The strange hate for people who are "cheap" is one of the more bizarre about Americans. I don't think I've ever heard of frugality used as a pejorative anywhere else in the English-speaking world.
I'm not at American, but what I see about your country is that it's huge and varied. Given this, it's hard to think of things as American qualities.
I generally disagree with the post. I think fountain pens and fancy notebooks are are a waste of time, though I've been through phases with both. For me - cheap pencils, cheap graph-paper, cheap folders, and a system to keep order.
There are often ways to be smart that don't involve spending money. There's an idea of people who have more money than sense who go with an expensive option because they're hoping that this increases their chance of getting the thing they will want/need.
I have a digital watch. It has a lap timer in it, and shows the full date, cost less than USD100 and far more reliable than the swiss watch I have.
But there is some truth in the article - if you're just frugal all the time out of principle it sends bad signals.
I think the moral of the story with this post is, "buy nice things for stuff that matters." I don't think $100 pens are important to most people who post here, but $2,000 mac laptops or cinema displays are. I spent $100 on a Timbuk2 bag because I use it nearly every day when I go to work and don't want to buy a $40 Swatch laptop bag from Target that will last me 6 months to a year before it breaks while going through security at Seatac. It's just not worth it.
I think this depends on the definition. If you define it as "Given any competition with n competitors, where n>1, then n-1 of the competitors are losers", and you find 0 persons who have won all the competitions they participated in (which I think is a likely result), then everybody is a loser. Why should I think this is "bad"?
"Frugal", almost by definition, cannot be used as a pejorative. When it's taken to excess, like the author is complaining about, the noun is "cheapskate" or "miser" and the adjective is "cheap" or "penny-pinching".
You're missing the point. The author has nothing against saving money or being frugal. He is just pointing out that for a variety of reasons, people who can afford better alternatives that would make them substantially happier/healthier/more productive choose cheaper alternatives for cheapness' sake.
It's a word trick. He's using a word that's most commonly a pejorative to draw people in, and then as people read the article they see that he just means that someone's exhibiting the literal meaning of loser (as in a 2 player game when there isn't a draw and there's a winner and a loser).
On one hand I kind of agree with this, there certainly is something to be said for buying nice stuff now and then, especially when it is stuff you love doing.
For play, I use a ratio I call the Fun Factor. Essentially, that's the $/hr of fun I get out of something. So if you go see a movie and it is $10, and it is the rare money that is actually fun to watch, then the fun factor is roughly $5.
So then you apply it to other things. Sure, $2,000 is a lot to spend a mountain bike, but divided out by the number of hours I've had on it, I'm way below $5 these days, so I consider it a fair deal.
A smartphone and laptop I love is always worth it in fun factor dollars.
That said, I do take issue on the 'lasting forever' bit, because wow, stuff just isn't made to last forever anymore and nor would you want to. I think it is a clever trick that we play on ourselves, oh, "This will be the last [blank] I ever have to buy", but how often is that really the case?
I can think of a few things I have that qualify, but they are few. I bought a $100 chef knife about a decade ago, still use it daily, still love it. I don't see my Ortlieb messenger bag ever breaking down, so maybe that's another. A few hand tools, but most hand tools last forever regardless of quality.
What are yours, what have you bought that you think you might keep forever?
My 2001 Z06 Corvette that I bought new in 2000. Hand tools only last forever if you don't use them; I beat the heck out of mine. I buy craftsman tools at sears, at least the basic hand tools. They replace them free when they break/wear out, no questions asked. For more complex tools (torque wrenches and the like), I spend the money and buy Snap-On (or equivalent).
Other things I've spent money on (that I'm happy with): heated slate floors for my bathroom - nothing like 85deg toasty floors when you get up in the morning; Benchmade knives; our latex foam mattress. Probably more things I can't think of at the moment.
Other things I've spent money on (that I'm happy with): heated slate floors for my bathroom - nothing like 85deg toasty floors when you get up in the morning; Benchmade knives; our latex foam mattress. Probably more things I can't think of at the moment.
