No more new lights for 5 years, what to buy now?

Our family is going into a sort of self-imposed "poverty" for five years in order to become completely debt free at the end of that time. We have credit card debt built up as well as a mortgage that is still over six figures, but having run all the numbers, if we buckle down, sacrifice some things we enjoy in the short term, we will benefit greatly in the long term.

That being said, we are allowing ourselves to get a few things we want/need before we start this new way of life on January 1 of 2005. I won't be buying any new flashlights from 2005-2009 unless I sell something from my collection to get a new light. In an effort to save money on batteries, I'll probably start using rechargeables a lot more too, I have a Tigerlight FBOP and a SL Poly Stinger currently, and plan to pick up a SL Strion for EDC use in the next month or two. I also have several lights I can use rechargeable NIMH AA or AAA batteries in.

My current collection includes a variety of SF lights, including E2D, L1, L4, L5, A2, M3, M4, M6(x2), ARC LSH-P, AAA, VIP, Inova X5T, X0, BB and MM sandwiches in Mini Mags, several headlamps, and a couple of inexpensive hand-held rechargeable spotlights.

What lights would you all suggest I get (if any) that should satisfy my flashaholic urges for the next five years? If anything new and innovative and exciting comes out in the next five years, I suppose I could sell an M6 and buy it. Any thoughts or ideas?

-Keith

If you can buy only one, wait for the Surefire U2 /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

Well said Frenchy, but in more ways than the U2... Tis only the beginning of LED's, if I were you i'd save the dosh and hold onto it for a bit, for an event / premiere that has yet to come! 4 years is a long time...

Re: No more new lights for 5 years, what to buy no

Neonlights-
Being debt-free cannot be over-rated. We achieved that a few years back and the sense of freedom is intense. It's worth a few years of hard-core thrift.

My habits of thrift have stayed on after we disposed of all the debt but I have found a neat way to do the flashlight thing without spending much. By going to flea markets and garage sales, I have found many many interesting lights to play with. UK 4AAs, ASPs, B-lights, Maglites and accessories, Tekna lights, Rayovacs, Princeton Tech headlamps, spotlights, and many more. It's always a surprise to find a cool light for a buck or two- or to have a moddable base that requires time & planning to put together. When you get a lot of lights on the cheap, it's also easier to justify the occasional new light.

You may also find that with the right flea-markets, you will be able to fill a lot of your other needs at a budget price from woodworking tools to auto parts to music CDs to fresh produce. But try to avoid the antique and knick-nack type of flea market.

Re: No more new lights for 5 years, what to buy no

i placed a self-imposed $5/week spending limit.

this forces me to really focus on what i really want.

also, you can fill the need by purchasing inexpensive lights and modding them with inexpensive parts. it can be fun, and they make great gifts.

take care,
Bob

Re: No more new lights for 5 years, what to buy no

I applaud your goal of getting debt-free. That is one of the best things anyone can do with regard to their personal finances. But why put it off 5 months? Isn't that like saying that I am going to start my diet tomorrow, but tonight that huge chocolate cake looks mighty tempting? Your flashlight collection is already impressive. Take that money and apply it toward your real goal right now. You will get there that much sooner.

Re: No more new lights for 5 years, what to buy no

yea what Lurker said!

Start now, your collection is already outstanding. Buy a case of 123's from Surefire and be get on with it.

Re: No more new lights for 5 years, what to buy no

We have done the same thing, but not quite in the same way. Wish we were finished, but we will be soon. All we have left is our house.

I would go ahead and start, but if you don't why not pick up a UK 4aa eled. It's a great light that is under-appreciated.

On the debt thing. Conventional wisdom tells you to pay off the highest rate stuff first. Even after 6 years of higher math, I lack the ability to prove my idea, but I am pretty sure this is NOT correct.

Paying of smaller debts first gives you 1) a boost to your morale and 2) the ability to pay MORE each month to the other debts.

Word of advice... do not cancel your credit cards. If you are maxed out credit-wise, you may find it hard to get new ones if you need them during this time.

I have seen a company on the net that will analize your debts and CAN give you the most efficient way to pay them off. Can't remember who it is though. In any case, the "debt snowball" method is pretty good.

We have friends working on this also. They actually transferred their car to their credit card. They paid a 1 time transfer fee, and after that they pay zero interest for the life of the loan. Should save them a few thousand over the life of the loan.

Congratulations and best wishes!

Re: No more new lights for 5 years, what to buy no

I think one of the traps that people get sucked into very commonly that makes it harder to minimize debt is the proliferation of the small recurring monthly service charge. There are numerous little luxuries in our lives that do not cost very much individually, but we pay for them over and over again every month. Added together, it is amazing how much they add up to for a typical family-- not only in a particular month, but over the course of years. The sums become truly impressive.

