My Biggest Tech Regrets
Since I can't openly talk about my investment journey because it could sound like I am giving investment advice, I thought I would share my financial perspective through something more personal: my tech regrets.
Long story short, I come from a humble background—not rich, but not extremely poor either. Once my parent became financially stable, my mother rarely said no to the technology I asked for.
There was a reason behind some of it. I wasn't particularly good at school in my early years. But when I reached college, something changed. I became very good at my studies.
My first iPhone was an iPhone SE—the classic compact design that looked like the iPhone 5s. My mother bought it for me after I passed my 10th-grade mathematics exam. Later, after I passed 12th-grade mathematics, I got a bigger iPhone XR.
When I entered college and started getting good marks, my mother bought me my first gaming laptop, an Acer Nitro 5—the same laptop I still use today.
But I soon realised something important:
I wasn't really a gamer.
The gaming laptop was overkill for someone like me. I mostly used it for watching movies, studying, running software I needed for research purposes in college, and other everyday tasks.
Then came one of my biggest mistakes.
I wanted a better-quality display and a lighter laptop for editing and everyday use. My Acer was a giant brick and felt like it weighed a ton whenever I had to carry it while travelling home for the holidays or back to the hostel. So I asked my mother for a MacBook. At the time, she was financially capable of buying one, and she did.
Let me be clear: this was before I took financial responsibility for my family and started making the financial decisions that eventually helped make us more stable. That stability came later—and some of the mistakes I made along the way helped teach me how to get there.
The MacBook Mistake :
I bought the MacBook Air with the M1 chip.
And honestly, it was a good laptop.
The display was beautiful, the machine was fast, and I used it for video editing. I even realised that I had a pretty good sense of editing. But honestly, I edited even better videos on the iPad 6th gen. Eventually, I realised that I just wasn’t cut out for making YouTube videos.
The iPad itself came as part of my college package. If you ask me, it was basically a marketing gimmick. I didn’t even know I was going to get an iPad when I applied to the college. Honestly, they should have given us a laptop instead, because we relied on software for research purposes. And it wasn’t really free—the college charged for it as part of the overall fees.
But that iPad was the origin of my interest in digital art—the place where it all began.
Coming back to the MacBook disaster, the MacBook was good to use until something else happened.
Within about two years, the keyboard developed a problem.
Ironically, my Acer laptop had also experienced a keyboard problem. But repairing the Acer was relatively straightforward and cost-effective.
The MacBook was a different story.
The repair cost was so high that, at one point, I was being asked to pay around 30–40% of what I had originally paid for the laptop. The problem wasn't simply that something had failed. What bothered me was the repair approach: instead of replacing only the failed component, the repair involved replacing a much larger assembly.
That was the moment something clicked in my head.
I started thinking:
“If I spend this much money repairing a laptop that I don't even need for my daily life, am I actually making a rational financial decision?”
My answer was no.
That MacBook became one of my biggest financial and product regrets—not because it was a bad computer, but because it was an expensive solution to a problem I didn't really have.
After that experience, I stopped buying expensive technology.
Instead, I became much more interested in putting my money into assets and learning about investing. Over time, I became far more conscious about where my money goes.
And today, I'm glad I learned that lesson early.
Why Young People Make Expensive Mistakes
I believe there are certain periods in life when you can afford to take more risks.
One is when you're young, because you have time to recover from mistakes.
The other is later in life, when you have accumulated experience and resources and may be able to take calculated risks again.
But the important thing about taking risks when you're young is understanding what those risks can teach you.
My mistakes weren't limited to technology.
At one point, I also spent money on Instagram marketing for a meme page I created as a side hustle. But I realised that ads and promotions can turn you into a cash cow, while the number of followers gained wasn't worth the money I spent.
Looking back, I consider that money poorly spent. I personally wouldn't put money into that kind of promotion again. I also recognise that Instagram's advertising and promotion tools may have changed since then, so I'm just speaking about my own experience.
Those mistakes were small compared with what I could have lost later in life.
And that's why I value them.
They taught me something I carry into my financial life today:
I can make a mistake. But I can't afford to make the same mistake twice.