If a person does any amount of cooking a nice set of knives is one of the best things a person can spend money on. They make preparing meals easier, faster and safer.
One thing that I have spent good money on is sheets. I spend 6-8 hours/day in bed sleeping so why not be as comfortable as possible?
I think frugal people also recognize the importance of good enough. One of the easiest places to see this in action is when buying wine. Going from the $5 bottle of wine to the $10-$20 bottle of wine often yields huge quality increases. When you start going from the $20 to $50 and $100+ the changes are often barely noticeable if at all. Most things that we buy have a similar scale and the key is finding that spot that is good enough for the best price.
I use the Fun Factor rationalization too, but I find it can be problematic in many cases. Mainly with bigger purchases. When you amortize that $2000 bike out per use, the difference between it and the $1500 bike can seem rather insignificant. "$1.5 v. $2 per use? Hell, I might as well get the better one." But, it's still $500. That's real money that could be used to earn more money somewhere else. Ratchet that up if we're talking about cars or boats or houses. So, I like the Fun Factor rationalization, but it can be dangerous.
As to the "lasting forever bit", I don't think it's necessary that things last literally forever; the point is more that making very long term purchases is a worthy goal. 15-20 years maybe. That said, I do try to buy things that literally will last me forever, though the list isn't very long, yet:
I try to buy tools that will last forever, or close to. With things like digital cameras (or any consumer electronics), it's silly to expect anything to last more than 10 years, on the very long end.
But, with power tools, I buy things expecting them to last forever (with routine maintenance and not heavy duty use).
I more or less expect my nice knives to last forever.
I expect most of my furniture to last forever.
I expect my weight set to last forever.
> But, it's still $500. That's real money that could be used to earn more money somewhere else.
On the other hand the 2000$ bike is perhaps so much nicer that you ride it more often and have more fun doing it. It might last longer as well lowering the fun factor even more.
> With things like digital cameras (or any consumer electronics), it's silly to expect anything to last more than 10 years, on the very long end.
I think that's an unreasonable assumption. I had a Kyocera camera (designed in 1999) but even though I would call myself frugal (some people would call me cheap) and I didn't have much money I basically had to replace it around 2006 because of technology progress and lack of batteries, replacement parts.
Only if it is taken care of. I have seen anvils with broken horns, chipped edges, and deep rust pits that were no more than a hundred years old. I even saw one anvil (don't know its age) that had been broken almost in half AND was seriously rust damaged.
In the kitchen alone: A good set of stainless pans (even the best nonstick will need replaceed eventually), A couple cast-iron skillets, enameled cast-iron (le cruset). Good knives, like yourself. Good steak knives as well.
In the garage: Any cars you're committed to taking care of. For me, my passion, is Mercedes. I see somebody slse mention Vette's. But there's all the tools I have. Spend a little more and they'll truly last.
I have a small knife for in the kitchen that costs €8.95. This is relatively expensive for that kind of knife, you can get a similar one for €0.75. I have used it nearly every day for 3 years (that's about 2 cents per day) and people are still amazed how sharp it is when they cook at my place. The problem with the very cheap knives is that they bend and they get blunt quickly.
This is the best knife I've owned, better than much more expensive chef's knives. Sometimes the best things are not the cheapest nor the most expensive.
As a rule I've found things that look cheap but are expensive for how they look are the best. You can buy good looking expensive "design" scissors that are likely to be bad in every other department, or you can buy relatively expensive cheap looking scissors that stay sharp forever.
The one thing that I'm still looking for are quality bicycle lights on batteries.
The surest way to be happy is to have a large safety net in all the things you really need.
You can skimp on the things you merely want, and still be happy.
Think of all the things you really need, the things you would be really miserable without. These are the ones you should splurge on. I mean, really, spend 2x as much as you think the average person would spend on them. Totally own it. Then you will always feel like your life is good. Because you don't sweat the small stuff :)
Bed and chair manufacturers must love this post. While I agree that it's pointless to skimp on things which would make you more productive, it's not necessarily true that the really expensive ones are better.
