Spending and getting into debt are useful tools. But I don't have any friends in tech who need to be told "hey dude, you should be spending more". I have quite a few friends who would be better off spending less.
My mother, for example, refuses to replace her iPhone SE with something with a larger screen despite 1) having failing vision and difficulty reading the screen, 2) using her iPhone every day, 3) easily being able to afford it. The idea of spending $1,000 on a phone is just something she is unable to bring herself to do, even though I think it would help alleviate a real source of frustration in her life.
My father, when he started shopping for his most recent car (and probably his final car), set out with the intent to buy a luxury car. But again, despite being able to easily afford one, all he was able to bring himself to buy was a well-equipped Toyota. Don't get me wrong - it's a great car and has served him incredibly well. But it makes me a little sad that he wasn't able to bring himself to finally treat himself to a luxury car after a lifetime of hard work and saving. They did a lot of long road trips together in that car in retirement, and I think they would have enjoyed something a bit more luxurious (though on the other hand, the reliability of the Toyota is not to be discounted).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Lund_Fisker [1] https://archive.org/details/earlyretiremente0000fisk
I turned into an income maximizer.. started working at 14.. post college left home, took a high stakes career and hopped to new opportunities proactively. Response to not wanting anyone to be able to control me via money.
For my spouse & I it was a reaction to 1) having a lot of childhood of consequences/regrets of over-frugality like frozen pipes bursting, parents lamenting not going back home for 10 years during which their own parents died, asking for a single $10 toy for birthday and having them buy a knock-off instead, etc.
2) a reaction to teenage parental control via money like when I was moving to the big city for my job and the housing deposit was due before the hiring company was going to wire me my housing stipend, and my parents refused to float me $1k for a month (and then gifted me more than this as a graduation gift a few months later).
So I think you want to instill a respect for money in your children but not a fear.
So it is with spending. When you spend less, you can retire earlier, your finances are more secure, you feel less pressure and stress, etc. You have more flexibility in the kinds of jobs you can take. Perhaps best of all, you end up accumulating less stuff, and less complicated things, which makes your life simpler.
Frugality doesn’t get the flashy press that consumerism does, but it’s a winning life strategy.
It's one thing, without a spreadsheet, to have the emotion of "I'm not going to have enough and I need to save more to make sure I have enough." I'd argue it's even evolutionary; we want to make sure we have enough to get through the winter we know is coming.
It's quite another when your spreadsheet shows you saved X, your monthly cost of living is Y, and therefore you have enough money saved, even if your income went to zero and you made no changes to your lifestyle, to last you for Z years. Being able to take YouTube University rule-of-thumb advice like "of your take-home pay, use 65% for necessities, 15% for long-term savings, 20% for enjoyment" and seeing how much money that is per month for you in your personal circumstances, along with rules of thumb on things like what ratio you should have achieved by which age on net worth-to-income ratio (1x by 30, 2x by 35, 3x by 40, etc.) and seeing what your personal actual ratio is, to get a sense of benchmarking yourself.
I mean, the influencers could be totally full of shit, but it doesn't matter. Getting actual numbers for where you are, plus getting "generic" advice that you know wasn't directed at you personally, and seeing how those numbers make you feel, can do a lot to either tell you "you don't need to be so frugal anymore" or "yep, your emotions are totally justified, keep saving".
So, what big spending is adaptive? Better to drive decisions objectively based on future value.
Some scenarios:
- It lasts a long time, and you'll need to do it anyway. Best to get it early and enjoy it longer - for iPhones, cars, houses, marriage...
- It lasts a long time and you use it daily. Always pay for what you'll be glad to have: good socks, a powerful computer, a nice view.
- Your beloveds needs to know if you care more about money or them. Choose them.
- Something expresses your values: you appreciate an artist's work, so you pay good money for it. Some panhandler is stoic, so you give him a hand. (Just be careful about posturing.)
Another mindset is to think of your money as family (writ large) money, and invest in the future of family or friends. It's as much a vote of confidence as an injection of cash, and it helps you detach from the needy instrumentality of the money to consider what's best for their future. That's the weirder phenomenon: trillions held by baby boomers until they die (just in case), while their progeny waste time in terrible jobs and narrow circumstances for lack of investment. That's maladaptive hoarding.
