What Has Become So Expensive That It's No Longer A Good Value?

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chevss454

chevss454

Data-driven decision-making is science and art.
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I'll start to kick it off

A college degree - it's not the difference it used to be and the cost has skyrocketed in the last 15 years.
Apple products - I'll have to think long and hard before buying another iPhone or iPad or iWhatever
Designer anything
 
chevss454 said:
I'll start to kick it off

A college degree - it's not the difference it used to be and the cost has skyrocketed in the last 15 years.
Click to expand...
I currently have a daughter who is a freshmen in college and another daughter behind her who is a junior in high school. What has happened to college is outrageous. I was fortunate that my oldest daughter had really good grades and got a ton in academic scholarship money. I have come to the conclusion that 4 year colleges are not for everyone. I think going into the trades is a viable option as there is such a shortage. There is also a ton of online education to help ease the cost especially the first 2 years of college which is mostly just liberal arts courses you have to take to get the degree. I still think a degree is important in today's culture but you have to be creative in how you go about getting it.
chevss454 said:
Apple products - I'll have to think long and hard before buying another iPhone or iPad or iWhatever
Click to expand...
How come? I love Apple anything.
chevss454 said:
Designer anything
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Depends what it is. I am a huge fan of Nike, UnderArmour and any beauty products by Sephora. I don't mind paying as long as the quality is there. I hate Lululemon. $98 for stretch pants, really???
 
Mazz22 said:
How come? I love Apple anything.
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Me too. I resisted Apple products for many years until about 18 or 19 years ago I got a refurbished 20GB ipod when I signed up for Audible. It stopped working so I went to the Apple store in Burlington and they gave me a new one just for asking for help. That made an enormously positive impression on me. Then at some point I bought an ipod nano on impulse. After I got that I bought a basic macbook out of curiosity, I think basically to run iTunes (and Senuti, which is iTunes backwards). (I actually don't remember what made me get the macbook, probably just felt like spending money). It took me a while to get used to the Macbook but I remember thinking that I liked the fonts. This would have been in 2008. I upgraded the ssd drive in the macbook I think 4 times - I still have it and it still works, but seems really clunky now. Around 2013 I got involved in a side project to develop the high-speed camera now used by all major league baseball teams. The guys who designed it were colleagues of mine from the 80s who had since I had known them gone to California to work at Apple. Anyway, because they were Apple devotees they sent me a mac mini to use running Ubuntu (which is the distro of linux I use most often for work), so strangely we were using Apple hardware to run linux, but that was their process. After a couple of years using that I decided to get a Macbook Air mostly for that work. Sometime around that time t-mobile finally started to support Apple products - I absolutely hated my Samsung phones and was thrilled to have an excuse to finally get an iPhone (an 6s). I laughed at the iPad when it first came out but am on my third now, a 12.9" iPad Pro. I currently use that iPad, an iPhone 15 Pro Max, both an M1 Macbook Air (which I am typing on right now) and a 15" M2 Macbook Air ("fully loaded"). I occasionally will try an Android tablet (I have one that I got for review purposes) and can't believe how bad they are. On occasion I am exposed to Windows (usually when I have a new machine I am installing Ubuntu on) and am baffled that anyone could use it. A lot of it depends of course on what you are used to, but I have definitely become an Apple fanboy in my old age.
 
Mazz22 said:
I currently have a daughter who is a freshmen in college and another daughter behind her who is a junior in high school. What has happened to college is outrageous. I was fortunate that my oldest daughter had really good grades and got a ton in academic scholarship money. I have come to the conclusion that 4 year colleges are not for everyone. I think going into the trades is a viable option as there is such a shortage. There is also a ton of online education to help ease the cost especially the first 2 years of college which is mostly just liberal arts courses you have to take to get the degree. I still think a degree is important in today's culture but you have to be creative in how you go about getting it.

How come? I love Apple anything.

