In last week’s post I discussed the BLS (bureau of labor statistics) April 2018 consumer expenditure report.  This week’s post is going to expand on that and focus on the BLS generational report (i.e., BLS birth year.xls).

https://www.bls.gov/cex/csxresearchtables.htm#crosstab

I think this report is a great way to see how much others spend on certain expenses (for example their cell phone bill).  I especially like the generational report because you can narrow your comparison to others in your same age cohort; which makes the comparison more relevant.  My argument is that a millennial’s expenses will be quite different from that of baby boomer who recently retired.   Therefore, use the BLS generational table and pick your respective generation’s column and find out what your cohorts spend on life’s normal, every day expenses.  Last week we focused on the percentage of your income you spend on these categories but this week we’re going to compare the actual expenses in good old US dollars.  The numbers below are for a household income of about $94,000.  This might be more or less than your situation but sometimes percentages get a little vague and abstract.  I need some real numbers!

One word of caution however, the BLS survey is what the “average” person in your generation spends on something (e.g., car payment).  This proverbial “average” person isn’t really meant to be held up as some kind of ideal.  Quite the contrary, this “average” person is really the C student in school.  It’s a useful reference to see how a C student did on the test, but I wouldn’t celebrate too much if you are at, or slightly better, than a C student (don’t celebrate mediocrity!).  Conversely, don’t console yourself if you’re only slightly worse than this proverbial C student.  Please see my previous post on why its actually a really good thing to be super average (um.   .   . yeah.   .    . not so much.   .    .).

 

https://jimmysmoneytips.com/2017-12-04/q-whats-so-wrong-with-being-average-wait-for-it/

 

I’m a Gen Xer so I’ll be using that generation as my reference point, see their numbers below; however, you should choose your respective generation and consider why are you doing better or worse than “average”.  If you are worse than the average then you should absolutely sit around the kitchen table and ponder how can I improve?  Enough small talk, let’s get to the numbers!

 

Gen X
$809	Food (includes alcohol)
	420	groceries
	341	restaurants
	$1,104	modified food & groceries to include pets, personal care (e.g., shampoo) and household goods (e.g. laundry and cleaning supplies)
$1,858	housing
	1,483	total mortgage including property taxes and insurance
	33	natural gas
	134	electricity
	139	phone
	53	water
	16	other
$913	transportation
	402	car payment
	201	gasoline
	102	insurance
	78	repairs/maintenance
	129	other – including public transport
$370	healthcare including premiums, Rxs and doctor visits
$365	entertainment
	122	pets
	102	tv
	82	admissions
	60	other
$743	insurance/social security
$731	miscellaneous
	168	charity
	224	clothing
	340	other (reading, education, personal care, tobacco, etc.)
$2,034	taxes/savings
$7,823	total expenditures
$7,823	monthly gross income
$93,876	annual gross income

I will include some of my own numbers (in blue, below) to take some of my own medicine.  .    .

 

Food and groceries.  We spent $1,187 per month on food and groceries in Q1.  That’s higher than the reference of $1,104, which is the modified food/groceries number from the BLS.  It’s modified to include pet food/supplies, personal care items (e.g., shaving cream), and household goods (e.g., laundry detergent).  I used the modified approach because we buy most of our groceries at Wal-mart and this includes things like cat food, shampoo, and air filters; we don’t account for these items separately.  These last items get categorized by the BLS as entertainment (pet expenses), miscellaneous (personal care), and housing (air filters).  I believe it’s pretty easy to diagnose my problem here – it’s going out to eat!  I know I should bring my lunch to work most days and should avoid restaurants – especially desserts.   .    .

 

Housing.  I think it’s better to break this down into its components

Our monthly mortgage payment is $1,207 which includes property taxes and insurance.  I believe the comparable BLS number is $1,483 but that might be a touch high due to their inclusion of household maintenance, which my mortgage payment doesn’t .   .   .

