Price is the easiest cost to see and often the smallest one. A boat, a garden, a complicated gadget: the money question gets answered and the time question never gets asked, though the time is what you pay week after week. Maintenance, learning, storage and the guilt about not using it arrive quietly and stay. Affordable and worth it are separate judgements.

Before the next significant purchase, estimate the hours it will want from you in a year. Ask whether you would give those hours to it if it were free. If the answer is no, the price was never the deciding factor.