Technological Change

Apple might be the leader in this department. Maybe it’s their iPhone or iPod or iMac, you get the picture. Apple seems to be all the rage now. They’re cutting edge right? They make me think of a huge question. How much are you going to spend in the next year to keep up with the pace at which technology is changing?

It costs money to keep up with technology. Earlier this year they got rid of analog television. What that meant was that if you had an old TV you needed to either get a special converter box or get a new TV, more money to spend.

The fact of the matter is that if you don’t spend money on new technologies just to look good, you’ll probably end up doing it to increase functionality. Life gets easier, faster, better with these new technologies. Faster internet allows you to search, find and access information faster than ever before. Faster computers allow you to multitask and get things done. Anyone in social media today is probably running at least 3 programs at any one time and one of them is a web browser that might have another 4 plus tabs open. Right now I’m running TweetDeck, Outlook, Word and IE. Then in Internet Explorer I have 3 tabs open and that’s on the low side for me. I need a computer that can handle this, you probably do to.

Then your spouse needs one too. Oh yeah, and don’t forget the kids. Maybe it’s the newest cell phone. There’s a reason that the iPhone does so well with their apps. It makes life easier. “There’s an app for that” It’s the slogan for a reason. It isn’t even about luxuries anymore for a lot of people. Do you need a Smartphone for work? Maybe a Blackberry? More and more jobs are requiring this of people. They want to be able to move information as fast as possible. Truth be told, you need to keep up or get left behind.

So how do you account for the new TV, computer, cell phone or netbook? You need to budget for it. Does this money come out of your emergency fund? I don’t know, do you? How do you calculate your emergency fund? Based on expenses or spending? If it’s expenses is it fixed or fluctuating or some combinations of the two? You might just need to boost your emergency fund to account for technological change or maybe you need a new fund. Did your financial planner mention it? Is he accounting for it? Better make sure someone is.