Well, what I noticed is that I go to great efforts to avoid buying me some stuff that would make my life easier (say an electric bike or a better computer). Month starts, I get my paycheck and every day I fend off the desire to buy the stuff I want/need. And then come the bills. Like some surprise "regularization" gas or electricity bill that costs more than the item I didn't buy. If it's not that, some darn thing breaks and needs repairs. And if it's not that, kid has to go in some school trip, there's some birthday or wedding we have to attend, someone asks me to lend them some money (coze they know I save) or some other event happens and requires a ca$h infusion.
By the end of the month, money's gone and I haven't got nothing. At some point working just to pay bills and expenses makes Jack a dull boy. So funk it, I buy that stuff AT THE BEGINNING OF THE MONTH. And when shit arrives demanding money I can truthfully say: "I don't have any money left". But at least I got the thing, opposed to neither money, nor item.
Any sort of morality like framing around it is likely to lead to issues imo.
The closer you can get to an analytical approach the better I think - can I afford it, is it good value for money, is it useful/furthers my goals etc
Otoh, have a few friends in tech (and high finance) who need to be told "dude, we'd be better off if you worked less hard"
(Sorry.. I grew up deprived of data teaching me that "Schlep quickly compounds into Interesting Times")
Whenever I have something a little extra in my fridge, most often Italian prosciutto, I refrain from eating it, instead saving it for a "special occasion" even though it is, like, my favourite thing in the whole world. Eventually I have to throw the mouldy prosciutto away because I was too frugal to eat it.
I'm practicing though, learning to eat it. I don't know why it's so hard, I mean it's delicious! Should be easy!
The maladaptive part is when you start regretting not saving money, because it has two knock-on effects: it makes the decision to spend much more emotional (which negatively impacts rational decision-making) and it can negatively impact the enjoyment of the thing itself. For example, the maladaptive part might take the form of being reminded of the cost every time you look at the repaired phone.
Eventually I just sat down, looked at how much it costs keep the house a few degrees warmer in winter, and realized we could afford to be comfortable. And if I were really hell bent on saving money, there were other lower-priority expenses I could cut back on first. But I don't even think it was even necessarily about the money - it was more that saving energy and toughing it out felt virtuous to me. Which is all fine, but not something that should be imposed on your partner if they don't share the same beliefs (or if they just get cold easier than you).
The most optimal thing to do in our world is to pick an age, say, 60, and until your 60th birthday, maximize your suffering via frugality to just under the tolerable limit so as to maximize your potential for compound interest. This leaves you with the most freedom and opportunity during the most fun part of your life, when you no longer have to sell your labor and can do whatever you want.
Within our current model, trying to slip in bits of fun through spending money before that age is getting a poor return: you're trading vacation time, which you could instead barter for more money on retirement, and you're carrying with you a bit of suffering because you have to worry about going back to work. The best thing to do is just push it all until retirement.
The limit of human suffering before suicide frequently happens is apparently quite high, so, you can really stretch yourself out here. Live in your car in the Walmart parking lot, eat beans and rice. You maybe trade a bit of the compound earnings to establish certain time constrained things you want to cash in on at 60 like having a partner or kids, but beyond that, maximize that compound interest!
I hope it's obvious that this is a criticism. It's just, the more I think about it, the more this seems the selective pressure and incentives in our society are set up. Mostly I think it's insane that we both have an idea of "retirement" and also that we set it at an age where a significant portion of the population won't make it, and for those that do, a significant portion will get to enjoy five years of it, and for the remainder, health is bad enough that maximum enjoyment isn't possible anyway.
I'm not that old, but every time I upgrade my PC or phone, some of my workflows break and I need to pointlessly re-learn things I'd rather not re-learn. UI buttons get moved around, icons change, some settings are removed and others are added... this was exciting the first ten or twenty times, but it's just tiring now.
Basically, I'm at this stage in life where my reaction to systemd wasn't "oh wow, this is progress" but "ugh, I need to learn how to start, stop, or modify services again". In another ten years, I'll probably just say "no, I'm not doing this again, just let me use my old computer for as long as possible".
I'm reminded of the intelligent corvids in Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Memory where the sum of the two birds forms a being with intelligence in a way that the individual segments do not. The frugality is a deeply embedded piece of our being and undoing it seems hard, but together we financially operate in a place that leaves us both feeling comfortable.
0: In the US sense of the term, not in the sense of the term as known in Taiwan or India.
Why “few successful startup founders grew up desperately poor”
https://rickyyean.com/2016/01/22/privilege-and-inequality-in...
Poverty mindset is maladaptive because it teaches you only money is worth anything, so you hoard it. But in truth time is also worth a lot and sometimes it’s wise to use money to buy time.
She wouldn’t need to spend that much. You can get a perfectly fine refurbished iPhone 16e for $400.