 

Our combined monthly electric and natural gas bill is $167 per month ($95 for electric and $72 for natural gas) on the equal payment plan (EPP).  This is actually the exact same as the BLS average of $167.  How ironic.  See my previous post on how to lower your heating & cooling bills.

https://jimmysmoneytips.com/2017/07/15/top-ways-to-reduce-your-heating-and-cooling-cost/

Our cell phone bill is $132 per month, slightly better than the BLS average of $139 per month.  See my previous post on how to save money on your next smartphone purchase.

https://jimmysmoneytips.com/2017/07/21/think-like-a-boss-save-858-on-your-iphone/

Our water bill averages $62 per month (Q1), slightly higher than the BLS average of $53.

 

Transportation.  Let’s try rapid fire.  Our car payment is $402 per month (same as the BLS).  We spent $338 per month (Q1 average) on gasoline (BLS average is $201).  We spend $168 per month on car insurance (BLS average is $102).  Not my best category.   .    .

I spent more on healthcare and charity but about the same on TV.  I think you get the idea.  Plug in your numbers and see if you’re doing better or worse than the BLS averages?

 

I know this exercise (and this post for that matter) were a little detailed (a.k.a, boring!) but sometimes personal finance involves a little number crunching and some critical thinking about how you can spend less .   .     .

It’s April already! Where does the time go?  I’m an accountant, as well as a personal finance nerd, which means I use excel a lot.   .    . So lets crunch some numbers and see how things turned out in Q1 (first quarter 2018). There’s some good news .   .    .   and there’s some bad news .   .       . Let’s start with the good news: We contributed 14% (of combined base salary) to our retirement (including the company contribution), we are on track to fully fund our health savings account (HSA), our net worth increased about $14,000, we stayed on budget (spent less than our income), paid off about $5,000 on our debt (still have mortgage and auto debt). We spent less than the national average on food, housing, utilities, and transportation (as a percentage of income, see chart below, national average per BLS consumer expenditure survey).

The bad. We spent more (than the national average) on healthcare, entertainment, charity, and miscellaneous.  Even though we stayed on budget for the quarter, the miscellaneous category was a bit of a problem. We spent a lot on healthcare – medical care is really expensive (I know, I know, stop the presses.  .   .).  The mortgage debt doesn’t bother me too much (for now) – but I am disappointed that we still have a car note and owe about $1,000 on a credit card, left over from my new computer purchase.   .     .  See a previous post on my recent computer odyssey.

https://jimmysmoneytips.com/2018/04/01/i-bought-a-new-computer-did-i-pay-too-much/

In finances, you aren’t competing against your neighbor or your co-worker; you’re competing against yourself! Are you making progress toward your goal of financial independence? Or are you getting in your own way? Let’s walk through 6 ways to measure financial success and see if there are any areas we need to work on?  I’ll put my answers in blue.

• Your net worth. Is your net worth going up or down? Remember that net worth is everything you own (e.g. house, 401k, etc.), subtracting everything you owe (e.g., mortgage, student loans, credit cards, etc.).  Our net worth went up about $14,000 in Q1 (woo hoo).

 

• Your credit score. An excellent credit score will result in a lower interest rate; that can make a big difference. Let me give an example.  A 4% 30 year mortgage on a $300,000 house would have over $215,000 in interest over 30 years! (a 15 year mortgage would have less than $100,000 in interest, but that’s a topic for another day); that same 30 year mortgage would include about $280,000 in interest at 5%. Going from 4% to 5%, on the mortgage, will cost you an extra $65,000 in interest payments! (for the same house. .   .) A good credit score is an indication of paying your bills on time and being conscientious to pay-off your debt. I would rather you not had any debt at all (other than a 15 year mortgage), but if you already have debt, don’t neglect your credit score and end up paying more in interest.     .       . A very good score is 740 (or higher).  Mine is 835; that’s actually not entirely a good thing.  It means I’ve had, and continue to have, way too much debt.   .     .

 

• The number of months your emergency fund will carry you. Most financial planners suggest 3-6 months worth of expenses be saved in a savings account (not stocks, bonds, CDs etc.). What would happen if you lost your job or had another financial emergency (examples include medical emergencies and necessary home repairs (e.g., a leaky roof). What would happen if you lost your job tomorrow? Would this involve lots of credit card debt.     .       .  See a previous post on possibly losing your job.

https://jimmysmoneytips.com/2018/01/15/how-to-prepare-if-you-think-you-might-lose-your-job/

I’m not doing so well here; I usually only keep $1,000 to $2,000 in savings.  Plenty of room for improvement.    .    .

