Value

I have been chided on occasion for spending more than I need to on things.

It's a lesson I learned way back when I was a starving mooch.  I was in physical therapy for my leg and unemployable.  I needed to be able to get to the doctor's appointments, so I needed a car (friends don't suffer mooches for long).

The shit-boxes I could afford were never very reliable and I learned a lot about fixing cars.  I also learned a lot about fooling myself into thinking I'd saved money.

The $200 rust bucket Camaro devoured an uncounted amount of money in repairs to keep it running that it's $1,200 replacement never did.  It it is illustrative of how much those repairs were costing that I unassed $1,200 to get a different Camaro!

Since the '79 Camaro didn't break every week, mods started.  Again you can literally throw money away to no good effect modifying a car.  You can lie to yourself about the gains, or you can measure them objectively.  Then you can start over.  By the time I was done I had an impressive list of things that didn't do any good on a small-block 305 and a very short list that did.  First on that list was "get a 350 because 90% of small-block parts are designed for the bigger motor."

Guns are no different than cars.

Finances might trap you into a bad decision loop where it's a choice between a shitty gun or no gun.  The trick is to accept that it's a shitty gun and you're not really going to make a great gun out of it; despite marketing hype or even popularity.

The second trap of finances is that you get desperate to get any gun at all, no matter how shitty, for the money you have in your pocket; then once you have that gun you spend far too much trying to make it not shitty.  Like I did with my Mini-14.

At some point you need to have a serious talk with yourself about what you are REALLY trying to do with the gun.  An honest talk.  Then once your real goal is defined, do what it takes to achieve it.  I know from hard experience that it's much easier said than done.  It's easy and seductive to walk the path of justifications and excuses.

I also know that once you start doing it you utterly and absolutely grok, "Pay once, cry once."