sense most online business are having black friday is it worth buying something or should i pass and try to save my money. im a teen i have around 200$ but i would like to limit myself to 100$ or less. im probably posting this in the wrong place but im not sure, i just want to make a smart choice when it comes to money.
also i will not be investing in stocks or crypto so please dont suggest it.
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A great rule of thumb I have adopted as an adult to save money, is anytime I wanna impulse buy something I write it it down.
Then I come back to it 2 weeks later and if I still really want it then, I buy it.
But so often after 2 weeks the novelty has warn off and I look at the list and go “ehhh, meh, nevermind I dont want it that bad actually”
Surprised nobody suggested condoms.
It’s going to expire! Chicks are hard to get in teens.
Well, the question was “What is something worth buying as a teen?”
Condoms only cost a couple dollars, but can save you the much greater cost of dealing with an unwanted pregnancy or an STD. If the time for the seks comes unexpectedly, and you have a condom around, you’ll be REALLY glad you have one. Plus, they’re always a fun topic of conversation: “woah, what’s that?” “well, you know how I am, heh heh…” “oh yeah then why’s it almost expired?” etc.
They expire after 3-5 years. Then you can open them and inflate them and use them for a prank or art installation or something, and go get some more.
If you can’t answer this question for yourself, then you don’t have any burning need to spend the money. Just keep it for when you find you actually have a need.
Unless you have something specific you want, I’d advise not to spend money just for the sake of it, even for perceived savings from deals. That’s part of the trick with Black Friday deals - marking things down to get people to buy things they wouldn’t even think to get in the first place.
Avoid Black Friday unless you really do your research on the category of products beforehand. If you want to find great deals on stuff, buying used items is usually a good idea.
The answer might be vastly different depending on where you live, what things interest you, and so on. If you have a hobby already, get something related to your hobby.
Do you like tinkering with tech? Maybe buy a raspberry pi (or clone) to mess with, which can be awesome both for learning and for doing useful things for so many purposes.
Do you want to get in better shape? Maybe a resistance band, running shoes, or some weights.
Do you have an interest in art? Maybe a watercolor kit might be a good idea…
Basically it needs to be related to your goals and interests.
That’s a good question. It’s hard to go back to my teen years but I’d suggest:
- buy a musical instrument and learn to play it, really doesn’t mater which one. Especially during college years everyone who could play anything was suddenly a superstar
- buy some book to learn some skill, again doesn’t matter that much what you learn. I don’t know, like mixing cocktails? Sounds fun. For example by accident I learned “reading of hands”. I quickly learned that it’s bullshit but boy, was it an interresting thing to perform during parties in college
- Nothing really comes to my mind regarding of profesional development. Really at your level most of the stuff you can learn is free online and you don’t need anything expensive
Neither. Save your money.
My kids say a gaming system or games, computer hardware.
But only ever makes sense to buy something you already want. Price out the things you want today, at today’s prices, so you can tell if there even IS a discount on black Friday. Spending on something just because it’s cheap makes no sense.
So here’s the deal, you can buy a bunch of little trinkets and cool things that won’t affect your quality of life in the long term, or you can save up for a few big life changing things.
My suggestion would be to save up a few paychecks for a four season canvas bell tent as your first big investment. I recently moved into one as part of my offgrid prepping and wished I got one as a teen.
Its essentially your own room outside the house (provided your parents backyard is big enough for a small tent). Why? A reliable long lasting portable shelter that you can live in and or have a place for your friends to hang out/ socialize. If your parents are the loud argumentative never stops fighting kind that get on your nerves, being able to just leave the house and go to your own personal sanctuary is a godsend. If you get comfortable enough with tent living it will open up to you the possibility of saving up money for cheap land and owning your own property somewhere nice and scenic. without ever getting into financial debt.
If you are a smoker particularly of pot invest in a nice dry herb vaporizer from arizer. The smoke is a lot less harsh on the lungs, there’s practically no smell (my parents HATED the smell and chewed my ass when they caught a whiff)
- Safety razor (e.g Merkur 34c)
- Wahl haircut clippers
- Redwings leather boots
- Top grain leather wallet
Any of this things cost less than $100 and easily can last a life time.