 

• Your retirement saving percentage. Millionaires invest at least 20% of their income, according to the Millionaire next door (Thomas Stanley).  My retirement investment %, including the company portion, was 21% of my base pay, or 17% of my total pay (including incentive compensation), or 12% of total household income (including my wife’s pay as well as dividends).

 

• Your debt-to-income ratio. To calculate your debt-to-income ratio, take the total of your monthly debt payments (e.g., car payments, student loans, etc.) and divide it by your gross monthly income (for the month). It’s optimal to be debt-free, of course, but according to bankrate.com, lenders look for a target debt-to-income ratio of 36% or less. What’s yours?  Mine is 18% – still too high.  We did manage to pay-down about $5,000 of debt in Q1.  It’s not much, but it’s progress.   .    .

 

• Your giving percentage. Personally, I believe a true measure of personal financial security is the ability to give. I don’t just say that as a Christian (Christ was a giver, John 3:16, just sayin’). Giving will change your perspective on life – I promise.

Remember, its not about you (purpose driven life by Rick Warren). Research indicates that giving to others makes us happier than spending money on ourselves. I’m a Christian so I believe this percentage should be at least 10% – the Bible tells us not to steal from God.  Mine was only 8% this quarter.  Made a minor miscalculation regarding my incentive compensation in March.  Plan to correct that in April.   .    .

	our %	national %
housing	17%	25%
transportation	8%	12%
food	7%	10%
ins./social security	12%	9%
healthcare	8%	6%
entertainment	6%	4%
charity	8%	3%
miscellaneous	15%	8%
taxes/savings	19%	23%
	100%	100%

1) Housing – a little better than the national average; probably because we haven’t “traded-up”; we’ve lived in the same house for over 13 years now. Also because we haven’t done many of the updates we could or should have.   .   .  See my previous post on whether you should “invest” in home improvements?

https://jimmysmoneytips.com/2018/03/06/are-home-improvements-a-good-idea/

2) Transportation – a little better than average – which is kinda surprising because we still have a car loan – see my separate post on cars.

https://jimmysmoneytips.com/2017/09/16/car-buying-tips/

3) Food – a little better than average – which is also a little shocking because we could/should do better – especially eating out at restaurants – see below a separate post on food.

https://jimmysmoneytips.com/2017/07/02/top-10-budget-busters/

4) Insurance/Social Security – kind of a weird BLS (bureau of labor statistics) category – we are over budget here but I think that’s because I took out a new disability policy and it’s a little pricey due to some previous health issues (cancer, stroke, etc.).  Including social security is a little odd but that’s the way the BLS did it.  See below a separate post on whether (or not) you’re actually going to get any benefit from social security?

https://jimmysmoneytips.com/2017/11/03/q-will-i-really-get-any-benefit-from-social-security-in-retirement/

5) Healthcare – a little worse than the national average; I have some chronic health conditions (so does my son) including Crohn’s disease and high cholesterol, which entails some expensive prescriptions; at least we fully fund our health savings account (HSA) each year and get a bit of a tax break by paying for medical bills and prescriptions from the HSA; it also serves as a sinking fund; monthly out-of-pocket health care costs don’t impact our monthly expenses (i.e.,. take-home pay expenditures).  This helps to avoid a cash crisis due to a medical bill.  Don’t neglect your health!  HSA is funded via a payroll deduction.

 

6) Entertainment – a little worse than the national average – probably because we spent a little too much at Christmas, paid that off in January.    .    .  Spending too much on my son is one of my weaknesses.

 

7) Charity – a good bit higher than the national average. I’m a Christian and believe that the Bible strongly encourages us to give to others – especially to the church – in order to help the needy and tell people about God.  We are supposed to be Christ-like and God was a giver – John 3:16 – just sayin’.  See below an inspirational video – it’s worth watching – trust me.   .    .

8) Miscellaneous – a good bit higher than the national average – this is mostly due to Mark’s private school tuition – a choice I will definitely make again because I know how much better Mark does when his education is specialized for his autism.

