Growing up very modestly has made the topic of personal savings very close to me. It doesn’t help that my taste tends to skew expensive high value. But with some patience and strategy over the years (and some help from my wife) it has been possible to stretch my beer budget to match the occasional champagne taste.

By necessity my approach to new purchases has been a lot of planning and saving. This has worked well however, since I will have a lot of time to consider how useful/fun a particular purchase will be. Sometimes I miss out or am late to the party for something more zeitgeisty, but I’d rather be late than not be there at all!^1

About a month ago I came across a great deal on the ROG Ally Extreme on Facebook Market and was able to jump in on the experiment of portable PCs. I have been saving up for this for about 6 months (primarily completing Prolific surveys in my free time). And wow the wait was worth it!

Windows on a handheld is every bit as fiddly as you would imagine (Windows update amIright?) but having easy access to all the various storefronts without having to dive into the even more fiddly Linux side of things is a welcome trade off.

I hate “calls to action” but I’m genuinely curious how you might approach purchasing “toys.” Drop me a line!

^1Why yes I am an extrovert😅