That has become one of my personal rules.
I don't believe financial stability comes from never making mistakes. I think it comes from learning quickly enough that the same mistake doesn't keep repeating.
That's also why I created the Mistake Ledger in ArtyTools—to record mistakes, what I learned from them, and what I should remember in the future.
Because sometimes the best financial education isn't a textbook.
Sometimes it's the receipt for something you regret buying.
The Debt Behind Those Purchases
There is one important part of this story I left out: both laptops were actually bought using personal loans.
My mother had a stable income and was eligible for a personal loan from the bank. At the time, we thought we could manage it. But looking back, taking on that debt was one of our biggest financial mistakes—especially when paying for college was already a major responsibility.
Eventually, my mother had to take a loan against her income through an employees’ loan society at a society bank. This type of loan is available to people with a fixed income in government jobs. My mother is a village nurseπ©Ί, a job she got when I was in 5th grade. Before that, she was working in private hospitals for a very low salary and was basically living in poverty, so getting this job drastically improved her life as a single parent. She had always been careful with debt, but during my college days, she eventually fell into a debt trap and also took some gold loans. Those were also the years when I was starting to understand money.
These loans helped finance my final years of college. It was a five-year course, and although I completed it successfully in four years, we still had to pay for all five years.
I eventually cleared all the debts strategically. Some of the mistakes were ours, but with some of the loans, I felt the banks had been too generous with the long repayment tenures, allowing them to earn a huge amount in interest. And it was a type of loan where they charged high interest during the first few years, while the principal deduction increased gradually. However, the amount paid toward interest was still much higher than what went toward the principal. So I had to act quickly to save on interest. I had to argue with the bank to reduce the tenure, and eventually, I fully cleared all the debts.
My mother had said no to many things during my childhood. But when I started doing well in my studies, she wanted to give me the best she could. The laptops and other things she bought for me came from a place of love and encouragement.
But even good intentions can come with a financial cost.
Fortunately, things eventually turned out well.
Today, we are 100% debt-free. We aren't extremely rich, but we are much more financially stable than we were before—and I'm grateful that I was able to reach that position at a relatively young age.
One of the biggest lessons I learned was that I didn't need to keep borrowing money to build myself.
I started using the resources and opportunities I already had.
That, to me, is one of the secrets of living a financially stable life: learning to build with what you already have instead of constantly borrowing to appear ahead.
Debt Changes the Game
There is also something I think people sometimes forget when comparing personal finances with businesses.
A corporation can sometimes take enormous amounts of debt, restructure it, sell assets, or even declare bankruptcy when things go badly. An individual doesn't have the same flexibility. Your life doesn't have a corporate balance sheet that you can simply liquidate and walk away from.
If you take on huge personal debts and your income suddenly collapses, selling a car, expensive electronics, or other unnecessary purchases may not save you.
And there is another problem.
Many things people consider “assets” are actually depreciating possessions.
A car generally loses value over time. Electronics lose value even faster. A laptop that cost a large amount of money when you bought it may be worth only a fraction of that price a few years later.
They can be useful. They can improve your quality of life. They can even help you earn money in some situations.
But that doesn't automatically make them investments.
An investment is something you expect to generate or preserve value in a meaningful way. A piece of technology purchased simply for entertainment or convenience is usually a consumption expense, not an investment.
That's why my approach to technology changed completely.
I don't think people should never buy expensive technology. If something genuinely serves your needs, helps you work, creates something valuable, or significantly improves your life, it can be worth the money.
But buying something simply because you want it—and financing it with debt—is a very different decision.
My rule became simple:
Buy things because they solve a real need, not because you can somehow afford the monthly payment.
That distinction changed the way I think about money.
I learned that financial stability isn't about owning the most expensive things you can obtain.
Sometimes it's about being perfectly happy with what you already have—and using it exceptionally well.
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Learning to Take Risks
There is another lesson I learned that isn't directly related to technology or money, but it changed the way I look at risk.
When I first started travelling, I was completely new to exploring places outside my hometown. As a college student, I had a limited budget, so I could only afford to visit a few places.