9) Taxes/savings – a little better than the national average (BLS consumer expenditure survey from April 2018 – it’s actually 2016 data but it’s the latest available) but I confess this is an unusual category.  I “plugged” (a.k.a., “derived”) this category to get the total average annual expenditures (per BLS) back to the total income before taxes per the BLS.  The BLS April survey shows income before taxes of $74,664 but only $57,311 in total expenditures.  Therefore, I have concluded that the difference in these two numbers is due to either taxes or savings (neither category is listed in the BLS summary).  Our taxes are relatively low (as a % of income) because we itemize, but we tend to spend most of our take home pay .   .    .    I decided to look at expenses as a percentage of income before taxes to get “the big picture”.

 

 

Let’s compare to how the rich spend their money.

https://jimmysmoneytips.com/2017/07/28/how-do-the-rich-spend-their-money/

 

You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”

Haggai 1:6

What’s the hole in your pocket?  (think about it before you answer – it’s actually a really deep question).  Before I get into that – let me frame the question and maybe expand your horizon a little (hope this works.   .    .).  I think the same answer applies to someone trying to escape poverty, trapped in alcoholism, or even weighed down by a life of a sin (more on that later).  Stick with me – some of my ideas probably seem unrelated and random.   .     .

 

Why do you read this blog?  Before you answer that strangely awkward and mildly inappropriate break of internet protocol – let me answer who (the intended audience) this blog is for.  The demographic answer is 20 and 30 somethings starting their careers; anyone just beginning their personal financial journey.  The more authentic and transparent answer is anyone on their personal financial journey who is willing to learn and willing to change.

 

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
― Leo Tolstoy

Personal finance is 20% education (learning how) and 80% discipline (following what you already know).

In this blog I try to address both – mostly by using myself as an example (the good, the bad, the ugly).  Let me back up and tell you about myself and the purpose of this blog (to set the landscape).  I am a Christ follower (He is risen!), this affects every aspect of my life, including my personal financial journey.  I truly believe that many will continue to struggle with their finances until they get their priorities in line with the Bible (I know it worked for me).  Many people try to fill the God sized hole in their heart with other things: money, alcohol, drugs, etc.  – these things are but a poor substitute (temporary high) for a real relationship with the God of the universe!  The God that created the earth, the stars, the galaxy, even you and me.  John 3:16.  I recommend the book “the case for Christ” by Lee Strobel – I also really enjoyed the movie based on the book.  I’m a pretty big fan of Dave Ramsey and his quest to help people become debt-free.  I agree with that goal.  I have attended his financial peace university and highly recommend that to anyone who has not been (it costs $100, but it’s worth it!)

https://www.daveramsey.com/fpu

I like sports (Go Heels! Go Panthers! Go Braves!), visiting the NC mountains, spending time with friends and family, listening to music, watching TV, and reading books. My day job is in accounting. I love to discuss current events, personal finance, politics, business, technology, generational differences and religion.  Feel free to send me ideas about topics you want me to write about.  Please contact me directly at jimmysmoneytips@gmail.com

Now that you know a little bit about me, let me describe this blog’s purpose.   .    .

Financial decisions are all around us – they happen almost every day.  I created this blog to share my experiences in hope that you might learn from my success as well as my failure.     .       .   Life is hard – do your research and learn from your mistakes – better yet – learn from others’ mistakes and avoid those money pitfalls.  Helping others, through personal finance education, is a passion for me.  I am intrigued by how people approach financial decisions – some of these decisions turn out well; and some, well, not so much.   .    .   I’m convinced that most financial mistakes can be avoided.  Having said that – we are all human and prone to making poor financial decisions.  Let’s take a journey together and find ways to think smarter about our daily decisions and how they impact our personal finances.  I don’t claim to have all the answers but hope this blog will help educate folks about some money strategies and insights as we try to think smarter together.  (from my first post in June 2017)

I want to challenge the way you think about your finances  (agreement is not required).  This blog also gives me the opportunity to work on 3 of my biggest character flaws: chronic procrastination, a tendency to give up too easily, as well as avoiding difficult tasks.  I promised myself that I would blog for at least a year.  I started last June and have over 50 posts under my belt so far.  I have been tempted to quit numerous times; who cares about this silly blog anyhow? – and who am I to give financial advice? (honestly, who throws a shoe?)  It’s actually been many much more difficult than I anticipated to come up with fresh, interesting, relevant, helpful posts each week.   .    .  But alas, I shall press on!