If they've been frugal their entire life, they aren't as far along the hedonistic treadmill, a new reliable car is a luxury.
If you're used to darning socks, buying new socks is a luxury.
If I buy a PS2 today, why is that not a splurge, if I didn't have one previously? Yes it doesn't have the best graphics but it's a step up from my PS1. Getting the latest and greatest just because, is keeping up with the Joneses. And that's a path to spending money, not happiness.
The knowledge that you have enough in your bank account if things go to pot, itself brings happiness
If you can buy 20, 1 is probably fine, don't stress too much.
Even the cheapest car on the market feels luxurious now.
In comparison the difference between a Toyota and a Lexus is marginal.
Expensive cars are mostly about status signalling, we are long past good enough.
Thus it becomes a more difficult choice what proportion to bet on stability of the current living situation, and what on long-term savings for emergencies which look quite probable but still unmeasurable. And the latter is complicated by absence of reliable and relatively liquid investment opportunities. All in all, fun to be from a sanctioned country.
One could try to reframe it that having it sit in the fridge going bad is a waste of fridge space/electricity/food/mental energy and unnecessary personal suffering.
This is something I've observed in overly frugal family. Stuff/money is worth too much to them.
You can't gift them anything "nice" because they will put it on the shelf and never open it (don't want to damage it).
Gifting them consumables with an expiration date also doesn't work as they'll "save it" until the expiration date lapses and then eat expired food.
Taking them out is weird because they'll insist on taking leftovers home off every other persons plate at the table, including stuff they don't normally eat.
They'll fill up 2 bedrooms in their home with 40 year old cheap clothes & furniture that is worth so little we'll need to pay someone to haul it away. They won't donate it because they think the people who receive it will waste it. So they'll pay money to ship some of the 40 year old cheap clothing to poorer family back home who it doesn't fit and could just buy cheap clothes there with the money they paid for shipping.
Owning multiple 30+ year old cars until the mechanic literally refuses to work on them anymore telling you they are too rusted out to repair or drive.
This from people who are wealth enough to own multiple properties, have retired early, have government pensions, etc.
I'm wondering at this point what are known methods of overcoming "mindset inequality". Any advice will be appreciated.
The fraud protection and insurance can be useful though.
Although we are talking about it being an issue. Which you have already covered.
Problem is, most people don't spend that much time thinking about it. So I suspect "don't get a credit card" or "only use it in emergencies" are generally good advice. Although perhaps we should just be better at teaching house hold type finance
You don’t need to be retired or a millionaire to be happy. Nor is being retired or a millionaire any guarantee of happiness.
Saving for retirement is just about making sure your needs are met when your health starts to decline and you may no longer be able to work. If you’ve got a little extra saved to travel around the world or whatever, even better. It’s important, but don’t wait until retirement to be happy. There’s no guarantee you’ll even live that long, for starters.
I must be young at heart while >60 years old; my reaction was "why is everybody whining about it, it's pretty nice, I like it". Same with jj vs git, jj is amazing!
The reality for most people is that the trade-off is actually between time spent on looking for bargains, or time doing something else that doesn't make any money.
This is the most depressing thing I’ve read in a while.
yes because as we've learned this year nothing bad ever happens when you have hundreds of dependencies
we're living in an obese society, metaphorically and literally, we should put everyone through a decade of whatever the equivalent of playing ping pong with a spoon is in every domain of life. Being concerned with too much frugality is like being concerned there's not enough corn sirup in our diets
Uhm, only if you are counting the most basic utility, then you're right.
However if you actually enjoy driving (A->A driving), there is a HGUE difference and it's not just signaling. It's that you probably can't tell the difference, or don't care.
There is no comparison between driving a new Porsche or Bentley vs a new Toyota or even a Lexus.
> So you need to consider the emergency of moving somewhere in a political and legal climate not known in advance.
Fair enough. So do the financial planning, and ask yourself, how much does it cost to fly/travel to X place that is far away? Put in a risk premium - what if the cost became 2X or 3X because of a sudden catastrophe affecting everyone? What is the actual number that you need to save? Can you keep the money in a bank account, or are you concerned that banks will be inaccessible, and thus need something more portable? If you need something more portable, how much will it cost to protect it (vault/safe, weapons)?
I sympathize that life isn't fair, and that financial goals for some people need to be concerned first and foremost with personal safety instead of luxurious "nice-to-haves". But my point is that there are still actual numbers involved, and that you can put those numbers into a spreadsheet, and that the spreadsheet can help you understand your progress towards those goals. Financial planning is valuable regardless of what your goals are.
