You think you’ve got problems?   Bah!  I’ve got a huge problem, at least an order of magnitude bigger than any other problem which has ever existed since the beginning of time.  Move over, African AIDS orphans, I’ll show you something to worry about!
I have a laptop at home, and it’s dying.  The LCD hinge is totally shot, so I have to prop it up with velcro in order to be able to see anything.  The sound doesn’t play at all because of motherboard damage, and the wireless PCMCIA card I use for networking is cracked (but still works most of the time).

Time for a new laptop then eh?  Except, I have a spiffy nice laptop from work.  It’s got piles of RAM, nice shiny wide screen and it generally works great (except for right now when it’s in repair).  I generally use this one at home as my primary laptop because, well, it functions better.

So I don’t really need a new laptop because I can use my work one.  The only case I’d need one would be if I get laid off — which I totally don’t expect but still that’s the only circumstance I’d really need a new laptop.  And if I would get laid off, that means that I can’t be spending money on a laptop because I don’t have a job and will need to conserve money for essentials while job hunting.
So realistically, there are no scenarios in which I should buy a new laptop, even though I need one.  Grumble.