Now that you know who I am and the purpose of this blog.  Please tell me if I have remained true to who I am and the original purpose of this blog?  Better yet, please tell me why you read my posts?  I know it’s helped keep me accountable for my own financial decisions – maybe that’s goal.   .     .  Please comment below or contact me directly at jimmysmoneytips@gmail.com

Thanks!

Be skeptical – ask questions, use critical thinking. I quote the Bible not because I want you to be impressed – I want you to read the Bible for yourself and apply the truth to your own life.   If you have never read it, may I humbly suggest you start with Proverbs.    You can probably live without Jesus, but can you die without him? Just sayin’

So how are you doing financially?  What’s the hole in your pocket?  Please read one of my previous posts to help evaluate your financial situation.  Because regardless of where you are on your financial journey it’s important to ask – on a regular basis – How am I doing?

https://jimmysmoneytips.com/2017/08/11/6-ways-to-measure-financial-success/

I’ll do a post next week about how I’m doing as a quarterly check-up.

Be inspired to change (pick one thing, just one thing, and promise yourself that you will improve – this week!) – watch the video below – if this doesn’t inspire you, you might want to check your pulse.    .    .

 

Bonus section – for those of you who are interested in starting your own blog

A couple of you have expressed interest in writing your own blog and I am here to encourage you to go for it!

Blog definition from the Oxford English dictionary (not to be confused with an article)

A regularly updated website or web page, typically run by an individual or small group, that is written in an informal or conversational style.

Before you decide if you can monetize a blog, you first have to write something interesting – something people want to read.  Content is king! I read “blogging for dummies” before I started.  Be a content creator, not just a consumer of information.

This blog itself is different.   .   . Blogs generally fall into 2 categories, private and commercial. Private blogs are for close friends and family and are not open to the public; a way to share family photos, memories, etc. with loved ones. Most other blogs are written for the purpose of making money; not that there is anything wrong with that .   .     .

The personal finance blogs that I follow are designed to be a part-time, or even a full-time, occupation for their writer(s) (e.g., http://www.makingsenseofcents.com.) The way they make their blog a money-maker is through advertising revenue, product endorsements and commissions from purchases (web traffic on their site). I know it’s a little complicated, but these folks get paid to give you advice. The reason I tell you that – is my blog is neither private nor commercial. It’s open to the public (not private) but isn’t a commercial blog either; actually, I pay extra to remove ads from my blog – so my hobby actually costs me money.   .     . I don’t recommend this particular strategy as a sound way to increase your net worth (insert sarcasm).

I used wordpress.com to help setup my blog.  Please reach out to me personally and I would be happy to share what worked for me.  If you are more of a DIY person, then wordpress.org might the way to go – it’s free!

 

 

Many of you already know that I’m an Apple fan boy, so it won’t surprise you that I bought a new iMac (all-in-one computer) this past week.  I’ll list the specs (for all you techies out there) later in the post, but want to review how this purchase fits into my personal finance strategy.

 

I believe more and more (wisdom guided by experience) that you get what you pay for (most of the time anyway).  I recommend that you do your research (before a major purchase), buy quality, and then keep that item for as long as you can – maybe even a little bit longer.   .   .

I think this philosophy holds true for cars, houses, furniture, computers, etc.  Don’t purchase the cheapest thing you can find – you will probably have to replace it sooner rather than later and will be disappointed in the quality anyhow; imagine the cheapest tiny home.  Don’t always get the most expensive item either; imagine a huge luxurious mansion – it probably won’t fit into your budget.  Most of the time there will be a better value in between those extremes.  Buy what you need, nothing more, nothing less.  I know that advice is sufficiently vague, but it still describes my overarching philosophy when it comes to purchasing – pretty much anything over $100.  Let’s see if I stayed true to my philosophy on my recent computer purchase.