Depends what it is. I am a huge fan of Nike, UnderArmour and any beauty products by Sephora. I don't mind paying as long as the quality is there. I hate Lululemon. $98 for stretch pants, really???
Click to expand...

I know plumbers and electricians who pay taxes on $250K every year. Who knows what they actually earn! $50K-$60K/yr for a 3rd tier school is nuts. I put all of my kids through school but the last graduated 17 yrs ago. Today if my kid wanted to go to college I'd make them take loans for 1/3 to 1/2 the cost. I blame the ease of getting loans for college for the astounding rise in tuitions. Sign and drive!

I love Apple, too, and I've always had Apple. Upgrades for Apple have been few and far between recently. Titanium? Who gives a crap about the case? Give me a camera like Google's Pixel 6!!

I don't consider Nike or UnderArmor to be designer products. YSL, LV, Chanel...those are what I'm talking about.
 
TipRoast said:
What about men's watches, like Cartier and Breitling?

View attachment 21940
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Cartier is one of those designers, yes. Rolex and Patek are others. Breitling is a wannabe. Omega and Tissot are comparable to Breitling for less money.
I have a Rolex that I haven't worn in 25 years bc it loses 5-6 minutes every 24 hrs; it's been calibrated many times but still keeps terrible time. It's in a drawer
and now I wear a Fossil Carraway watch I bought on Amazon for less than $150. Keeps time perfectly and looks and feels great.

Carraway-watch.jpg
 
chevss454 said:
I'll start to kick it off

A college degree - it's not the difference it used to be and the cost has skyrocketed in the last 15 years.
Apple products - I'll have to think long and hard before buying another iPhone or iPad or iWhatever
Designer anything
Click to expand...
For sure re degree. And imo you left off the most important reason. Again imo, except maybe for stem degrees, the product quality has decreased as much as the price has increased. So a doubled dollar buys maybe (being generous?) half as much. And nevermind the politics.
 
The law of supply and demand states that as prices increase then demand for a product or service will decrease.

College tuition is essentially backstopped by the government so there is no upwards limit on the price. There is in fact a perverse incentive to charge more because the price is considered a stand in for quality, the "expensive school" is considered better.

If a family makes enough money to not qualify for grants, but not enough to cover the 150k to 200k expense then the student will graduate with a mortgage sized debt which hampers their ability to make the financial steps many of us took for granted (buying cars or homes, having children, etc).

Id really like the 300K I spent on my kids back in the retirement account, but that's not going to happen.
 
chevss454 said:
I know plumbers and electricians who pay taxes on $250K every year. Who knows what they actually earn! $50K-$60K/yr for a 3rd tier school is nuts. I put all of my kids through school but the last graduated 17 yrs ago. Today if my kid wanted to go to college I'd make them take loans for 1/3 to 1/2 the cost. I blame the ease of getting loans for college for the astounding rise in tuitions. Sign and drive!
Click to expand...
College tuition is the #1 thing I came here to say. I have two high schoolers and I tried to nudge them both to strongly consider a vocational school but neither opted for it. They have an uncle who is a plumber and spends his summers golfing or on his boat. I spend my summers doing the same thing I do during winter, spring, and fall: working many hours per week for "The Man." I have a great job that I love, but I'll never truly be my own boss in the field I chose. I will also require them to pay for half of their tuition. If they excel, I will reimburse them that amount in the form of a down payment on their first home when the time comes. I also have not shared that fact with them. We'll see how it pans out.

AkPatsFan said:
Flying, the seats have become smaller and you have to pay for comfort and I'm not talking about first class.
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This is another good one I had not considered. I do a fair amount of flying for work, so the base price is not on my dime. I used to upgrade with miles but the ROI on that is hardly worth it anymore. To pay out-of-pocket for it, even less so. I now stash the miles exclusively for family and personal trips. I know it still ends up net-positive for me but some of my flights are 7+ hours and not very pleasant in a coach seat.
 
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