Originally Posted by CommutiePatooti

Lol...so I opened this thread thinking "frustrated by budget" meant that the OP was frustrated by their own budget. As in, "OMG there are so many cool/expensive cycling related things that I want to buy and my budget does not allow me to buy all of them." But apparently the OP is so rich that he has no need to be frustrated by his own budget. Only by the fact that other people have them. How nice of him to be so empathetic.

The bottom line is, everyone does not have endless amounts of money flowing out their wazoo. Some (most?) people have to plan and budget because they have a certain amount of money with which to pay rent, buy food, feed children, pay bills, etc. and finally, to use for cycling or other recreational activities. Even if they have unrealistic expectations about what they can buy within their budget, it still doesn't hurt to ask. What if the exact thing you wanted WAS available somewhere for a really good price that happened to fit within your budget (i.e. the amount of money you could afford to spend), and someone on a bike forum just happened to know where you could get it? Then it would be pretty stupid not to ask, wouldn't it? Or maybe cyclists on a bike forum would have enough information to point you towards the best/closest thing to what you want that is within or closest to your stated budget. I think that is the point of those type of posts/questions. At that point, of course, you could decide if you need to raise your budget or if what people have advised will work for your situation.