Scalzi has a great post up on how to be a thrifty writer, which counts as good advice for budding entrepreneurs as well.
One caveat: in his segue on “buy good stuff that lasts”, he mentions the epitomé of new and shiny, the MacBook Air, as its antithesis. Fact is, I own about a dozen Macs, and with the exception of a few PowerBook 140s that I bought used in 1997, they all still work. I can fire up my PowerBook Duo 210 any time I like, although its battery life is now measurable in picoseconds. The PowerBook G3 from 1999 is still in my stable of useful computers (great monitor, decent hard drive) for anything that doesn’t require heavy duty horsepower or Mac OS X 10.4 and up.
So, just saying: if you need a computer that will last for ten years, maybe you should go with the shiny.
While I’m still an avid reader, I’ve sworn off commenting on Scalzi’s blog, since when I do, he tends to jump down my throat like a cheesecake with a deathwish (as he probably would in this case, too).
That said, you may find it interesting to know that as a guy who knows a thing or two about finance, I think the post you link to above contains so much bad advice that it actually made my eyes hurt. Seriously, I had to go back and finish it later that day.
At a minimum: if someone who knows nothing about your financial situation, educational background, risk tolerance, or goals (financial and otherwise) tries to give you advice on money, turn and run as fast as possible.
Not that Scalzi is inept at managing his own finances (it would seem quite the opposite, in fact), but he seems to assume that everyone in the world is in the same situation he’s in, and proceeds to advise based on that assumption. A dangerous (some would say “arrogant”) pastime, to be sure…