportunities were disappearing, and a random job app I throw out as a sort of desperate shot in the dark hoping for a lucky hit suddenly sends an e-mail saying to come in for orientation. No job interview, not even a phone interview. Just come in later that month for orientation, you're hired already!

And that's how I went from making $11 an hour, with no hope of relief from debt in a reasonable amount of time before this pandemic would come to an end, to $15 an hour at the Target DC. It was during my time there that I ended up paying off the two big bills I had before getting the smaller stuff taken care of in the first month of my current job where I make $18.something an hour, and that's before factoring in OT I work where you get paid time and a half.

My current job is great. For real. I don't have to put up with co-workers who could be jackasses at times and customers who couldn't tell if you worked there by the blue vest, or job tasks so simple it only takes a day to really get the gist of things and to do it every day for 10 hours, while the management could be dicks at times. The people at my place, while there are still jerks, are a lot nicer compared to before, and the ones who are jerks can be more easily ignored unless you do something bad.

The only thing I trade is that my life is now basically my job. Sure, I get some time off. But not a whole lot of time where I get to do things I really enjoy, be it playing video games, listening to music, modding old systems, working on project ideas that my bored mind wants to make reality now that some of my wants from years ago are fulfilled.

And that's where I get to the whole point of this stream-of-consciousness-turned-into-a-blogpost: time is more important than money and just...stuff in general. Regardless if you're as broke as a homeless bum, or as rich as Bill Gates, everyone is born with a body that will eventually grow old, weak, tired, and break down, and die. I am 26 years old, and I'm still in my parents' house. I made some stupid decisions 2-3-ish years ago that ultimately got me to where I am today. I want to move out of where I am at and move somewhere that will allow me to try and rise above my station thanks to better opportunities than where I live, because it isn't gonna get a whole lot better here in Illinois, especially with a certain bill the governor signed into state law that might make law enforcement like it is in the future in Demolition Man. I want to be out of here before things descend into that level of chaos, and I heard things got that bad right around the Walmart store I worked at, so bad that one Sunday the store was closed because of rumors going around that things were gonna get rowdy that night!


Examine where you're at in life right now, ask yourself if you're happy with it, and if not, what to do to get to where you'll be more satisfied than you are.

@banjo2 you wouldn’t wanna see what I’ve spent on others... and that little stash I have is purely spare change I’ve gathered from 15 years of living



@Chary As far as I’m aware, before COVID a Gameboy was around $20-$40. If that hadn’t changed, I probably would’ve just gone with that and never done anything else with the rest
Unfortunately
Yes the inflation is ridiculous. I will be saving it- I just hope they don’t continue to inflate and not come back down


@Silent_Gunner
Well it’s great to hear you've gotten a better job with a much healthier wage- I get what you’re saying, and I thank you for putting all the time into that response
Am I happy?
Not quite- but not for any reason related to hobbies or money. And I won’t be able to resolve it for several years
However, I realize I’m young. I’m thankful for it really- don’t have the responsibility I will in 2 1/2 years. I should really try to enjoy it while I can-
But at the same time
It’s hard to stop focusing on the future and getting a job- a stable source of income- a good work-related reputation.
I feel like I’m getting ahead of myself though
Actually it wasn’t until this year that I learned to just... live life like a teenager- I was always too focused on adulthood and keeping normal teenagers safe
Where am I going with this?
Hmm
Well I’m happy enough with life-

I have no problem saving it- :3
Before this special lil thing, I always either only spent on others, saved up, or called in favors

Honestly I couldn’t stand myself if I someday went to withdrawal from my bank account to get a Gameboy at 15 years old... or even 17-

At least until a got a job

not to be unoriginal, but I agree: Save it. And hey, at least you could just emulate a GBA!!!

@BlazeMasterBM Wanna know something shitty?
My GBA emulator is the ONLY EMULATOR I’VE EVER HAD THAT CRASHED WHEN I OPENED THE EMULATOR ITSELF

what do u emulate it on? and which emulator is it

Windows, and... I will check later-
It’s annoying because it used to work perfectly... for like a week