10 things you shouldn't buy new

10 things you shouldn’t buy new

By Liz Pulliam Weston

Few people really enjoy wasting their hard-earned money, but many of us do it every day by buying new. We could do our pocketbooks, and the environment, a big favor by opting to be the second owner of some of the stuff we buy.

Obviously, some things are best purchased new; lingerie pops to mind (see my companion piece, “10 things you should never buy used” for more). But lots of other stuff depreciates quickly while still having plenty of useable life left. Here are 10 items where the cost vs. use equation strongly tilts toward buying used.

• Books, books, books. Now this is awkward, because I wrote a book. (Warning! Shameless plug ahead!) It’s called, “Your Credit Score: How to Fix, Improve and Protect the 3-Digit Number that Shapes Your Financial Future,” and of course, I’d love for you to go out and purchase a new copy. (End of shameless plug.)

But the reality is that most books don’t get read more than once, if that, and they’re astonishingly easy to find used at steep discounts — if not absolutely free.

Your local library, for example, may allow you to reserve titles online and then deliver them to your nearest branch for pick-up. Used book stores abound, both in your town and online. If you’re looking for a potboiler to get you through your next cross-country flight, just stop by almost any yard sale and pick up four for $1.

Exception: Reference books you’ll use again and again. For example, I bought a deeply-discounted copy of Cheryl Mendelson’s excellent “Home Comforts.” That was after checking the book out at the library and running up a small fortune in fines because I couldn’t bear to part with it.

• DVDs and CDs. Some online retailers, like MSN Shopping and Amazon.com, now surface used versions of many of the DVD movies they sell new. You can find similar deals for online CDs (yes, Virginia, some of us dinosaurs still buy CDs). Other good hunting grounds for purchase of used items: movie rental chains like Blockbuster; used record stores; yard sales.

Exception: When you simply must have the latest release by your favorite singer/director/actor, right now. It can take a few days or weeks for the used versions to show up, and perhaps a few months for the price to get discounted enough to compensate for the greater hassle you might face trying to return a defective or unsatisfactory purchase.

• Little kids’ toys. Parents know: it’s all but impossible to predict which toy will be a hit and which will lie forlorn at the bottom of the toy box. So rather than gamble at full price, cruise consignment shops and yard sales for bargains. My husband’s latest score: a plastic Push, Pedal ‘N Ride Trike (retails for $28, he paid $10) that looks like new after a brief scrub.

Better than cheap, though, is free. Some parents set up regular toy-swapping meets, or you might be lucky enough to score hand-me-downs from friends and relatives.

Exception: Some parents get away with giving used toys for birthdays and holidays, but most of us (and our kids) have been fairly well brainwashed into believing that gifts should be purchased new. Try to opt, though, for classics, like sturdy wooden toys.

• Jewelry. Fat markups on most gems (100% or more is fairly common) means that you’d be lucky to get one-third of what you paid at a retail store, should you ever need to sell.

So let somebody else get socked with that depreciation. Find a pawn shop that’s been in business for awhile, get to know the owner and ask him or her for recommendations. Some readers have had good results buying via newspaper ads, but I’d want to take the piece to a jeweler for an appraisal first.

Exception: You want something custom-made. Even then, consider buying used stones and getting them reset.

• Sports equipment. We may buy everything from badminton rackets to weight sets fully intending to wear them out, but too often they wind up collecting dust. Buy someone else’s good intention and you’ll save some bucks.

Happy hunting grounds: yard sales, newspaper and online ads, resale stores like Play It Again Sports.

Exception: Shoes, baseball mitts and anything else that will mold to the wearer’s body. In addition, some people shun buying anything used if it has a motor, like a treadmill. They worry they won’t get enough use out of the piece before it dies. Given how little use most such devices get before they’re sold, though, you might want to take the chance.

• Timeshares. You could call these a notoriously lousy investment if you could call them an investment at all, but you can’t — because what real investment is guaranteed to lose 30% to 70% right off the bat?

That is, unless you buy used. There’s a huge number of folks who caved in to three hours of hard sell and are now desperate to dump their shares.

Exception: Some of the higher-end properties in exclusive resorts don’t lose much value, and may offer benefits like frequent-flyer miles that could be worth the extra money if you buy from the developer. Before you buy, though, check resale values online; don’t take an agent’s word for how much depreciation to expect. Also, a relatively new type of expensive time share, called a fractional interest, may actually gain in value over time.

