One aspect of freelancing that I didn't expect to be much of an issue was that of justifying buying new equipment. I already had a pretty nice setup when I started. A MacBook, an external monitor and a working keyboard and mouse. That was all I needed to get started. I didn't worry about replacing the equipment over time, it just never crossed my mind.

Then last year the MacBook started to grind down with the amount of use it was getting on a daily basis. Tests ran slow, there was little free disk space left and at the back of my mind was the thought that the MacBook was already about five years old. What if it just died on me?

So I headed down to the local Apple store and done a check over the specs of the MacBook Pros and found myself a suitable specced Pro at a good price. I had only just received payment of my first invoice and already I was spending some of it. In my head though I knew I was justified in buying a Pro. My little black MacBook was not consistently handling the amount of work I did on a daily basis. Beach balling was a common daily occurrence, so a new laptop made sense.

In the last couple of weeks though my Apple keyboard of four years has started to show signs of wearing down. Certain keys sometimes need a double press to respond. I've tried shooting compressed air in at these keys but they're still sometimes unresponsive. Time for a new keyboard.

I was simply going to replace the keyboard I had for another one of the same model. The Apple keyboard is nice but I sometimes find the compactness of it just a bit on the small side. It was time to look elsewhere and one keyboard that did catch my eye was the Logitech K811. A similar profile to my keyboard, illuminated keys and it let's you switch between three different bluetooth devices.

The only problem was the price. At just under £90 it is easily the most expensive keyboard I have considered buying. It seems a lot of money, but then I remember thinking that about my Apple keyboard which was also more expensive than a standard keyboard.

What I keep forgetting is that a keyboard is one of the tools I use on a daily basis. I use it for the whole of the working day and if I'm to consider keyboards in a higher price point then I think I am justified in spending that little bit more to get a comfortable keyboard that let's me work fluently through the day.

I would love nothing more to splash out on a new massive screen, an array of new hard drives, a new router and lots of other goodies, but these are really nice to haves. The essentials that I need such as a laptop, monitor, keyboard and mouse are the essential tools that make my working day a lot easier. It's these tools that I should consider spending a bit more of my budget on should I need too.