Do you feel apprehensive/worry about spending a large wad of cash on a musical instrument or kit?

munckee

p90fool said:

sawyer said:

I think to buy a cheaper alternative to save money is a false economy. Ultimately you won't be happy and you'll eventually buy the Fender/Gibson/etc you really want. Also buy secondhand and you don't lose much money if you come to sell. Your money still in the guitar if you need it. I really want a Gold Top at the minute

This was true for me, I spent ten years gigging a dozen different cheap Chinese guitars, which were all good fun but I never kept them for long. 

I bought my goldtop new at the end of 2012, and it's pretty much all I play. There are chunks of paint missing, it's been refretted, it's on its fourth scratchplate and I've worn through the finish in a few places, but it's paid for itself many times over. 

I had a decent strat, a classic player 50s and wanted a 335 so bought a Harley Benton, have changed the pickups and tuners and sounds great, I would never spend £1000+ on a 335 now this one ticks the box.  I bought what I considered and expensive guitar which was a roadworn tele and its great.  I sold the strat to fund it, bought a used squier and have upgraded everything and it plays great.  My strat and 335 probably cost me £300 each including parts, my tele was £800, its a step up but not more than twice the price step up.

Now I've modded almost everything I can on the strat and 335 I'm eyeing up the tele as I seem to like modding more than buying guitars.

I would possibly buy expensive fenders in the future as they are my thing but only if I had the money as a great one came up.

Chalky

No. A beautiful sounding instrument inspires me to play more often.

jeztone2

Grocer_Jack said:

jeztone2 said:

No. My father in law spunks massive sums on a new telly every six months. To me musical gear at least some sort of residual value. The only problems are the rough gigs. I almost took the headstock off a PRS at the St Moritz club in Soho. So I bought a Strat to play in the places where space is at a premium.

Yes the St Moritz is pretty narrow isn't it? I gouged my new Tele against the wall there a few years ago and put a nice dent in it. 

The Pen & Wig in Birmingham was another one, the amount of times your headstock would crunch against the wall. Amazingly they did 3 band bills with onstage monitor mixes. Despite having a stage the size of a double bed. Happy days! 

Neill

JAYJO said:

I wouldnt mind the chance. If i made a full pan of curry in the morning for tea, by the time i get home its all gone. Gannets leave me nothing. Everything in the fridge is spoken for!. I have a bottle of jack Daniels in the shed and a few left over beers from crimbo.
This is how it works. If i want a guitar for £1000 then i need £2000 . Because the Mrs will want her cut!. 
 She never asks for it but i dont feel i can justify spending that much money on myself so i drag her into it. We just dont tell the kids.
Ive wasted so much money on things i dont really use i shock myself. 
In my 2 year break from playing guitar due to kids and babies needing more attention i went down the camping trip route.
Started with a 6 xl callisto tent and all the gear and progressed to a ford transit camper conversion. I spent a fortune  (as far as my budget is concerned). I swear my knees were knocking when I bought the van . Luckily i need it to drop the baby off at nursery in the mornings so its actually worked out well as i would have needed to purchase a runnaround anyway.ps 
fking thing needed a new solenoid a week later cost me £480. Oh gum tree i love you. .

Amen to that, it's stopped me from making a fair few reckless purchases...

thegummy

At first I felt apprehensive but I find that once I've already spent that amount, I find it easy to spend it again.

E.g. When I first bought a guitar for 600 quid, it felt like a lot of money to spend at the time but after a while when I was looking at buying another, 600 didn't seem a lot. Then when I was hovering over the "buy" button when ordering my American Strat, I was anxious and apprehensive but after a while I didn't think much about spending even more on a Les Paul and pickups for it.

I suppose that the time has assured me that the enjoyment from playing those guitars far outweighed missing the money.

If I ever do go a step up and pay 2-3 grand for a high end guitar (which may be never), I'd probably feel anxious again before the purchase. Probably more so than any so far because that's such a substantial sum for anything really. Can only hope that if that day does come, the guitar justifies its price also!

Maynehead

The most expensive guitar I’ve ever bought was £1100, and I literally thought about it every day for a week, and lost about 2 nights of sleep because of it.

So I guess the answer is yes.

HarrySeven

No. If I've got it, I'll spend it. If I haven't got it, I'll probably still spend it*.

Saying that, my preferred mode of transacting is swapping/trading - that way (hopefully), everyone is happy.

These days, I have no interest in playing live, jamming (I've always hated that), recording or whatever (so it's not about gear having to "pay for itself") - I just like fannying about with guitars/gear. Lately, as I've made some workshop space, I'm enjoying it even more.

Also...I really don't care about expensive cars, TV, HiFi, high-end phones, refitting the kitchen every 5 minutes, blahblahblah and holidays/travel bores me to death, so I guess it's just personal preferences where the money goes.


*This modus operandi isn't exactly problem-free.

