They remind me that it’s cold outside and that I have to work every day to live in a hundred year old house that was probably built in a few months.
Buying giant SUVs no one needs with huge loans. Paying through the nose for corporate chain coffee.
I work with a guy who recently bought a 100k truck
We make a bit over 50k, this dude’s interest rate is 12% and he got an 8 year loan
He’s never going to pull himself out of that rut
Holy geez, I knew that medical costs were out of control, but that’s a stupid amount of money to treat fragile masculinity!
The cost of a gallon of gas? $3.25
The cost for yearly maintenance? $2,750
The cost of interest paid each month? $585
The joy of bringing a smile to children under the age of 10 pointing and saying “that’s a cool truck!”? $100k
You can’t see children under the age of 10 in that truck. I guarantee you the nose on that thing is at least 5 feet high. “Kinderplow”
S/tank/gallon
It’s got a 50 gallon tank and runs on diesel
It cost over $200 to fill the tank
He commutes 40 miles per day in that monster
If were more reasonably priced, a 40mi commute sounds like a decent reason to get a vehicle you love.
A 40 mile commute is a reason to get a cheap, fuel-efficient vehicle. Save money on gas, insurance and maintenance.
Stop ruining my devil’s advocate with your logic and reasoning.
8 years! That’s insane to me.
When I talked to him today I found out his payments were $1600 per month!
I don’t know how the hell he affords it
It’s literally more than my rent
Good god, that is absolutely hilarious.
That’s more than my mortgage. Crazy.
Cries in Vancouver. Entry level mortgages here wind up around $5700 which is somehow more expensive than my rent on a 2 bedroom 1990s era decor apartment sitting at a market average 3850/month.
We’re not super wealthy, and manage our expenses well but holy shit we’re never gonna get ahead in life if this is what’s in store.
Yikes, and I thought house prices were out of control in Minneapolis!
And he’ll never use it as intended, will he? Most that thing will ever haul is a cooler full of Keystone or a few random pieces of wood.
He uses it as his daily commuter vehicle
40 miles per day at 15mpg
50 gallon diesel tank for hauling his ego around
This vehicle will bankrupt him for sure
Groceries. Rent. Utilities.
deleted by creator
not seeing your money is a factor.
if people can always see how fat or malnourished their wallet at the time of purchase, I am sure they’ll double think.
but no, we solved that overthinking by means of credit cards.
or better yet, touchless payments. Just wave your magic cellphone and stuff is yours!
Yeah you right about that. That’s why one of the simplest and most suggested budgeting techniques is to carry a cash envelope. Seeing/feeling your money makes it harder to psychologically part with it.
malnourished wallet
I agree with you and I had laughter over that wording. If it was a band name, I’m curious what would they play?
lol, that’s an interesting question.
not exactly my forte but I’ll try my best:
- “eBay”
- “Should’ve said no”
- “Pennies from Heaven”
- “Change in my pocket”
- “Plastic Memories”
Depends on the name. Malnourished Wallet is probably an emo/grunge band. Ill Bills is thrash-punk. Skinny Pockets is an indie, alt-rock duo.
And H0110W plays sharp industrial noise.
This is another good one! Those budgeting TV shows I remember I used to watch had the guest put away all credit cards and used cash in jars for each expense item.
Remembering my credit card number, CVV and expiry date by heart will be my downfall…
I’ve seen an apparently relatable video about spending cash on something, therefore your bank account doesn’t change so it feels free.
It seems that looking at your bank account balance often and valuing that number has a similar effect to carrying most of your paycheck in cash.
Credit cards are still the enemy because they delay the change in your bank account so that things feel like they cost less.
I was talking about groceries with a friend over in England a few nights ago. Apparently my pasta prices are 4x hers. And that’s just the store brand dry noodles. If I found the cheapest deal I used to see from various places, it’d still be 2x. I’d need a pound of noodles for $0.49 to even be in the ballpark.
If a simple item like that is casually 4x more expensive, I’m sure everything else is also up there. I’ve been lucky that my income allows me to be a single family income provider and have money left over to throw around wherever I want, but just finding this out the other day really left a deep impression of just how sorry of a state things are in over here.
Additionally, going out to eat has many hidden costs, like liquor tax in some cities on an already overpriced drink. Soda or Iced tea is $2.50 or more. Now add tax and tip and your $7 cheeseburger & coke is $25.
It’s not for everyone, but my family has been enrolling in CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) produce. It’s cheaper and local. Granted, I’ll get 3 eggplants in a box one week and I need to get creative to be able to use it, but that’s part of the fun. I’ve expanded my produce repertoire 5-fold and now know how to cook fennel.
- Quarter the fennel lengthwise
- Spread olive oil, coarse salt and pepper
- Roast in the oven until the edges starts to brown
- Devour
devour indeed. I also had a recipe for fennel lemonade that I made with the tops.