Sounds like you need a cheap guitar
A lot of people in this thread are giving you weirdly specific advice about precise items to buy…
I noticed you’re considering buying a 3D printer with that budget. I think the answer depends somewhat on how often you come across money and what else you might spend it on. It’s good to be careful with your money, but part of being careful with it is doing some research to figure out when an item is too cheap to be worth it for you. There’s no one answer because it depends on what you value. In terms of the 3D printer, consider how much it will cost to run it, how much you want to use it, and what you might get out of it. I don’t know much about 3D printers, but I suspect if most people are telling you to get a $200 one instead of a $100 one it’s likely that the experience with a higher end one is noticeably better and less frustrating. If the quality of the parts is important to you and you’re not willing to put up with frustration when prints don’t work, or the printer needs maintenance, the extra money is probably well spent if you do want a 3D printer (and cheaping out might get you a 3D printer you won’t be happy with, which could be a bigger waste of money than a safer but more expensive purchase).
There are other options to consider. Libraries near you might have 3D printers you can use, and there are places to buy 3D printed models online (if you just want somebody to print them for you and are more interested in having some mini figures instead of the process of 3D printing). Buying 3D printed models from somebody else may cost less than getting a 3D printer, unless you think you’re going to make heavy use of it. It’s possible that you could also sell 3D printed stuff to recoup some costs if you do get a printer, but when making the decision I think you should assume you’ll make $0 from it and make sure you’re okay with the purchase in that case anyway.
My general rule of thumb is to wait a week or two before buying anything and then I’ll buy it if I still have the itch and am obsessing over it. There are always more sales too (and Black Friday deals will be going on all month). A 3D printer seems like a good purchase for a teen to me. There’s some cool skills you can learn that go alongside it. If you haven’t already look into some of the free software for creating models for printing (tinkercad, blender, etc). That’s a hobby you can get into with no money and might influence whether the printer would be worth it for you (can you make the things you want to make, or do you want to print models that others have made?)
If you haven’t already, get a guitar and give it a go.
I’d it sticks (and lights you up), you’ll have a lifetime journey and millions of fellow musicians to share it with.
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Smartwatches and analog ones are different products. The health features on a smart watch are genuinely useful
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“What are these health features that are so medically reliable on a smartwatch that becomes ewaste in 2 years?”
You act like half of these features don’t need government approval. There are some minor features on my watch that I can’t use because the FDA (the US’ health authority) didn’t authorize it. So yes, the data that decent smartwatches track is medically reliable enough for the FDA and other regulatory bodies to allow.
“Stop eating shit, change up your diet and lifestyle and incorporate 20 minutes of exercise everyday” Oh my god bro, I wish I thought of that! Man, everything makes so much sense now! All I need to do is turn off all of my impulses and just eat salads and drink smoothies all day! It’s so simple! I think I just lost 50 pounds right this instant!
I just changed your life and saved you thousands of dollars and the environment from ewaste.
All you did was give cookie-cutter advice. If you want to speak strictly from a population perspective, fine. On an individual level, though, this is dogshit advice because it’s devoid of nuance. Someone who works 2 or 3 jobs isn’t going to have time to take care of themselves, let alone have time for 20 minutes of decent exercise. Someone who’s a single parent working minimum wage will not cook a healthy meal for the family and will probably opt for fast food instead. Someone with broken legs can’t run, walk, or play most sports and thus have fewer opportunities to exercise. People with mental conditions like Autism and ADHD will hyperfocus on some Wikipedia rabbithole for hours and miss their exercise timeslot without realizing it. Stressed office workers and college students will be cramming or working overtime to meet quotas etc etc.
