After the discussion about getting or not the MM300 on Jeje's hijacked thread (mea culpa
), I was thinking about this. When do you actually go overboard with the watch thing? Ok, I'm obviously not referring to the guy who gets into debt because of the hobby, since then it would be something truly pathological, but us "normal" and sensible guys. When and how do you keep things sane :
?
Obviously price is something adamant, since I wouldn't go on a Rollie buying spree even if I wanted to, because just I don't have the means. But besides something obvious like that, what puts you in check? I know some people have a number limit ("I can only have X watches - if one comes, one must go") and some people put a price cap on how much he/she can spend on one watch or on watches in certain amount of time. Let's face it, like all other hobbies, watches are just a fancy, nothing really important or essential, so how do you avoid going overboard?
Having a wife helps ;D , but being honest, at least for me I have to do a personal moral check whenever I want to dump money on a hobby even when I can get away with it without needing approval from SEC. For those who didn't follow Jeje's thread, this all started because I said that I could buy a MM300 locally and for a good price but was a bit uncomfortable with the idea just because I got a very nice watch (O300) and will get another in a couple of weeks (OS Retrograde). The problem with hobbies is that they are very selfish, and though I consider myself to be very reasonable in my spendings and do not "burn money", whatever value I invest in a watch is for me only. One thing that helps me rationalize the investment is trying to buy expensive watches only in special occasions. For instance, the O300 was a birthday gift, and the Retrograde, along with another Orient for my wife, will be a sort of present for us for our 10th wedding anniversary in September.
Since there are no more important dates for me this year, the MM300 would have to be my Christmas gift :-[ . Totally silly, I know, but as I said it helps me accept the fact that I'm basically blowing away money on something totally selfish. And yes, if I bought the MM300, it would sit in it's box all the way to Xmas, I wouldn't even give it a peek. Oh, I can do it, I've done it before many times - the O300 arrived in May, and I only saw it on July 2nd. Our wedding anniversary is only on September 23rd, so it will be a while until I can truly say that have a Retrograde ;D . Go ahead, call me a masochist, but besides rationalizing things for me, it makes me want the watch even more, so it's more treasured when I finally get it.
So far that has kept me from saying that I went overboard with this watch thing. How do you guys do it?
Obviously price is something adamant, since I wouldn't go on a Rollie buying spree even if I wanted to, because just I don't have the means. But besides something obvious like that, what puts you in check? I know some people have a number limit ("I can only have X watches - if one comes, one must go") and some people put a price cap on how much he/she can spend on one watch or on watches in certain amount of time. Let's face it, like all other hobbies, watches are just a fancy, nothing really important or essential, so how do you avoid going overboard?
Having a wife helps ;D , but being honest, at least for me I have to do a personal moral check whenever I want to dump money on a hobby even when I can get away with it without needing approval from SEC. For those who didn't follow Jeje's thread, this all started because I said that I could buy a MM300 locally and for a good price but was a bit uncomfortable with the idea just because I got a very nice watch (O300) and will get another in a couple of weeks (OS Retrograde). The problem with hobbies is that they are very selfish, and though I consider myself to be very reasonable in my spendings and do not "burn money", whatever value I invest in a watch is for me only. One thing that helps me rationalize the investment is trying to buy expensive watches only in special occasions. For instance, the O300 was a birthday gift, and the Retrograde, along with another Orient for my wife, will be a sort of present for us for our 10th wedding anniversary in September.
Since there are no more important dates for me this year, the MM300 would have to be my Christmas gift :-[ . Totally silly, I know, but as I said it helps me accept the fact that I'm basically blowing away money on something totally selfish. And yes, if I bought the MM300, it would sit in it's box all the way to Xmas, I wouldn't even give it a peek. Oh, I can do it, I've done it before many times - the O300 arrived in May, and I only saw it on July 2nd. Our wedding anniversary is only on September 23rd, so it will be a while until I can truly say that have a Retrograde ;D . Go ahead, call me a masochist, but besides rationalizing things for me, it makes me want the watch even more, so it's more treasured when I finally get it.
So far that has kept me from saying that I went overboard with this watch thing. How do you guys do it?