Let me be clear, I don’t want to impose my beliefs on anyone, so I’ll simply say that this is my own opinion, and thoughts on my current life.

However, if you find yourself in the same or a similar situation, this perspective might be worth considering.

I’ve never been very well-off.

As a matter of fact, I was pretty much dead-broke for the majority of my life until my early 20s.

I rarely had money, and when I did the occasional casual work, it was never enough to get into any real trouble with.

My first “real” job at the age of 22 was a minimum wage, 15-20hr/week job.

Actually, I still work at that same company now, just with bigger responsibilities and several years of experience under my belt.

To get the complaining out of the way, I am quite frustrated because my hourly rate has basically stayed the same for about five years (only slightly keeping ahead of minimum wage).

I can’t afford to pay my own rent, which is why I still live with my parents.

So as a side-effect of that low-wage labor, I also can’t afford to buy myself new stuff very often.

To call it frustrating is what I’d say to someone who thinks black pepper is spicy, as to not trigger them into a small coma.

Now, if you know me at all, you would probably know that I love musical instruments.

Particularly electric guitars, and bass guitars.

I also invest a lot of money into my home studio to make recording professional-quality tracks easier and more efficient.

But here’s where the dilemma starts…

Instruments are expensive.

And I also have expensive taste in instruments.

So you can see that with limited cash from my minimum wage day job, this can be quite the painful experience.

Don’t worry, this is going somewhere, I promise.

As the title suggests, I don’t recommend you finance a new guitar just because you can’t afford it right now.

I’ll use myself as an example.

I recently financed a 7 string Jackson electric guitar (pictured below):

Yes, I love this guitar, it’s really cool, there’s no doubt about that.

But ever since I started financing this thing, even though I’m paying it off really quick, I can’t help but think of all of the other things that would be possible if I weren’t making monthly payments on this thing.

I think to myself: I could be so much closer to saving enough money to buy my first car.

I could be putting those payments towards that instead.

Then once I get a car, I can use whatever cash I save to pay for a new guitar in cash (as opposed to financing).

That way, I would both have a car, and I would be able to save money with no extra payments going out every month.

A car would be a huge deal for me right now, considering I have to ask my parents to drive their leased Honda CR-V every time I want to go anywhere.

Yep.

30 years old, still asking my parents to go out.

Plus, the added annoyance of having limited mileage (leasing requires you to limit your mileage yearly).

Maybe my priorities right now just are not in the right place.

But I still hate the expectations people have for me to live a certain way.

Also, I feel like the further I get in life, the more I am going to have to do other things that I don’t want to do, besides simply buying my own car.

Which also equates to less time and money I will have for the things I actually care about.

It seems like older I get, the more I have to do as a bare minimum to get through the day.

All I care about right now is buying guitars and building a nice home studio.

I don’t make enough money at my current job to even think about renting my own place, and I don’t want the added headache, sink-hole expense of driving a car around every day.

Working this low-paying job is also one of my least favorite things in the entire world.

Not only because I don’t get paid a lot, but also because I kind of hate the company I work for, and I also don’t enjoy the work itself.

It’s definitely not an ideal situation in any way.

But, I do know that even if all of that stuff were not my circumstances, paying for a guitar in cash is a much better way of keeping my finances in order.

If at least I had just waited a little longer, I could be a little further ahead.

Even if I had still used cash to buy the exact guitar I have now.

The risk of not being able to make payments alone is good enough reason not to do it.

It would be very painful having to take my guitar back into the shop and telling them that I can no longer afford it.

I think going forward, that even if I continue down the same path of buying instruments, I’m going to do it the smart way: with cash.

That way, even if other people don’t like it, I’m doing it the best way for myself.

It is my life, so I choose not to blame anyone for my circumstances.

I will take accountability for the things I do, and not let anyone else’s opinion of what I should do take me off track.

And with all that being said, next time I will make the smarter decision to simply pay with cash.