Repairing vs Replacing - what is your rule of thumb?

gr8dlr wrote: ↑ We live in a world of disposable everything unfortunately which is why many ppl don't seem to have a lot of money or they complain that things like housing is really expensive so they justify spending their money on stuff they don't need.

A phone is perfect example. What they currently use is fine and yet ppl justify spending $1000+ buying a new phone. Fixing phones aren't that easy and perhap that's where replacing makes sense. What I recommend for that situation is buy a used version of what they already have rather than repair because the repair may not be the same eg. cracked/broken screen.

Cars are where this discussion gets really interesting.
Old cars may seem really expensive to repair relative to the value of the car. But you really shouldn't look at the repair cost and say why would I spend $1000 to fix a $2000 value car?
That $1,000 is only a month or a month and half of lease cost. If you were to lease a new car, you'd be spending $1000 in single or two month lease payment. But that repair might be good for a bunch of years eg. an exhaust [once fixed, it's not going to fail again]. I find quite often large repairs come infrequently so if you can buy a few years of usage, it's worth spending the repair money.

The time to replace: if reliability is an issue ie you need a car for work and you can't afford it being in the shop for days at a time or it may be really inconvenient if it breaks at the wrong time ie you drive longer distances and you don't want to risk being stranded.

gr8dlr wrote: ↑ A phone is perfect example. What they currently use is fine and yet ppl justify spending $1000+ buying a new phone. Fixing phones aren't that easy and perhap that's where replacing makes sense. What I recommend for that situation is buy a used version of what they already have rather than repair because the repair may not be the same eg. cracked/broken screen.

Let’s talk about buying an iPhone for $1,000. Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, once compared this eye-popping price tag to buying a cup of coffee a day over a year. No big deal, right?

But financial advisers see this differently. By some estimates, an investment of $1,000 in a retirement account today would balloon to about $17,000 in 30 years.

In other words, $700 to $1,000 — the price range of modern smartphones — is a big purchase. Fewer than half of American adults have enough savings set aside to cover three months of emergency expenses, according to the Pew Research Center. Yet one in five people surveyed by the financial website WalletHub thought a new phone was worth going into debt for.

• The iPhone 12 cost $799 last year. It’s now worth $460 if you trade it in to defray the cost of a new phone. The newest iPhones, the iPhone 13, also cost $799. So if you traded in your iPhone 12, the iPhone 13 would cost $339. At this rate, if you bought an iPhone every year for four years, including the original $799, the net total would be $1,816.
• If you waited three years for the iPhone 15, your iPhone 12’s trade-in value would diminish to about $200. Trade it in and the cost of the iPhone 13 would be $599. Add in the original $799 and your net cost over four years would be $1,398.

In summary, upgrading annually over three years costs $418 more, or roughly $12 a month, compared with upgrading every three years, Flipsy said.

Framed this way, it may sound like a bargain to get a new phone every year as opposed to every few years. But plugging these numbers into a financial calculator tells a different story.

If you put $12 a month into a retirement account, like a Roth I.R.A. that has an average annual rate of return of 10 percent, that amount would turn into $25,161 over 30 years, according to Ms. Orman’s savings calculator.

MyLastWord wrote: ↑ For me, If failed parts/components I can get easily, quickly, relatively inexpensive and can be done via DIY, why not? Just did this couple days ago, part order from amz for $10 + few hrs doing it vs $1000 replacement unit.

lecale wrote: ↑ The True Cost of Upgrading Your Phone
Buying a $1,000 iPhone can be equivalent to giving up $17,000 in retirement savings or 2,500 cups of coffee.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/20/tech ... -cost.html

ccya965041 wrote: ↑ Depend on which item and can I justify buying a new item/replacement.

For phone wise, unless you cannot turn it on your cellphone, otherwise you can still use it. The only problem is technology advanced very fast, sometimes your phone maybe still good for a while, but installing some new apps are getting slow. I would say a new smartphone should be able to use for at least 5 years without replacement. I knew 5G is faster than LTE, but how many people have the actual need for 5G?

Appliances can be tricky unless you still have a warranty for them, otherwise, the repair labour is very expensive. For example to repair a dishwasher sometimes it's more expensive than a new one, if the cost to repair it is more than 1/2 of its cost or close to a new one, I would prefer to replace it with new.

The worst is gaming computers/mining computer, they advanced crazily fast and lots of people required replacement in a short time (<2 years), it created a crapload of electronic waste (Assume they did not resale them).