I’m assuming that’s the bulb. What about the stalk?
Put them in a salad maybe? I usually buy just the bulbs…
Yeah it’s always surprising when I hear Americans say that eating healthy is more expensive that eating fast food / eating unhealthy.
When I was veggie and just eating vegetables I could buy a week’s worth of food for about £10 a Kilogram of carrots was about 50p potatoes were 60p/kg brocoli and salad item were a little bit under £1/kg
Then as you said basic things like pasta is pretty cheap, I used to get 1kg of pasta for 30p and then a jar of tomato pasta sauce for 60p and that could last me 3 meals.
“10 pounds a kilogram” is a funny phrase out of context
Some folks don’t have access to fresh groceries like that. Food deserts are a major issue in the states.
Mountains of people bad at math convincing bigger mountains of people even worse at math that they can’t afford anything of major value.
So in turn they go and spend what money they do have because why bother saving it if you’ll “never afford a x”
In reality most of the “you can’t afford this and that” shit is built on top of bad math and content creators that don’t understand how shit works.
And literally anyone with basic math skills can just go look for themselves and discover how bogus the claims are, or how much they misrepresent the state of things.
But nope, it’s easier to give up and just buy forty Stanley Cups instead!
Shop like a billionaire
Look buddy, I got a great deal on that mega yacht, so don’t go criticizing my spending habits… Did not realize I’d need to hire a staff and pay docking fees, though…
Please send money I am in a bananas amount of yacht debt.
I saw commercials last december encouraging people to take out a special low interest loan specifically for holiday shopping. LOADS of shopping platforms offer a “buy now, pay later” option.
Yowch that’s like a free ticket to January misery…
Buy now pay later schemes like Klarna.
You can spread the cost of a takeaway over 6 weeks. Wtf? If you can’t afford a takeaway make a fucking sandwich.
During the pandemic an old friend of mine and myself reconnected abd played video games together. He told me a couple of times that money is kinda tight and whatever. He worked way different shifts than me so i invited him to eat at my place 4 times a week or so. I love cooking and cooking double doesn’t really makes much of a difference. After a few weeks i was at his place for the first time ever and he had two full ass garbage bags full of delivery and fast food on his porch. Motherfucker that’s where your money goes. I can coock for the both of us a good healthy meal for a week for what he spends alone in two days. He basically said: well, i can’t cook, so there is nothing he can do, really. Wegot out of touch again, aside from talking on discord every bow and then, but i seen him recently and he’s almost doubled in size now, so i assume nothing has changed.
That’s sad. I don’t mind cooking, but after a typical work day, I often don’t have enough mental energy leftover to cook for myself either though. If I didn’t have a wife who loved me, I’d probably end up a lot like your friend. We try to save eating out for special occasions or when we’re both pooped and there’s no leftovers at least. But I can totally understand how that can happen to a person.
I don’t get people who say they “can’t cook”. Anyone can cook basic recipes…. No, the real issue is that they lack the willpower to cook. I say this as someone who dislikes cooking. I can do it if I need to (or rarely, if I feel inspired), and hell, I can do it well! But I detest the idea of spending like an hour cooking every day when I could just buy premade things like frozen meals or whatever and save myself the time. If my wife didn’t like cooking, that’s what I’d be doing for dinner each night (I already do it for lunch basically).
The most sinister is an almost inescapable one, where companies intentionally build things (larger appliances are a huge offender) to fail within 3 to 5 years.
It’s the “a poor man can’t afford cheap shoes” thing.
They love to “sell” this concept that making items cheaper means consumers can more frequently replace as their styles change. Fuck you, give me a white fridge that never breaks, I don’t care if I have to pay double up front.
It doesn’t even have to be intentional. So much shit is plastic now so everything breaks faster.
I realized this was a significant part of my expenses about a decade ago now, and started researching and budgeting for higher-quality products that don’t get as much advertisement as their cheaper counterparts. It’s been great! What started as a larger expense on the front end has already broken about even on potential replacements that I didn’t end up needing, plus I get high-quality items to use the whole way through as well!
It’s definitely a good thing to pay attention to just how much you spend on replacing things that broke down unexpectedly quickly. The higher-quality items often exist, but a lot of times you need to seek out the niche communities that focus on those products to help find them and parse through the available options. I’m sure a lot of people just aren’t able to front the charge to make the change, though.
Buying expensive things and imagining that they last longer just because of their price tag is also a good way to lose money faster.
Correct. That’s why I talked about finding niche communities to help find and parse through options. For example, I didn’t just buy an expensive vacuum, I found a few vacuum enthusiast forums and looked through several threads discussing the best products for my budget price.
I’ve spent the majority of my life connected in some way or another to the internet, starting as a kid on niche bbs in the 90s, and it never ceases to amaze me that there are vacuum enthusiast forums.