Yeah, you have to be smart about it really. To me, the quality different between the super cheap mattress and the $500 ones is big. For the $500 to $1000 jump, not so much. Same with chairs, the worst office chairs are terrible and going to leave you with pain. The mid range ones to the top just aren't as big a difference.
I kind of agree with the author about willing to spend big money on things that matter. Mattresses, computers, chairs, desks, things like that are all things that you use regularly.
Though that's now that I consider being Frugal. Being frugal is not only being practical with my money (buying what I need and knowing what I won't use). I had a strong desire of buying an iPad, but really I know I won't use it. It also involves making sure I take care of my things, I check my tires and oil on my car regularly. Doing the little things to keep your stuff going and not spending frivolously is being frugal.
I've heard of an idiom "expensive is cheap" (kinda reminds you of "less is more").
The idea being, or rather my interpretation of it is: something of high quality that's 2x the price of something else of low quality is probably wroth 10x more, so it's actually "cheap" in the sense that you get a lot more than what you pay for.
This is totally a mindfuck designed to get you to buy more expensive stuff and not care. Yes, if you have the money and you've made a vaguely reasoned decision then buy the expensive thing by all means. But don't fork over extra money just because "expensive is cheap."
It's not meant to be taken literally. If you take "less is more" literally you'd end up living in a cave; of course that's not the intent of the saying.
It's not a mistake to spend a little extra for something you need. This idiom is designed as a counter-argument to people who buy cheap stuff and boast about how they "saved" money by buying cheap crap that doesn't work well and causes you headaches.
I understand your skepticism regarding spending extra money, but I do believe that "expensive" can often be "cheap". But it very much depends on your level of usage for the product in question.
To clarify hasenj's point about the more expensive thing being "worth 10x more", imagine that an expensive couch will last you 10 times longer than the cheap one (in addition to being more comfortable), but it will cost you twice as much. If owning a couch is an essential part of your desired lifestyle, then buying the more expensive couch is just the logical choice.
Of course, the real question is whether or not you really need couch? This is obviously a matter personal preference, but your present decision-making should incorporate your future preferences as well. There is often a lot of uncertainty in gauging your future level of need/want for a given product, which makes this a tricky game.
I have learned over the years that not spending 'enough' on tools is always a bad choice. Like mgarfias I buy Craftsman hand tools from Sears because they really do replace them no questions asked. I know a guy that would buy beat up, nicked and dingy craftsman screw drivers or socket wrenches at garage sales for a dollar and then go to Sears and get a replacement that they would put in their toolbox.
My experience of wearing out shoes was interesting. I used to buy 'cross trainers' or whatever the 'general use' canvas/plastic tennis shoe was at Big-5 when they went on sale every year. Every year I'd get a new pair of shoes for $10 to $15 and think "Wow look how much I'm saving over buying leather shoes for like $100 - $150." And then someone pointed out that they had leather shoes that they hadn't replaced in 10 years and it occurred to me that maybe I was looking at acquisition cost and not lifetime cost.
I did the math and bought my first pair of Clark's. They lasted 7 years and came out costing roughly $11/year for those 7 years. I replaced them with the same exact model that was on sale for $75. Not only did they look better than tennis shoes, they fit better, and 'wore' better. If I added the time spent shopping, the cost to get the car to/from the Big5 every year, the Clarks were 'cheaper' by being more expensive but of better durability.
So it was still being 'Frugal' but it was being a bit more intelligent about going about calculating the costs. I've long since learned to value my time more reasonably than 'free.'
Just count the number of hours you use an item in a week. Anything you use for a large part of the week should be of high quality.
Bed, office chair, desk, computer screen, computer, cooking utensils if you cook a lot, phone - in my case.
My car is 10 years old and doesn't have an a/c but I use it irregularly for Kiteboarding purposes and don't care.