Literally all of those realistic and common scenarios involve major roadblocks that prevent people from “changing their lives.” Each person needs their own solution, and for many people, smartwatches fit incredibly well into that solution. Sleep through alarms? Your watch can vibrate and wake you up. Anger issues? Your watch can tell you when you need to cool down with breathing exercises. Sitting too long because you’re working? Your watch can tell you to take walking breaks. In your view, the alternative is probably to simply set a timer to take a walking break. In most people’s views, however, the alternative is probably not taking a walking break because they don’t even think about walking breaks.
Having tools to make healthy choices easier will inherently make it more likely to make healthy choices. If you think that everyone needs to follow your barebones advice instead of trying to actively use a smartwatch, then I want you to try the following:
- Buy individual parts for a Lenovo Thinkpad and build it from scratch. Then, after it works, install an OS without using another laptop or desktop.
Congratulations, you have a working laptop. Your coworker bought theirs from Best Buy and spent about 10 minutes, but they literally don’t use all of it! You obviously did the better thing, and assuming you’re most people, it only took 10 hours to build your first laptop! Hooray!
Now if that analogy didn’t work because you already know a decent bit about PC building, then replace it with building a car, or building a bike, or literally anything that you don’t already know. Regardless, having tools, whether knowledge based or tangible, makes building things easier, and smartwatches for many people are just tools for building healthier lives.
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Firstly, you are the epitome of clowns if you think $500 smartwatch ewaste is helping anyone with those kinds of issues over serious neurological, physiological and psychological advice, which would be very close to what I gave, and NOT BUYING $500 TECH JUNK NOT FIT FOR PEOPLE WITH MEDICAL CONDITIONS.
You missed my point entirely. My point is that slapping on a $200 smartwatch is an easier solution for some people to improve their lives at least marginally
If my advice was “general” advice, so is yours.
The only specific thing you suggested implementing is the app. You spoke nothing of motivators that actually help achieve most of the goals you spoke of. Smartwatches are one way of providing motivation by gamifying metrics like step counts and hours slept. The people I know who actively wear ones appreciate having a multipurpose pedometer on them at all times.
ADHD people are even riskier since smartwatches overload you with unnecessary statistics.
This is more likely a symptom of health anxiety rather than ADHD. Even if not, not everyone with ADHD gets anxious and overwhelmed by random statistics. You cannot gaslight me into thinking that my watch doesn’t help me by telling me to walk around after, for example, spending an hour reading random news stories.
You know what is far superior to a watch with two millimetres thick vibration motor? Your ears being able to hear sound.
I’m not going to dismiss your app suggestion, but have you seriously never heard anyone of sleeping past their multiple alarms?
If you have anger management issues, therapy and meditation is a must
Yes, but in the same way that physical healthcare is inaccessible for many, mental healthcare is inaccessible. Finding therapists for a set of niche conditions is often time consuming, expensive, and mentally/emotionally draining. It takes experimentation to find a therapist that will click for a certain person. Using my insurance, it’s literally cheaper to buy a smart watch every 2 weeks to 2 months than to visit a therapist at the recommended 2 weeks interval. You severely underestimate the cost of healthcare and overestimate the cost of “ewaste,” and that’s ignoring the time commitment of healthcare.
Shit, did I forget some people can have allergy strapping rubber or clothing or metal on their wrists, since you are using that logic?
I am one of those people, and I still wear a smartwatch. If you apply the same logic to commonly prescribed medications (e.g. Adderall and dry mouth/insomnia; some asthma medications and suicidal thoughts), then you’d quickly realize that doctors do a cost-benefit analysis before giving a treatment and that your logic is wrong.
A smartwatch in in no form or shape a necessity for any person, and far superior physical monitoring tools for strapping to body exist, that are medically backed and certified for relevant patients.
I don’t remember ever saying it was a necessity. I said it was a tool. A Swiss army knife is never going to replace a drill because they serve different functions. If you don’t know how to use either, then you shouldn’t use either without learning first. I don’t see how a smart watch is different in that regard.
I wish I was a teen with $200 to burn again.
I have no idea what you should buy in particular but just have fun, you won’t be a kid for long.