• Cars. The average new car loses 12.2% of its value in the first year, according to Edmunds.com; on a $20,000 car, that’s $2,440, or more than $200 a month. Some cars depreciate even faster, depending on demand, incentives offered and other factors.

Why not let someone else take that hit? Not only will you be able to save money (or buy more car), but you’ll pay less for insurance. Cars are better-built and last longer than ever before, which means you’re less likely to get a lemon. Companies like CarFax allow you to trace a car’s history. Many late-model used cars are still under warranty, and a trusted mechanic can give your potential purchase the once-over to spot any problems. Take a look at the Used Car Research section of MSN Autos for a lot of great information.

Exception: You can pay cash and you really, really want that new-car smell.

• Software and console games. Buy used, and you’ll pay half or less what the software cost new. Console games like those for the Xbox and Sony PS2 that list for $50 new, for instance, can often be purchased used for $20 or less a year after release.

But it’s more than just a matter of economy. Letting someone else be the early adopter also allows you to benefit from their experience. You’ll find more reviews and information on software that’s been out a year or more (and you won’t be that far behind the leading edge). The bugs will have been identified along with any workarounds, although you may have to live with some problems that are fixed in later versions.

Exception: If you do a lot of work with graphics, multimedia or image editing and you have a newer, more powerful computer, you’ll probably want the state-of-the-art version. Finally, some software restricts the number of computers on which it can be installed, which can make it difficult (but not impossible) to transfer the product license to a new owner.

• Office furniture. Built to take a beating and last a lifetime, good-quality office desks, filing cabinets and credenzas are relatively easy to find even when a recession isn’t cratering the local economy.

Exception: Some people balk at buying used chairs for the same reason they won’t buy a used catcher’s mitt — it’s had too many hours to mold to someone else’s body.

• Hand tools. Well-made tools with few or no moving parts — like hammers, wrenches, shovels, hoes, etc. — can last decades with proper maintenance and are relatively easy to find at yard sales. If you’re not going to use a tool frequently, you may be able to rent it or borrow from a friend or neighbor rather than buying something else to clutter up your garage. (Some neighborhoods even run tool-sharing cooperatives.)

Exception: You’re a hard-core do-it-yourselfer and you need power tools, especially cordless versions. These have a relatively limited life span and you may not know how much time they’ve got left. If the tool is cheap enough, of course, that may not matter, but most often you’ll want to buy new if the power tool will get substantial use.

Liz Pulliam Weston’s column appears every Monday and Thursday, exclusively on MSN Money. She also answers reader questions in the Your Money message board.

Speech-Recognition Software

Like Having a Secretary in Your PC

by David Pogue

TESTING, testing, one two three. Is this thing on?

Well, I’ll be darned. It’s really on and it’s really working. I’m wearing a headset, talking, and my PC is writing down everything I say in Microsoft Word. I’m speaking at full speed, perfectly normally except that I’m pronouncing the punctuation (comma), like this (period).

Let’s try something a little tougher. Pyridoxine hydrochloride. Antagonistic Lilliputians. Infinitesimal zithers.

Hm! Not bad.

Oh, hi, honey. Did you get to the bank before it closed? Oh, hold on, let me turn off the mike. Wouldn’t want our conversation to wind up in my column!

O.K., back again. The software I’m using is Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9.0 (www.nuance.com), the latest version of the best-selling speech-recognition software for Windows. This software, which made its debut Tuesday, is remarkable for two reasons.

Reason 1: You don’t have to train this software. That’s when you have to read aloud a canned piece of prose that it displays on the screen ­ a standard ritual that has begun the speech-recognition adventure for thousands of people.

I can remember, in the early days, having to read 45 minutes’ worth of these scripts for the software’s benefit. But each successive version of NaturallySpeaking has required less training time; in Version 8, five minutes was all it took.

And now they’ve topped that: NatSpeak 9 requires no training at all.

I gave it a test. After a fresh installation of the software, I opened a random page in a book and read a 1,000-word passage ­ without doing any training.

The software got 11 words wrong, which means it got 98.9 percent of the passage correct. Some of those errors were forgivable, like when it heard “typology” instead of “topology.”

But Nuance says that you’ll get even better accuracy if you do read one of the training scripts, so I tried that, too. I trained the software by reading its “Alice in Wonderland” excerpt. This time, when I read the same 1,000 words from my book, only six errors popped up. That’s 99.4 percent correct.

The best part is that these are the lowest accuracy rates you’ll get, because the software gets smarter the more you use it ­ or, rather, the more you correct its errors.

