With release of the latest Apple Watch Series 6, is it finally time for me to hop onto the smartwatch game? As much as I love stuff from Apple, I’ve managed to avoid buying any of the first five generations of Apple Watch, principally because I don’t believe in dropping that few hundred dollars on a watch only for it to be slightly more functional than the true mechanical watch I was wearing. For sure it would be nice to have some of the health monitoring functions– the heart-rate monitor should be hugely beneficial in noticing when my anxiety levels have increased – but the barrier to entry in terms of price remains something difficult to get over.
Until now! Alongside the introduction of Series 6, the Apple Watch can now be bought on a 24-month interest-free installment plan using the Apple Card. Much the same as an iPhone, I can now spread that relatively high entry cost over a long period of time. $20 dollars a month is definitely more palatable than dropping over $400 at one time. Coincidentally, I recently just finished paying off my iPhone’s own installment plan dating two years back, so there is a $60 per month hole burning in my pocket right now.
But that’s how they get you with the lure of payment plans, isn’t it? To entice you to buy things you wouldn’t otherwise, had you needed to cough up the whole cost at once. It’s indeed a clever trick that got me pondering the viability of buying the Apple Watch now that I can do so in installments with zero interest. What’s another $20 a month on top of the numerous things I am already doing monthly payments on? I’d be using the Apple Watch to monitor my health and keep me fit! That’s worth something, isn’t it?
Ah, so many ways to justify wantonly spending money. I just plop down quite a bit of cash for a built-to-order 16-inch Macbook Pro, so I’m not terribly inclined to spend yet more money on a shiny Apple gadget, even if I can now amortize that price over a longer period of time. Payment plans are a great tool of flexibility for people who can otherwise afford the Apple Watch but have better things to do with their money, and if I ever do buy one, I’d be going that route.
Until then, let me say for the time being I am not getting the new Apple Watch Series 6. Hold me to this, blog-reading friends.
Pivot!