Everybody’s got a thing, and they’re usually happy to talk about it to someone who’s genuinely interested. Definitely helpful if you’re looking into that exact thing.
Yeah 100% and I’m glad that people have a place to talk enthusiastically about their thing!
Got any tips on researching these things? I’m always concerned that “buy-it-for-life” testimonials are only so trustworthy when the item was made years ago already, and the manufacturing process could have changed since.
Professional grade items are usually a great start. Not normally advertised, ugly as hell, but powerful, reliable and have a spare part/repair market. A professional vacuum will be expensive but you will be able to give it to your children.
Use survivorship bias in your favour. I’ve a fridge from 1953, wonderful 60s gas stove, a can opener from 1915, pickup from 1983, motorcycle from 1969 etc.
So, just need to swing by 1953, 1960s, 1915 and 1983 on the way home.
I’ve collected most of that except the bike in the last 5 years, grew tired of new stuff failing and being mostly disposable. The can opener is really neat, seems like 110 years ago they knew how to make something that actually worked and opened cans without leaving sharp edges, much better built than what you get at a store today. theyre 10 bucks on ebay. https://www.ebay.ca/itm/335171281718?hash=item4e09c3e336:g:7LIAAOSwPrFlZofk&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA0Exx8HDDFCXcyRYMrVHWpfpb4KkPCs685zBXJr%2FZxP3vXqGhnb8Gz0hHopfDa%2BvUWB9Ul925P1z9C20IVf%2FMQyeN2cM75RwAQg4AMY8FoGc5XXor6AwQgO4mNJjIprA0RHqrSpsqQjSOkugWUJ5oAFiKYhwjMUJrROWGaksLXdLCuFHpVPzolYKOTB5dEPW7uTRpUULrD0YXtrKGZktbDCaKSCA%2F59wj2sh0FiXtT2OTNhFVaTllTptmBt57QcY9NSySvgwxX63NDsK9Xg47wEY%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR4iR0YGwYw
One thing that you can look for is repair manuals, schematics, and spare parts. If those are easy to find, the product may have been made to be repairable.
I try to find as many forums as I can for people who are more likely to know about the product, like enthusiast forums for things like headphones, and professional forums for things like washing machines. I try to get a feel for what parts of a product fail most often, then try to find products where people have specifically reported those things holding strong. There’s probably more I could do, but even just that has led me to finding products that have lasted far longer than buying the cheap stuff on amazon had gotten me.
Producing superfluous items uses energy which also has to be paid for. A cost we all pay.
Be selling them the idea the end of the world is nigh. Who cares about the 30 year mortgage if everything’s going to be gone in 10 years?
That sort of thing. By selling the idea that our existence is short, they encourage near-term thinking.
Subscriptions everywhere. Video, credit, energy bills (subscription for repairs/maintenance), music, news sites, YouTubers, CARS, etc. I can’t fucking escape this hell!
I’ve done pretty well so far. Only subscription I have is for Spotify and 1Password.
Why 1password when you can use bitwarden, its free for most features, and 10 bucks a year for features I don’t need
I like the convenience of the 2 factor being included with the paid version, and password autofill with TOTP seems to work much more often than Bitwarden (S23 Ultra, latest version of Android) So with that being said, I really like Bitwarden, but prefer 1Password for the convenience.
2fa is included in bitwarden, just not in the free version
Is it a password manager? I’ve been wondering if there’s a good alternative to Keeper, which is what I use. I like that I can access my passwords on different devices, and it tells me if a password has been compromised or is weak. But, I’ve also been trying to save money. I think the one I’m using now is $30 a year so free or $10 a year for similar features would be an improvement.
Yes, bitwarden is a password manager, and A very good one at that
Other than energy bills, you’ll just have to dodge the rest of the subscriptions as best you can.
I am doing my okayest.
Energy bills aren’t really subscriptions like the others though. You pay for the energy you use.
Whereas with the others, you’re paying the same price every month regardless of how much you use.
Yours doesn’t come with a delivery fee that you’d have to pay every month regardless of any usage?
Oh yeah. Does that count as a subscription too?
The maintenance plan is in addition to the gas usage
I have seen plans where you pay a fixed price/kWh; almost seemed like a decent deal, until I read the fine print - the regular fees & transportation/kWh is on top of the fixed cost.
Iphones being some sort of standard
Peer pressure on behalf for corporations is such a silly thing in my opinion…
My preferences only extend to what I want, I don’t really care what others use unless they are looking for suggestions/advice.
Simply needing shelter
Yeah, especially where I live, I have no idea how anyone is supposed to find dignified housing that isn’t in a well paying job, a DINK couple in a cramped apartment or a trust fund baby. Average asking rents are averaging close to $3k CAD ($2225 USD)!
