It has really been a while since I wrote a food for thought article here at LifeSpy. Since it’s the new year and we’re all in to bit the huge sh*t sandwich that is the economic crisis, let’s start talking about smart spending and pennypinching.

A lot of my friends got themselves the latest electronic gadgets during the holiday season – phones, media players, LCD TVs… And I’m sure there are quite a lot who tried to exploit the low-low bargains offered by stores in last year’s Black Friday sales.

I too was tempted in treating myself in some geek treats over the holidays. Thank goodness that after two years of pennypinching, I finally had an ample emergency fund in the bank and a budget surplus that would’ve allowed me to treat myself on a new laptop.

However, I didn’t buy anything at all. Instead, I just allocated the surplus into my emergency funds. Yup, what a scrooge. But come to think of it. Electronic gadgets aren’t really smart investment these days especially if you’re part of that population who buy gadgets as fashion accessories.

Electronic gadgets depreciate real quick. They’re basically half-off as soon as they come out of the box. If you’re the type who wants to have the “latest,” then you’re just another sucker duped by Moore’s law. Chances are, if you bought an Apple product, they might just pull something new out of their magic hat in just six months and that would just make your purchase a previous-gen item.

My hard and fast rule when it comes to electronics is simple – Make sure that I can use them for something profitable. My most recent purchases – laptop, business phone, and prosumer camera have effectively covered all my bases for work and play. And those I consider smart investments on gadgets since I’ve turned quite a nice profit on them well within and beyond their supposed lifespan all the while using them for leisure purposes.

So what purpose does your latest electronic purchase have?