This is Nathan.  He’s playing By Loch and Mountain, one of my absolute favorite pieces he learned in middle school.  That was five years ago.  Nathan is now headed off to college soon and will not be taking his saxophone with him.  So I’m selling it.

Until today, it had been three years since he tooted a note.  He quit band his sophomore year in high school.  Even so, I’d been holding on to the sax in the off-chance that he might pick it up again.   That never happened and now it’s time to move on.

I bought the sax seven years ago on ebay and paid $367.  It was my very first ebay purchase and I was stressed out.  I’ll never forget that I was bidding against ‘Rosie’ and, gosh darn it, Rosie was not going to win.  I remember hyper-ventilating as the clock ticked down to bidding close and I was trying to increase my bid.  It was an unbelievably stressful event but my kid needed a sax.

I probably paid more than I needed to.  But let’s break down the math.  At the time, it cost $45 a month to rent a sax.  Multiply that by 9 months and the total yearly cost for a rental adds up to $405.  He played the instrument for 4 years.  So $405 times 4 = $1620.  Sheesh, that’s a lot of money.

Two days ago I placed an ad on Craig’s list and listed the sax for $300.  It’s in great shape.  And came with 5 brand new reeds.  Those things are pricey so it’s a bonus to the buyer.

Tonight I sold the sax.

So let’s do a little more math.  The original price I paid was $367.  I just got $300 in cash.  That means that it cost me $67 to have Nathan entertain us with his sax playing for four years.

Okay, so there’s the price of the reeds that I seemed to always be buying.  At $2 a pop, those add up.  Then there was the time that one of the palm keys needed to be replaced.  That cost $50.  Of course, when the lower oct key mechanism needed alignment, that was another $55.  Those things are simply going to happen.

But all in all, purchasing vs renting was absolutely the way to go.  And getting misty over the band’s rendition of By Loch and Mountain…well, that was priceless.