Examples of what I am talking about are things like premium cable TV, cell phones, broadband internet, AAA car club, checking account fees, health club membership, security alarm monitoring, lawn chemical service, etc. And while not billed monthly, plenty of other things like magazine and newspaper subscriptions, annual credit card fees and the daily latte at Starbucks will add up also.

All of these things could be either eliminated or gotten more cheaply and doing so can literally save thousands of dollars per year. For example, I pay the following per month:

Cable TV: $12.50 (the lowest plan)
Cell phone: $6.66/month (prepaid plan)
dial-up internet: $6 (bigzoo.net)
Banking and credit card fees: none, and I get a 1% rebate on my credit card
everything else: I don't buy.

While you are looking at these small recurring payments, don't ignore the bigger budget items like eating out at restaurants a lot or the advantage of driving a car that is paid-for.

Good Luck!

Re: No more new lights for 5 years, what to buy no

Thanks for the advice and words of wisdom so far. The "thrifty living" is going to start sooner than January, but we have a set amount we plan on putting towards credit cards every month ($3000), and that won't be possible until we pay our car off which we still owe about $6000 on, and we plan on paying that off before we start. We're also going to experiment with different ways to save money on groceries, and hope to have that worked out by the end of the year. We'll be getting support from my family since both of my sisters already live very frugally, one will have their 30 year mortgage paid for in 5-6 years, the other owes $100k on their 2 year old $300k house, and that should be paid for within a couple of years. We'll keep at least one or two credit card accounts open after they are paid off (for dire emergencies only), but we'll cancel all of the others. In our case most of the lower balance credit cards also have higher interest, so we'll be able to pay off the smaller ones and the ones with highest interest at the same time.

Yeah, looking over my collection, I should be pretty well set for the time being. I may sock a couple hundred dollars away for a "must-have" light that is sure to come out in the next few years, maybe hold back $5 a week into a flashlight fund. The way LED/LS lights keep improving in both runtime and output, there are sure to be many great advances in the next five years.

-Keith

Re: No more new lights for 5 years,what to buy now

[ QUOTE ]
Lurker said:
I think one of the traps that people get sucked into very commonly that makes it harder to minimize debt is the proliferation of the small recurring monthly service charge......

Good Luck!

[/ QUOTE ]

I was looking at that very problem last night while I was at work. We should be able to save at least $80 every month by getting rid of some monthly bills (we don't have cable):

-get rid of one of our two cell phones $30/mo
-get rid of our 2nd phone line used for the internet $25/mo
-cancel our subscription to the local newspaper $15/mo
-go with a cheaper dial-up ISP $10

Add to that the money we'll save by eating out less and buying groceries more frugally, and it should be closer to $150/200 a month that we'll save. We'll probably keep AAA though. It costs about $100-120 a year, but three of our cars have over 100k miles on them, and we do occasionally have breakdowns.

We do have two small children (ages 21 months and 5 months) and the amount of food our family consumes will go up in the next five years, but daddy can stand to lose some weight, so maybe it can be a wash if I eat (a lot) less. The weekly/monthly diaper expense will also go away in the next several years as they are potty trained

-Keith

Re: No more new lights for 5 years,what to buy now

That's great. It sounds like you are freeing up some good money toward your goal. If you think the AAA membership is worth it, then that is fine, but personally I don't see the value in it.

The way I understand it, AAA works something like this: If you have a car problem, then you call AAA. In turn, they call some local tow truck driver or whatever and tell them your problem. The tow truck driver comes and gets you. That's fine, but if you can call AAA, you could also have called the tow truck service directly. What exactly are you paying for? A free tow? It's not free, you are just paying for it up front whether you need it or not. I really don't see how this makes anyone safer from a breakdown. It is an illusion intended to create peace of mind. If your car breaks down and you have AAA, your car is still broken. At least that's the way I see it.

Anyway, I should not try to tell you what you do or do not need, but I wish you good luck.

Re: No more new lights for 5 years,what to buy now

I see your point, and for some people it might be valid, but I don't believe it is for us. We've probably taken advantage of AAA's towing service an average of once a year, and if you paid the tow driver directly it could easily be $50-100 per tow depending on the distance. With our membership my wife and I can each get three, one hundred mile tows a year for no additional cost. My parents drive older cars and have frequently maxed out their allowable tows at a great savings to them. With our older cars that will be in even worse shape in 4-5 years, I have a feeling we might be using the towing service more and more as the years go on. Also with AAA you have one number to call nationwide for towing, I know I don't keep the phone numbers for every towing service in the US (when travelling) with me, and a yellow pages to look up phone numbers for a tow truck is seldom available when you really need it.

