Budget Buyers
You’re on a budget. You have a nice but economical collection. You’re gifted $500 at the holidays to expand the collection. What do you do?
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Dillon
Husband, dad, pastor, and watch collector. I’m a big fan of Casio, Seiko, and Jesus - just not in that order!
Elk Rapids, MI, USA
Member since
Last active: 4 months ago
One higher quality watch, & I'd buy used.
I paid £500 for my Green Willard from eBay....
Get a better piece for the money and you'd loose less than one new watch or 5 cheaper ones should you decide to sell at a later date.
500$ get you some nice watches, but nothing crazy. 100$ today will only get you basic Casios/Timex. I would prefer to have a 500$ Tissot/Hamilton/Seiko for that price, maybe a microbrand. Yes, 500$ is a lot of money for many of us, me included, I still own no watches over 1000$. But for 500$ you can have some pretty good specs/sturdy watch for the price
At this point I would buy a more expensive watch because most of mine were less than $100. I would buy a more expensive one but deciding which one would be the hard part.
One for $500 please
Since I already have several watches I'd go for A. I just don't want 5 more
If I was starting out it'd be B for me, as that is quite literally what I did
500$ get you some nice watches, but nothing crazy. 100$ today will only get you basic Casios/Timex. I would prefer to have a 500$ Tissot/Hamilton/Seiko for that price, maybe a microbrand. Yes, 500$ is a lot of money for many of us, me included, I still own no watches over 1000$. But for 500$ you can have some pretty good specs/sturdy watch for the price
You can do far better than a Casio or Timex for $100.
However, you can always spend $100 on a watch, but this always blocks more expensive purchases. So to me this is a golden opportunity to break into a higher tier by putting the entire windfall $500 towards a single watch.
For any given budget range, I would prefer a variety to one single watch. However, variety doesn't have to mean a ton of watches, 3-5 might be perfectly good. Since you refer to the starting point here as a collection, I assume there is some variety to begin with. I would thus go for the 1x $500 purchase 👌
Quality over quantity. Any day, every day, all day, always.
Assuming the current collection has no major gaps in function and I already know what I like, I'd buy one nicer watch.