My first trip went well because I planned everything carefully.
Then came my second trip.
I travelled to a hill station where there was a toy train that travelled through the mountains to another town.
I had never done anything like that before.
I didn't know the route.
I wasn't sure whether I would find a taxi at the other end.
I didn't even know whether I would have reliable network coverage.
And yet, one morning, I found myself standing at the station, thinking:
«“Am I taking too big a risk?”»
I bought the ticket anyway.
And somehow, I even got a window seat.
While I was waiting at the station, still wondering whether I had made the right decision, I noticed a poster on the wall.
It said:
“Do your best. Leave the rest.”
Those words stayed with me.
I trusted God and decided to go.
And eventually, things worked out.
A kind taxi driver helped me when I arrived, and I was able to explore deeper into the mountains. Later, he helped me catch a bus back to where I needed to go.
There was no convenient return journey on the toy train that day. If there had been no bus, or if I hadn't found the right person to help me, things could have become much more complicated.
But they didn't.
On the bus ride back, I remember sitting there with a big smile on my face.
I had taken a risk.
And I had learned that sometimes you don't need to know exactly how everything will work out before you begin.
Risk Isn't the Same as Recklessness
That's probably the biggest lesson I've taken from all of this.
Taking risks doesn't mean jumping blindly into everything.
Sometimes it means doing your homework, understanding what you can lose, preparing as much as possible—and then accepting that you cannot control everything.
That's how I now look at risk and reward.
I plan.
I learn.
I accept that I can make mistakes.
And when something is beyond my control, I do my best and leave the rest to God.
My financial journey taught me to become more rational.
My mistakes taught me to become more careful.
And travelling taught me that being careful doesn't mean being afraid of everything.
Sometimes you have to take the train.
Sometimes you have to sit by the window.
And sometimes you simply have to trust that you'll figure out the rest when you get there.
I don't rely only on my own strength.
I do my best, and I leave the rest to God.
—Godwin Issac
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π About My Gaming Laptop
Yes, I finally use my gaming laptop for what it was actually built for—gaming.
I play games like Tomb Raider (the best), American Truck Simulator (good, but there’s too much desert), Euro Truck Simulator 2 (the best—lots of greenery and different places to explore), Forza Horizon 4 (good, but slightly boring after playing it for months), and others like the GTA games (I hate them—too much violence and crime. They’re not for me).
In today's world, which is filled with distractions and all kinds of unhealthy addictions, I see gaming as a relatively good form of entertainment—as long as it doesn't interfere with your responsibilities, health, relationships, or other important parts of life.
Like anything else, gaming is about balance. If you can enjoy it without allowing it to control your life, I don't see anything wrong with it.
Extra Note :
Let me be honest: I'm a mobile game person.
The one game I've actually been playing for a long time is Clash of Clans, which I've been playing for more than a decade.
When it comes to mobile games, I have so many all-time favourites that I don't even know how many of them are still around.
Games like Shadow Fight 2, Jetpack Joyride, Ninja Jump, Hill Climb Racing, Temple Run 2, Angry Birds, Minecraft, World Cricket Championship 2, and Zombieville USA 2.
I'm not even sure if Zombieville USA 2 is still available. I think it's still available on iOS, but it was removed from Android. It was one of the best zombie-shooting games I've played, and I really enjoyed it.
My go-to game after Clash of Clans was PUBG, but I stopped playing it a long time ago because everyone in our squad eventually became busy with life.
After that, the main game I played during free time was Clash of clans.
But after discovering American Truck Simulator and Euro Truck Simulator 2, I've finally found my daily casual games—the ones I can play whenever I just want to relax.
Gaming can actually be very relaxing.
There are few games like Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator. They're quite similar because they're both made by the same developer, and they're designed more around relaxing, exploring, and enjoying the driving experience.
I buy most of my games from Steam because they offer great discounts quite frequently. I’ve managed to get almost every game I own at a much cheaper price, with some costing as little as $2–$3.
If you’re not sure where to start with PC gaming, Steam is definitely an option worth exploring.
-Godwin Issac