As far as the car still being broken down, I have a 1000 square foot shop/garage at home and I do 95% of all the work on our cars myself. When one of our cars breaks down I have it towed back to my place and drive another car until I get the broken down car repaired.

We also save at least $10-20 a year, often more, on the free maps and travel books that we would otherwise have to pay for. There are some years where I'm sure we haven't gotten our money's worth, but some we definitely have.

-Keith

Re: No more new lights for 5 years, what to buy no

i would sell the Surefire M6's and pick up the Strion and maybe something else like the UK 4AA eLED or whatever...

Lurker's right when he says you should start sooner than later...

and look @ it this way - it'll probly be 5 years or so b4 LED's/luxeons make a real advancement that separates themselves from the previous generations.

Re: No more new lights for 5 years, what to buy no

Neon, it looks like you have taken a careful look at AAA and decided is is a good value for you. For me it would just be money down the drain, but we are in different situations. If you analyze all of your spending like that, you can't help but reach your goal and I predict sooner than you even think. Good luck.

Re: No more new lights for 5 years, what to buy no

Here's what I would suggest to help you out.

1. Setup a Cash flow budget by month.
LIST YOUR INCOME. If you get paid every two weeks, you'll have 4 months with an extra paycheck.

LIST YOUR EXPENSES
Monthly – rent/mortgage, utilities, etc.
Quarterly, Semi-Annually – Car Insurance, etc.
Annually, Home and Health insurance, etc.

Compute if the month will be a positive or negative cash flow month. We did this and it helped us to realize that we were taking a big hit with annual life and home insurance in January plus Christmas purchases due (credit card). Our solution? Home insurance we changed to monthly automatic withdrawl and life ins we changed to semi annual. Holiday purchases we pay cash and start buying 3 months prior to the holidays.
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Folks above have mentioned some good tips to help get out of debt. Here's another one. Instead of paying once a month, pay half your bill twice a month. I've coincided my car payments with my pay check. I end up making 2 extra "monthly" payments a year plus the interest is less and I walk away much sooner from a 5 year loan.

We're doing the same thing paying off a 30 yr mortgage in about 22 years.
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Sell off some of those lights.
I'll take the M4 and M6 off your hands cheap! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
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RE: light to get for the next few years.
You might want to consider the Mag85r mod.
The versatile Mag 3D host
3 of Wayne's 3AA-D version 2 adapters
9 AA rechargeable batteries
A few potted 1185's
A camless, pre-modded, Mag-Ready, aluminum reflector.

It's the much less expensive version of your M6.
BTW - PM me if interested in the 1185's and the camless reflector.

Re: No more new lights for 5 years,what to buy now

That's part of what we're going to spend the next several months doing. Recording all of our monthly, weekly, daily expenses, and seeing what can be cut back.

My wife gets paid every two weeks, I get paid every week, so that means she'll have two "extra" paychecks a year, and I'll have four.

Thankfully we have very few, if any, months where we have an excess of expenses compared to any others. Our life insurance for both of us is paid for by work or taken out of our paychecks, our home insurance is covered in our mortgage payment, and the insurance for our four cars is paid quarterly, and it all comes due in different months.

-Keith

Re: No more new lights for 5 years,what to buy now

No offense or anything, but what are you doing with four cars and two SF M6's? I can't see why you need two of the same lights or four cars for two people, especially if you are having financial problems.

Re: No more new lights for 5 years,what to buy now

You should get a Firefly or Blackbird or something else that takes sandwich shop modules. That way you can upgrade more cheaply than buying a completely new light.

Re: No more new lights for 5 years,what to buy now

[ QUOTE ]
IlluminatingBikr said:
No offense or anything, but what are you doing with four cars and two SF M6's? I can't see why you need two of the same lights or four cars for two people, especially if you are having financial problems.

[/ QUOTE ]

We're not having financial problems, we just want to get completely out of debt sooner rather than later. Many people take 20-30 years to pay off a 30 year mortgage, we'd rather have ours paid for in 6-8 years. Like I mentioned before, three of our four cars have over 100k miles on them, and are worth more to us to keep (and keep repairing) than they would if we tried to sell them. We might be able to get $1000-2000 for each of the three older cars if we sold them, but when one of them breaks down, having a spare car to drive means a lot. Those three also have lower insurance coverage, so we're not paying a lot to keep them around.

I bought both SF M6's used and didn't pay retail price for them. I'm keeping at least one M6, both have come in handy this year when my wife and I had to look for our all black dog who got out of his fence. We live in the country and our neighbors properties aren't very well lit. I might sell one of them though to pay for other flashlight purchases in the next five years if something better comes along.

-Keith