It's not much different than a sales job where income can be highly variable, or go to 0 because the local market is dead.
His Toyota was probably under $40k. This was back when cars were quite a bit less expensive than now. Nice car for sure, but the Lexus probably would have been a bit more refined.
What’s stopping you? Go ahead, live in a trailer and wash once a year.
I keep meaning to calculate how much I am actually saving by freezing my butt off. My guess is it'll work out to something like $0.75 a day or something equally trivial.
I don't think your advice is good "general advice" but if you treat it as a "this works for me, it might for you", then it might be worth reading.
People die on Ben Nevis every few years because they think its not that cold. But Scottish cold in that part of the world is brutal, there's so much moisture in the air that freezes if you get wet and cant quickly get dry you will die fast.
Still, it's a beautiful part of the country.
This is much more noticeable when you go into a freezing cold building and turn on the thermostat, it takes almost an entire day to heat up the stuff and building.
A new base-model Prius is absurdly luxurious compared to a base model car of 1975 or 1985 or even 1995. If you have lived long enough to see this change, then dropping 2x or 3x or 10x the cost of the Prius self-evidently puts you wildly beyond the point of diminishing returns.
The Prius is going to have excellent climate control, and a phenomenal stereo. It's going to have adaptive cruise control, and will warn you when you drift out of your lane, or if you're about to run into an obstacle.
Outside of motorsports-sorts of things, what you get out of more expensive vehicles is of limited utility. Mostly, it's just showing off.
Now, if you want a track weapon, then yeah, you DO get more by spending. But for a regular person who wants to get from point A to point B comfortably and safely? The Prius is fantastic, and it's hard to justify spending more unless you're willing to admit that it's a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses kind of thing.
Hell. Even other type of media consumption unless you really enjoy it might be balance you can question.
There is a _lot_ of folk science about cold weather that is just plain wrong.
Can you help me understand? How does higher relative humidity increase convection?
I recently decided to, finally, have my iPhone fixed, only to realize a few hours later that my AppleCare could have covered it. I was in a low mood until my partner suggested that I was robbing myself of a good decision.
The iPhone needed fixing, and procrastinating on it wasn’t useful. Deciding to do something about it was. Paying a little more wasn’t a big deal, especially compared to the business opportunities in front of me. I realized I could either continue to drain myself for a small expense, or let it go and focus on the projects in front of me. I had, unknowingly, engaged in maladaptive frugality.
For me, it started from a young age, during which frugality was framed as a virtue and mindless spending as, practically, sinful. During one of my parents’ anniversary dinners, they ate takeout, and my dad decided to use it as a teachable moment. What I took away: eating at a good restaurant was bad, taking out cheap food was good because it saved money.
My parents grew up in Hong Kong, and the people there have a lot of useful stories about saving money. A writer describes being frugal in Hong Kong, “There are cultural and economic reasons why frugality runs deep here. Many families carry memories of instability—economic downturns, business failures, illness, or the pressure of supporting relatives. For others, the habit is inherited: parents who lived through leaner periods teach children to treat spending as a moral hazard rather than a tool.”
Matthew Hung describes Hong Kong being colonized by the UK, “Engaging in the free market gave a freedom to those blocked from democracy by allowing them an alternative context from which to improve their own situation, albeit at the individual level rather than the collective level of citizenship.”
My parents carried that attitude with them to Canada, and I also grew up practicing and valuing frugality. It has been very useful at times (including being able to travel for less!), and very limiting at others. Here’s an example, which I wrote about a couple of years ago:
I have a hard time spending, to the point where I would often procrastinate on buying things that I know I’ll need in the future. And of course, I don’t have it when I need it because I didn’t buy it… so I decided to restrain my obsession with not spending. Make good systems-level decisions and give consideration/consultation to high impact decisions, and also be ok paying $30 to book an airline seat earlier. I plan to have fun spending my money in the future, so it’s time to start practicing now.
When you default to the lowest cost option without considering the drawbacks, procrastinating or hesitating on spending, or guilt tripping yourself about an essential expense or making a recoverable mistake, you’re engaging in maladaptive frugality.
The most useful thing you can do is be mindful of it and try to draw yourself into the present moment. As Tim Ferriss asks, “What does your last year—not your childhood beliefs—tell you about where you might invest more for a higher quality of life?”
When you make frugality your servant, it can offer you freedom. When you make frugality your master—maladaptive frugality—it traps you and limits your possibilities.