You do this entirely by voice. You say, “correct ‘typology,’ ” for example; beneath that word on the screen, a numbered menu of alternate transcriptions pops up. You see that alternate 1 is “topology,” for example, so you say “choose 1.” The software instantly corrects the word, learns from its mistake and deposits your blinking insertion point back at the point where you stopped dictating, ready for more.

Over time, therefore, the accuracy improves. When I tried the same 1,000-word excerpt after importing my time-polished voice files from Version 8, I got 99.6 percent accuracy. That’s four words wrong out of a thousand ­ including, of course, “topology.”

For this reason, it doesn’t much matter whether or not you skip the initial training; the accuracy of the two approaches will eventually converge toward 100 percent.

NatSpeak 9 is remarkable for a second reason, too: it’s a new version containing very little new.

Yes, they’ve eliminated the training requirement. And yes, the new NatSpeak is 20 percent more accurate than before if you do the initial training. Then again, what’s a 20 percent improvement in a program that’s already 99.4 percent accurate ­ 99.5? That’s maybe one less error every 1,000 words.

(Nuance has done some clever engineering to wring these additional drops of accuracy out of the program. For example, the program has always used context to determine a word’s identity, taking into account the two or three words on either side of it to distinguish, say, “bear” from “bare.” The company says that Version 9 scans an even greater swath of the surrounding words.)

But the rest of the changes are minor. The top-of-the-screen toolbar has shed the squared-off Windows 3.1 look in favor of a more rounded Windows Vista look. You can now use certain Bluetooth wireless headsets for dictation, although Nuance has found only two so far that put the microphone close enough to your mouth to get clear sound. A new toolbar indicator lets you know when you’re in a “select and say” program like Word ­ that is, a program where you can highlight, manipulate and format any text you see on the screen using voice commands.

At least Nuance hasn’t gone the way of so many software companies, piling on features and complexity in hopes of winning your upgrade dollars. For the second straight revision, the company has preferred to nip and tuck, making careful and selective improvements.

Now, Nuance isn’t the only game in speech-recognition town. Microsoft says that Windows Vista, when it makes its debut next year, will come with built-in dictation software.

Nuance claims not to be worried, pointing out that Vista will understand only English. NatSpeak, on the other hand, is available in French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese, British English and “World English,” which can handle South African, Southeast Asian and Australian accents.

NatSpeak is also available in a range of versions for the American market, including medical and legal incarnations. Mere mortals will probably want to consider either the Standard version ($100) or the Preferred version ($200), each of which comes with a headset. Both offer the same accuracy.

The Preferred edition, however, offers several shiny bells and whistles. One of them is transcription from a digital pocket voice recorder. This approach doesn’t provide the same accuracy as a headset, and it requires what today is considered an excruciating amount of training reading: at least 15 minutes. But it does free you from dictating at the computer.

The Preferred perk is voice macros, where you teach it to type one thing when you say another. For example, you can say “forget it” and have the software spit out, “Thank you so much for your inquiry. Unfortunately, after much consideration, we regret that we must decline your application at this time.”

There’s also a $900 version called Professional, which offers, among other advanced features, complete control over your PC by voice; it can even set in motion elaborate multi-step automated tasks.

NatSpeak also runs beautifully on the Macintosh. The setup is a bit involved: you need a recent Intel-based Mac, Apple’s free Boot Camp utility, a copy of Windows XP, and a U.S.B. adapter on your headset. And you have to restart the Mac in Windows each time you want to use NatSpeak. But if you can look past all that fine print, NatSpeak on Macintosh is extremely fast and accurate.

If that sounds like too much effort, there is a Macintosh-only alternative: iListen ($130 with headset). Version 1.7, newly adapted for Intel Macs, offers better accuracy and a shorter training time than previous versions, though nothing like the sophistication or accuracy of NatSpeak. After 30 minutes of training, the program made 42 mistakes in my 1,000-word book excerpt, which the company says is better than average.

As for NaturallySpeaking: if you’re already using Version 8, it’s probably not worth upgrading to Version 9. Most people will find the changes to be too few and too subtle.

But if you’re among the thousands who have abandoned dictation software in the past, it’s a different story. Version 9 is a stronger argument than ever that for anyone who can’t or doesn’t like to type, dictation software is ready for prime time; the state of this art has attained nearly “Star Trek” polish.

Excuse me ­ what, honey?

O.K., I’m just finishing up here; I’ll be right down. Let me just turn my mike off.

E-mail: Pogue@nytimes.com