ToneControl

not usually much of a problem at all, bought something this week that popped up on an ebay search I set up years ago. Thought about it for a few minutes and went ahead.

I think that I can do this in a relaxed way is because I have spent years following my own set of rules, which are:

• Only buy stuff you are pretty sure you have a use for
• Don't buy cheaper brands new, buy better brands second hand
• If something is new but on a great offer price, that's fine
  
• Try to buy at a price where you can sell it on at a similar price - this just needs to average out
• Try not to buy things that are so weird no one else will ever want them (unless it's something that is essential to you)
• Don't spend a fortune customising a guitar
• You can buy new at full price if there is no other way of getting that type of thing. e.g. my Schecter 30 inch scale baritone with EMGs, there was no similar model ever going to come up used straight away after the model was launched, and when I called the UK distributor - even after several months they had not even imported one into the UK. So I bought one from Thomann.

 So following those roughly, I generally average as breaking even on a sale.
Therefore, it's like putting money in a fun very of a savings account
Therefore no stress when buying, since you are not disposing of your cash, simply investing it

viz

I think it’s only natural to take these decisions carefully; after all, there’s a lot of responsibility and privilege attached to having disposable cash and treating yourself, so taking time over your choices and spending money frugally is simply a wise and good thing to do.

spark240

HarrySeven said:

No. If I've got it, I'll spend it. If I haven't got it, I'll probably still spend it*.

Saying that, my preferred mode of transacting is swapping/trading - that way (hopefully), everyone is happy.

These days, I have no interest in playing live, jamming (I've always hated that), recording or whatever (so it's not about gear having to "pay for itself") - I just like fannying about with guitars/gear. Lately, as I've made some workshop space, I'm enjoying it even more.

Also...I really don't care about expensive cars, TV, HiFi, high-end phones, refitting the kitchen every 5 minutes, blahblahblah and holidays/travel bores me to death, so I guess it's just personal preferences where the money goes.


*This modus operandi isn't exactly problem-free.

Ha !.....you can just pop round ours for all that stuff !

Phil_aka_Pip

I've no qualms about spending money on something good that's likely to last the rest of my lifetime. So long as I've saved for it first.

wesker123

Sassafras said:

I'd feel like a complete sucker and a moron if I bought a solid electric guitar for £8k-£10k or more. That sort of price can't possibly be justified unless it was made of panda bones or mammoth ivory.

20% of that will be tax so I thought you would be happy no?

Keefy

It's fine to obsess before purchase, what you don't want is to be chewing yourself up about it afterwards - this is known as buyer's remorse.

I have found that I rarely suffer from this if apply one simple principle. Say you're out guitar shopping and you keep going back to this one guitar, spending longer with it than the others - it's saying 'Take Me, I'm Yours'. Listen to that voice and you won't go far wrong.

martin8708

HarrySeven said:

Also...I really don't care about expensive cars, TV, HiFi, high-end phones, refitting the kitchen every 5 minutes, blahblahblah and holidays/travel bores me to death, so I guess it's just personal preferences where the money goes.


*This modus operandi isn't exactly problem-free.

Same here , I don't own a phone , play golf , and I triple the value of my car when I put a guitar in it . 
No problem on stumping up £2-3k on a guitar ,providing it's fairly mainstream and has the magic F  on the headstock . 
I would not spend that kind of money on a custom ordered niche guitar made to some-one else's specification ,

bingefeller

No, I earned the money so I’m going to spend it on something I enjoy.  

bacchanalian

Yes, evey time. I have probably sold or put up for sale every expensive guitar I have bought. Less to do with economics more to do with self esteem and questioning why I need such expensive gear. Having said that, I recently heard a fellow fretboarder play my most expensive purchase and it sounded fab. 

HarrySeven

spark240 said:

HarrySeven said:

No. If I've got it, I'll spend it. If I haven't got it, I'll probably still spend it*.

Saying that, my preferred mode of transacting is swapping/trading - that way (hopefully), everyone is happy.

These days, I have no interest in playing live, jamming (I've always hated that), recording or whatever (so it's not about gear having to "pay for itself") - I just like fannying about with guitars/gear. Lately, as I've made some workshop space, I'm enjoying it even more.

Also...I really don't care about expensive cars, TV, HiFi, high-end phones, refitting the kitchen every 5 minutes, blahblahblah and holidays/travel bores me to death, so I guess it's just personal preferences where the money goes.


*This modus operandi isn't exactly problem-free.

Ha !.....you can just pop round ours for all that stuff !

I'll be round to watch telly and make some dinner tomorrow night then!

bassbora

HarrySeven said:

Also...I really don't care about expensive cars, TV, HiFi, high-end phones, refitting the kitchen every 5 minutes, blahblahblah and holidays/travel bores me to death, so I guess it's just personal preferences where the money goes.

But you travel for the right guitar/gear 

Fishboy7

I buy high and sell low and lose a packet on every deal.