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Over the years, I must have purchased a dozen computers, many of which I don’t really remember. I do however recall the first computer I purchased. It was a 386DX with 4mb of RAM and a 100mb hard drive. I think I paid $1300 for it years ago. Today, you can buy something many times more powerful for half the cost but there are many hidden expenses to owning today’s modern computing devices.

I first suspected something was dramatically wrong with my home computing infrastructure when my electric bill came in significantly higher than before and I did a little research to begin to understand the true costs of owning a computing environment.

Owning two laptops, three desktops and array of peripherals and other devices I realized I had a cascading expense problem.

Problem 1:

Each of the desktops had a 300 - 500 watt power supply. The computers were often left on so this meant ~400 watts of energy being used every hour for 8 hours for 30 days = 288,000 watts or 288 kilowatts. At $0.15/kilowatt I was paying close to $44/month to keep the computers running!

Problem 2:

As my infrastructure grew so did the casacading expenses to maintain the infrastructure. I needed to network these computers so they could all share the same high speed internet connection. I purchased a 4 port router ($50) then purchased and ran cabling ($100) to wire my whole house. As technology got cheaper and more advanced, I swapped the wired router for a “wireless” router ($70) to accomodate our wireless laptops. I had high speed internet that I was paying $55/month for but I recently cut it down to $20/month -still high speed at 768k but not as fast as 3mb cable. I found I could do without the faster speeds just fine.
The cascading expenses…..

Over the years, we ended up purchasing many peripherals and devices to accomodate some of our other electronic devices.

  • Purchase firewire card to interface with Video Camera to convert video to DVD.
  • Purchase DVD burner to burn video onto DVD. $60
  • Purchase DVD media to burn video onto DVD media. $20
  • Purchase DVD making software to make DVDs $200
  • Purchase Inkjet printer to print labels ($100, recurring ink $40, recurring paper $10, recurring labels $10)
  • Purchase external Hard Drive to store and edit video files $200
  • Purchase scanner to add photos to DVD slideshows $150

This is just but a small sample of the cascading expenses related back to just one device (the computer). I’ve written about the Ipod and DVD Player as well. Printers can even be grouped into their own generation of cascading expenses. We promptly change from inkjet to laser when the consumables were costing us much more than the printer itself.

Of course, the computer is simply one device that I could not cut back on. Aside from being an item that generates expenses it has also been a way for me to earn a living and generate income. It is also a highly specialized tool that I use for investing, education, communication and so much more. This blog would not be possible without it!

I will just caution you that a $499 price tag on a laptop or desktop is only the beginning of a series of cascading expenses. Whenever possible, try to use the computer to generate some income to offset some of the expenses you’ll incur. Whether you use it to trade stocks, setup your own online business venture, or simply use it to invest in your education, make sure you get some return on your investment.