 

I bought my old computer (another iMac) in 2010.  I’ve had it for almost 8 years now – feels like an eternity in technology time; but the computer I owned was always cheaper than a new computer, so I kept using the old one.  I really wanted to replace it a couple years ago (there were new shiny things in the Apple store) but I realized my old one was still functional, albeit really slow, and a new computer didn’t really fit into the budget anyhow.  So I held onto it; can’t hold on.   .   .   much.   .    .

I believe I paid about $1,200 for my old iMac in 2010.  I believe most people keep a desktop computer for 2-3 years, but I think they’re actually designed to last 5 years; so I was “suffering” from frugality fatigue after 8 years.  Apple declared that their 2009 iMac line was obsolete – as of November 2017 (some of you probably think it was obsolete all along); therefore I figure the 2010 model (mine) will be declared obsolete (no more support from Apple (lions and tigers and bears, oh my!) this fall.  8 years seemed long enough. I also knew that everyone, including my wife and son, would enjoy a better, faster computer with the latest processor, operating system, etc.  Plus, it finally fit into the budget.

 

I’m going to back up and give an overview of what we use our computer for and then get into the specs of our new rig (techie slang for a computer).  My wife uses the computer for a lot of things including managing our cabin rental business, some online classes for her continuing professional education requirements, as well as some personal/household purposes (e.g., ordering groceries from Walmart for pickup).  My 12 year old son mostly uses it for games, but there are some school assignments that require the use of a computer too.  I use it for our household budget (everydollar.com and excel), research, work from home (occasionally), and of course this blog.  We don’t do any hard-core gaming, but I figure my son might be interested in more serious gaming (i.e., better graphics) as he gets older, so I wanted at least decent specs for that possibility.

 

Since my philosophy is to keep the computer for at least 5 years, I took some steps to upgrade my specs to help “future-proof” my setup and hopefully get the computer to last a little longer – not sure I can go 8 years again, but I will give it the old college try nonetheless .   .    .

 

Some specs on my new computer – along with some geekbench 4 results (a way to measure computer performance – you can see them at the bottom of this post) for techies as well as anyone else who might be in the market for a new computer.

 

21.5 inch retina 4K display

 

3.6 GHz intel Core i7 (seventh generation Kaby lake quad core processor with turbo boost to 4.2 GHz)

 

16 GB RAM (upgradeable to 32 GB)

 

2 GB VRAM, AMD radeon pro 555 GPU (dedicated graphics card)

 

1 TB hard drive, HDD at 5400 RPM

 

2 Thunderbolt 3 ports (USB-C)

 

4 USB 3.0 ports

 

Extended rechargeable keyboard with number pad

 

I also purchased Microsoft office for Mac (2016 version) – mostly for excel, word, and outlook.

I think that covers most of the specs.  I paid extra to move from the i5 to the i7 processor, as well as opting for 16 GB of RAM rather than the stock 8 GBs.  I also got the extended keyboard.  My cost, including upgrades, software, and taxes was $1,973.

 

My one struggle was related to the hard drive.  The stock storage option is a 1 TB HDD (old school spinning drive).  1 TB is plenty but I admit I was disappointed this wasn’t a solid-state drive (SSD).  For an extra $400 I could replace the stock 1 TB HDD with a 512 GB SSD.  I asked if it was made out of gold, but sadly it was not.    .     .  I think an extra $400 for a solid-state drive, with only 512 GB (50% reduction in storage), was extremely over-priced; and I wasn’t willing to pay the “Apple tax” on this particular upgrade (plus I couldn’t afford it); however, solid state drives are much faster, especially in boot up, than old-fashioned spinning drives (HDD).  Probably at least 30% faster.

My plan, which may or may not be total rubbish, is to see if I can live with the HDD – at least for awhile.  I don’t boot up every day and maybe it won’t be too bothersome after I get used to it (imagine the world’s smallest violin playing me a lullaby).  My backup plan – should it become necessary – is to buy an external SSD and connect it via USB-C.  I would use this as my boot drive and use the internal HDD as a back-up disk/extra storage.  I think this configuration is possible but it would probably cost at least $200 (maybe more).  I am requesting help from Adam Christianson at The MacCast (podcast about all things Macintosh).  I’m hoping he will tell me my backup plan has merit.    .     .

