A $200 impulse buy
Am I the only person in the world who thinks 200 bucks is serious money? Okay, not exactly serious, but significant. It’s a chunk of change, you know?
But here’s ZDNet calling the $199 Kindle Fire an “impulse buy”:
The Kindle Fire is the tablet for the rest of the market. The reasonable price of less than $200 puts it in the realm of an impulse buy. No doubt many buyers will see one in a Target, Best Buy, or other retail shop they frequent, and pick one up to see what all the fuss is about.
Damn. The people at Target are packing more cash than I thought. “Oh, look, honey, a two-hundred dollar thingy that I never even knew I wanted!” “Awesome! Throw it in the cart with the Snickers bar!”
Even more annoying: here’s ComputerWorld referring to the $99 Kindle e-reader as a stocking stuffer. A stocking stuffer? Are you kidding me? I’m sorry, but a hundred-dollar piece of electronic gear is not a stocking stuffer. A stocking stuffer is a plastic pez dispenser with red and green M&Ms.
But that’s just me. The only poor person in the world.
15 Responses to “A $200 impulse buy”
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Jamie says:
I am totally with you. We have a lot of gadgets in our house, but none of them were an ‘impulse buy’. We don’t have that level of ability to be impulsive! We plan months ahead for these things. The attitude of that also leads to some of the waste we see. Things are “so cheap” we can just toss them aside when we are done and buy the next cool thing. Ugh.
November 16th, 2011 at 1:02 am EST -
Toonces says:
Ha. Only a new car or a large diamond is a real X-Mas present!
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J says:
“Damn. The people at Target are packing more cash than I thought…”
Nah, stick it on the plastic: just another wee contribution to the grotesque self-delusion of ‘cheap credit’.
That, or the typical consumer is so spinelessly servile to advertisements that “impulse” assumes a new and dangerous meaning…
I used to get walnuts and a satsuma in my stocking at Chrimbo; mebbe a couple chocolates if ‘rents were feeling flush.
Poor (in material goods) but not in spirit!
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cabochon says:
That’s serious money. But I’m so tempted to get one, too, that I can rationalize how much less it is than and iPad or new laptop.
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Riverdaughter says:
I would have bought my daughter a MacBook Air for Christmas if I hadn’t lost my job this year. After decades and decades of hard work, I had finally gotten to the salary level where that was possible. And she really needs a new computer because she takes her English course online on my old laptop with a broken keyboard. She never complains but I know it’s a pain in the ass for her. I guess I could buy her a cheap PC but I already did that a few years ago and that sucker went bad long before my apple laptop’s keyboard died. I could take it to the apple store for a repair but the warranty has expired on it and I might as well put the money I spend on a repair towards a new computer.
What I would really like is my old job back so I wouldn’t have to worry about hardware.
As it is, her present this year will be another month of COBRA and maybe something little, like a month of ballet lessons and some socks.
I don’t begrudge anyone a new kindle stocking stuffer. Presents are good. Maybe some kid at the salvation army could get one. There’s no better gift than books and digital is the way to go. -
purplefinn says:
I can relate to the “can’t afford it.” I do lust after the Kindle Fire, but I don’t “need” it (yet).
Net neutrality keeps more of us able to talk with each other – long live.
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Violet Socks says:
Oh, I think the Kindle Fire looks great and the price is terrific. It sounds fabulous — a baby tablet thingy at 40% the price of an iPad. No argument that it’s a great buy. I hope everybody gets one for Christmas, including me.
I just object to $199 and $99 items being referred to as “impulse buys” and “stocking stuffers.” I mean, we’re not all Masters of the Universe here.
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Carmonn says:
It’s serious money, and the cost of ebooks, including children’s books, is only going up. The real impulse buying occurs after you’ve spent months saving up for it. I was searching Amazon for some obscure videos that I need, thinking if they were available I could try to get them through ILL, and some of them were available for immediate digital download. If I owned a compatible device, I doubt I’d be able to resist the temptation to spend money I don’t have. There doesn’t seem to be as much free content as there to be.
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Jodie says:
“Impulse buy” = less than $5. The people who consider it otherwise did not grow up with parents who were in the Great Depression.
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Monchichipox says:
I agree it’s not an impulse buy. I debated for a year over buying the kindle. Finally bought one three months ago. I wish I had done it sooner. If you read a lot it pays for itself rather quickly.
The kindle is amazing. I’m back to reading two books a week. It’s amazing the amount of books you get for free or in the one to three dollar range. As I was buying about four books a month from Amazon the Kindle really will pay for itself in the long wrong.
My kindle and my Ipod are the only gadgets I would say I need. Other than my computer for work and managing my Ipod.
However an impulse buy for me was a $5.00 little baby curly spider plant.
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Ugsome says:
Agreed, it’s obnoxious to characterize thusly items in that price range. How pushy of them to set our budgets for us.
I consider that price range for a gift for someone you care about on a special occasion when you can afford it–and if they want it. I have been known to spend more but only for exactly the right thing for exactly the right person at exactly the right time.
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Lilaenne says:
I’m pretty sure convincing each of us that we’re the only poor person in the world is the whole point of this kind of language. Keep ‘em isolated and they won’t think to organize, that sort of thing.
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Toonces says:
Lilaenne, yup, I agree. One of the most important things we can do is go against social norms and talk about money, or lack thereof.
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kiuku says:
Apparently it is, statistically speaking, it’s an impulse buy. I see people in poverty with electronics, in America. I mean, statistics. Are they in debt? I don’t think I’ve travelled in a poor neighborhood in which I did not see someone with a cellular telephone that was significantly better than mine. So statistically, it is in fact an impulse consideration. What their financial status is, and how they do it, I have no idea.
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Sameol says:
For the most part, if someone who’s poor has a piece of expensive equipment, they didn’t buy it new. There’s a huge secondary market for these products because overconsumers are constantly upgrading and then unloading their old stuff dirt cheap (“old” in this case meaning brand spanking new, but not new enough).
