Black Friday week is the toughest time for me to win the no-buy challenge. The challenge of trying not to spend any money for as long as possible.
It’s not that I want to spend money.
It’s that during the week of the supposedly huge sales, there are services and products I actually need for work and personal life, and I want to take advantage of the (relatively) low prices.
But it’s quite easy to get carried away and end up buying something I don’t really need.
Sure, you can probably resist buying another TV when you already have one. But what happens when annual subscriptions I was planning to cancel come up for renewal exactly during these days, and I end up paying for another full year of something I know I won’t even use?
The solution to this problem is called budgeting. It wasn’t invented for this exact purpose, but it’s yet another advantage of knowing exactly how much I spend and on what. And since I’ve been budgeting for 10 straight years without missing a single day, I know down to the cent what Office 365, Adobe, WPX and the shoes I destroy walking 8–15 kilometres a day actually cost me.
And those are exactly the things I spent money on this Black Friday.
The open secret of Adobe users
For the past 10 years, right around Black Friday, I renew my Adobe subscription. The full Creative Cloud suite that includes everything from Photoshop and Lightroom to Acrobat and Premiere Pro. It’s not that I’m waiting for Black Friday deals, though.
I honestly couldn’t care less about them.
Because one day before my annual plan expires (and the monthly price jumps from $29.99 to $69.99), I go in and “cancel” the subscription.
Except it doesn’t actually cancel. Adobe immediately counters with another full year at the exact same price.