I compared my computer to the new Microsoft surface studio (pictured above).  I believe this is Microsoft’s first all-in-one computer and it appears to be quite comparable to the iMac I purchased.  The Microsoft studio that I looked at (in the Microsoft store) had very similar specs to my iMac (studio does have a touch screen while an iMac doesn’t).  It has an i7 processor (Skylake, 6^th generation), 16 GB of RAM, 28 inch 4K display, 2 GB GPU, and sports a starting price of $3,500 (without software?!).  Ouch!  I checked the geekbench scores for this rig and they were not that impressive, especially at this price point.  .     .  You might argue that I am just trying to justify my $2,000 purchase – you would be right of course – but that’s still a lot of cheddar for a computer.   .   .

Let me start an argument about why I prefer a Mac over a PC (because that won’t be controversial at all).  I know for many this is a quasi-religious, emotion-filled, passionate debate.   I don’t think about it like that at all.  A computer is a tool (full stop).  I use a PC everyday at work – it runs windows; I use word and excel almost every day.  I also use a Mac almost every day – like I am now.  I have MS office installed on my Mac.  I really enjoy using word, excel and outlook.  I have a significant amount of experience in both worlds and personally prefer the Mac experience.  I think it’s a personal preference and believe you could list of number of pros and cons for both Macs and PCs.  Feel free to judge me (agreement is not required); peer pressure lost its powers of persuasion on me a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away .   .    .   .

 

• Macs are reliable, fast, and a good life-cycle value (IMHO).  I kept my last Mac for almost 8 years and it still works today (admittedly slower).  It’s a simple, stable operating system that virtually never crashes and requires few updates.  Apple optimizes the software to work with the hardware. I can’t say the same for my work PC.  If you think I’m paying an Apple tax, compare the price and performance of the MS studio (see above).  I will put some geekbench 4 scores at the end of the article.

 

• Virus protection – get the hate filled comments ready. I don’t run virus protection on my computer.  I do have Malwarebytes for Mac (active/full version) installed on my computer because some of my son’s games have had some unwanted guests in the past.  Sure a Mac can get a virus, but they generally don’t.  Stay away from the unsavory parts of the internet and I bet you’ll be fine.  It’s a math thing; about 85% of the worlds computers are PCs, therefore virus writers target PCs.  Virus protection software slows down the operating system and is an added expense, not to mention being a nuisance.

 

• I’m not a gamer. I’m sure a hard-core gamer will brag that his gaming rig will play Call of Duty 8 better than my Mac.  I bet dollars to doughnuts that’s true.  Again, not a gamer.  .    .

 

• I’m already in the Apple ecosystem with 2 Apple TVs, 2 iphones, an iMac, and an ipad. The software works well across devices.  The operating systems are very similar and allows me to be intellectually lazy – it’s pretty convenient actually.  I love the photos app and how Apple automatically puts my photos (taken from my iPhone X) together into “memories” with a slideshow and sound; that is easily accessed from my big screen TV.

 

• I don’t really want to customize my computer (nor build my own). I want it to work well, straight out of the box, and don’t want to think about it much actually.  I just want it to work.  I realize that you can probably customize a PC in ways I can’t customize my Mac.

 

I have also experienced really good customer support from Apple.  I have called their customer service numerous times and have found them to be helpful regardless of my problem.  I have even called them years after my free phone support ended and they helped me anyhow.  I think it’s really convenient to be able to call the same company about a hardware or software issue.  It’s also easier during the purchasing process – just sayin’ (migration assistant is great).  I think that would be more confusing with a PC because there are so many manufacturers; Microsoft produces the software but not all the hardware.   .    .

I confess I don’t really understand all the Mac haters.  I don’t have a passion filled, quasi-religious opinion of any of my possessions actually.  It’s just a tool.  I’m also a Chevy guy.  I cheer for the Tarheels, Braves, Panthers.   .   .

You get the picture.

Please leave a comment below on which computer you prefer, and why PC is way better than a MAC (you know you want to).