If one wants a Speedmaster Pro and settles for a Speedmaster Date (or Reduced), one is likely to be disappointed and will not be happy and still want to buy the Speedmaster Pro. They will eventually buy the Speedmaster Pro, dump the Speedmaster Date at a loss, and spend more money overall.
I’m going to throw some numbers at you to show you what I mean. I know a lot of people don’t like buying a watch on credit (even though they’d not have a second thought of buying a car for 10x the price on credit), but if you really, really want it now, know you will keep it, sometimes the finance charges are worth the pleasure of having the watch NOW rather than waiting. And can sometimes even be cheaper than buying something you don’t want and waiting to get what you do.
Let’s look at the situation you propose. Looking on EBay, I see several from Japanese sellers that have the Date listed for about $1800. I’ll use that as a price and assume you pay cash. I won’t bother including shipping fees, any duty owned for importing, or local taxes.
Great now you have the Speedmaster you didn’t really dream of, but it has Speedmaster on the dial. But you can really start saving for the watch you want. Let’s say you can save $250/month toward the watch at the current list price for the hesalite version ($6400). That’s a little over 2 years. Let’s just say 2 years.
Great. In two years you can get the Speedmaster Pro. But you don’t plan that in those two years Omega increases their prices twice, and it’s now $7000 retail (just speculating). Oh, and that Speedmaster date suddenly stops working — it is 20 years old, remember? Do you service it (at $750, assuming by Omega), or try to sell not working? How much will you get for it. Probably nowhere near the $1800 you paid. Let’s say you service it and sell for $1500 — you’re not a dealer and just some guy selling an old watch on EBay. That’s a net to you of $750 in the sale (and again, not counting EBay and paypal fees, shipping, all of which take a chunk of change). Or sell it not working for $750. Either way, you have an overall loss of $1050 (because you paid $1800 originally!). But then, you pay $7000 for the watch you do want, so overall, you have paid $8050 before you can own the Speedmaster Pro you really wanted.
Now, let’s see if you had financed that purchase with a credit card with a 19.99 % APR rate. That’s quite high, and I bet you can get a card with a lower rate, or do financing at a lower rate through the watch dealer. I’ll assume you use that $1800 you would have spent on the Speedmaster Date towards the purchase. I also assume you pay $250 towards the debt each month to pay it down in 2 years. You will have paid $6400 + $1030 of finance charges = $7430 in total.
Based on these relatively reasonable numbers, you would have paid about $500 less for the Speedmaster Pro you really wanted by financing it AND you would have enjoyed it immediately. And that is priceless.
Not trying to disparage anyone from buying a Speedmaster Date if you really like it, or encouraging anyone to go into debt they can’t afford. But I do encourage everyone to carefully consider what they actually want and do some simple calculations to determine the best approach to get the watch they actually want.
