Dave K. brought up a really good point: Don't think about now, think about down the road. That's a recipe for screwing yourself and I've seen it countless times. I'm not saying this as a sales pitch for Italian saws but as a guy who has had this very conversation with prospective owners literally hundreds of times, so am pretty good at reading between the lines.
If a prospective owner tells me, "I really want this Italian saw but I just don't have the money right now or it's out of my budget", my suggestion to them is to either keep saving up for a new one or hunt for a used one to pop up on the open market. The key phrase being, "What I want". Because once that gets said, anything else is settling. That's not the same conversation as, "I only really need a 14" light duty bandsaw" and then guys trying to push someone into an industrial machine. I'm not trying to put words in anyone's mouth, just saying that I have seen this exact same scenario a bizillion times.
Like they say: You're going to buy it sooner or later, anyhow. It's just a matter of much money you will spend to get there.
Photography is one of my hobbies and I own a really nice carbon fiber tripod and ball head. They were far from cheap. In fact, over $1,000 for both. They were ones everyone on the photography forums told me to buy and the conversation was a lot like this one: You can never have too sturdy a tripod or too good a head. But I spent probably $3K over the years to end up with what I wanted. Why? Because I thought I could "get by" with smaller/lighter/lesser setups over the years, so would buy one, find out what it could not do, then flip it at a loss and try a different one. All the while though, that Gitzo was the one I really wanted. But it was so darn expensive. So I just said "F-it" and bought it one day. That was more than ten years ago and this tripod has been all over the US with me. I have a ton of great prints in our house that I could not have gotten without it. Every time I pull it out of its sleeve, it's a pleasure to use. Sure it was a lot of money but I don't regret spending it for a second.
Point being, if you think you want something then you probably do and you should buy what you want because we shouldn't have to "settle" for our hobbies that are supposed to bring enjoyment to our lives. But it's also very easy to spend too much and still never be happy. At least for me. Just my 2-cents as always.
Erik Loza
Minimax USA