You’re a Luddite. “What did you call me?” I asked my husband, ready to fuss him out. “You’re a Luddite,” he said again. But before I could offer a comeback, I had to look up the word.The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines a Luddite first as a group of early 19th-century English workmen who, as a protest against losing their jobs, destroyed labor-saving machinery. More broadly, a Luddite is one who is opposed to technological change.My husband had called me a Luddite because once again I was protesting his excitement over buying another consumer electronic gadget. I had already lost the Blu-ray battle. Unable to persuade me to use joint funds to get an iPad 2 that we would share, he decided to use his birthday gift money to order the Apple tablet. He’s so excited about that thing that every time a box is delivered to our home he squeals like a little child hoping it’s his iPad. OK, maybe he doesn’t squeal, but he makes some manly sounding noise and then is deflated when he realizes the gadget is not in the box.Anyway, the discussion this time was around the rumours that Apple’s fifth-generation iPhone may be released in the fall.“It’s all a conspiracy to keep us spending on consumer electronics we don’t really need,” I argued.“Luddite,” my husband snickered as I continued my rant.“Stop calling me that, and why should we spend more money replacing perfectly good phones?”It will have a faster processor, my husband said. And in an effort to appeal to my business self, he said: “Companies have to stay in business, so they have to move forward technologically. If you stand still, you might as well be going backward.”Whatever.I’m not opposed to change, just change that keeps costing me more money when the old machinery works fine. I lament losing the argument to upgrade our VCR to a DVD and then to the Blu-ray. So what if the picture is clearer, crisper. We’re usually so tired we fall asleep halfway through most of the movies anyway.Two years later, and I’m still cranky about the cost of upgrading to the iPhone 3GS. Yes, it’s a cool phone. But really, who needs all this technology?No one made me get the iPhone. My basic cellphone broke, so I decided to replace it because it would have cost just as much to get a new phone as to fix the old one.When my old phone became disabled, my husband saw a window of opportunity. (For a second, I wondered if he had sabotaged my phone).“Honey, my love, as long as you are looking at a replacement, let’s check out the iPhone,” he said. “And if you get one, it would be nice if I got one too. We could learn to use it together.”No, no, no, I protested. Yet in the end, I went to the dark side.I bought one and so did my husband. He’s been giddy ever since.See, this is how they get you. They ensnare the technology enthusiast first - our spouses, family, friends, neighbours, co-workers - who then work on the rest of us. My pastor, bless his heart, is a technology aficionado. I try my best to keep him away from my husband when he gets a new gadget.It’s not just the price of the new technology. It’s all the ancillary costs that go along with the purchase. Wireless devices make it all too easy to bust your budget.With smartphones, it’s the extra monthly fees so you can fully use all the systems on the phone. It’s the accessories and mobile applications. ABI Research found in a 2008 survey that 17 percent of smartphone users spent upward of $100 on apps. That’s significant given the low cost of many of them. Darn those “Angry Bird” application creators. I spent 99 cents for the game after my husband got me hooked. Now it’s costing me all kinds of time trying to destroy evil green pigs.Kindle users, and I include myself, spend on books they would have otherwise borrowed from a friend or checked out of the library. Or they purchase books in which they have only a mild interest.Think of what we could do with even a fraction of the money we spend on electronics. The Consumer Electronics Association estimates that revenues will reach a new peak this year, at more than $186 billion.But I have to concede this: If you’re saving as you should and keeping your spending in check, buy the cool gadgets. If I, a lifelong penny pincher, can’t resist, the rest of you have no chance at all.Readers can write to Michelle Singletary c/o The Washington Post, 1150 15th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20071. Her email address is singletarym[AT]washpost.com Comments and questions are welcome, but due to the volume of mail, personal responses may not be possible. Please also note comments or questions may be used in a future column, with the writer’s name, unless a specific request to do otherwise is indicated.(c) 2011, Washington Post Writers Group