In essence, it's much harder to bear a small pain for a long time than it is to bear a big pain for a small amount of time. And the mental stress from the smaller and longer pain is much much more IMHO.
That's not a good metric. Everyone sleeps in their bed for a lot of hours per week but only a subset of people are sensitive to discomfort or back issues.
Why does anyone spend their time coming up with rules for what other people should do in situations that are inherently based on personal values?
If you don't buy a good bed you'll develop back issues.
And actually the majority of sedentary workers will have back issues in their lives so it's even more important.
This rule works for me and since it's not actually straight forward to figure out, I thought it would help others.
...or you could put a lightly padded mat on the floor. The cost is minimal and it makes my back feel healthier than a bed. As far as I can tell, beds are for comfort not health.
I agree. Personally, I'm more sick of the culture of bargaining and haggling over increasingly small, pedestrian items that has gained a lot of fashion in the recession, even among people for whom it is not a financial imperative. It was a movement with a lot of momentum even before the recession, though, so there must be some other more enduring dynamics at play, too, not just cyclical stuff.
There's a social cost to making an ass of yourself arguing +/- $0.30 on a loaf of bread, so I don't do it. And--I jest not--I get chided by "frugal" people for not spending a half hour going through my pile of 50+ coupon clippings in front of the register in the express lane, ten people waiting in line behind me be damned.
Nobody in the startup scene here likes a customer that rides them about price no matter the discount, and appears to be fixated solely on price and not on value. Nobody likes the message that sends about the customer's priorities, their character, or the value they attach to the product or service. There is a moral and a psychological valence to the whole thing. It's off-putting, because it says that you don't realise that sometimes there is more to life than cold, rational economic calculus. So why do it to others?
Negotiating big-ticket items like salaries, houses and cars has always been okay in this culture, and there are considerable practical reasons to do it; thousands of dollars are on the line, and the people on the other end of the table have a pricing structure and a sales methodology designed specifically to maximise gains on people reluctant or unable to negotiate. Obviously, I'm not saying you should allow yourself to be screwed for the sake of eschewing confrontation.
However, at the risk of sounding culturally chauvinist, as a Soviet immigrant, one of the things I have always liked about the US and for which I have taken pride in my adopted homeland is the fact that we're above petty bazaar culture here--haggling for the sake of haggling, or being obscenely preoccupied with price. Let's not lose that. Those of us from other cultures that have fewer compunctions about wheel-dealing in petty crap know where that leads, and it's a really detestable trait when not mandated by the necessities of poverty.
There's so much I find wrong here I don't know where to begin. I'm not the type to line-by-line somebodies post, but I'm tempted here.
Remember what Einstein called "The most powerful force in the universe" -- compound interest.
Small savings, done consistently, can grow into fortunes. Haggling; Couponing; Finding the best cash-back credit offers (and changing regularly to the currently-best credit card), the best APYs, the best coupon codes for websites;
Three general things I listed. In my own personal experience, you can very easily save $1000 a year from each of those 3, so in total, $3000 a year. (In fact, we save that from couponing alone.)
At a fair, 5% APY, when I retire in 40 years, that has grown to nearly $400,000. And if you can approach a historically-avergae 8%... wow: That's now $840,000.
There's no "social cost" to that. There's certainly pressure to conform: Pay the asking price, don't waste the time using coupons to full-effectiveness which often requires doing more than one transaction when you checkout, don't have the audacity to use the best deals possible from every bank you can find. But "cost"? No. There's no cost. Having strangers like you upset at us doesn't cost me a thing.
I've noticed that others with your POV dismiss the potential, they think they have it figured out. That coupons waste hours to save pennies and even then only on things you may not want or need anyway. That there's no way to "win" when you game the banking systems rewards. That haggling just doesn't work unless you're buying a car or a house.
But an additional $840k at retirement should illustrate to anybody that discounts the potential that they're just wrong on this one.
I think you've severely hyperbolised my comment. I didn't say you shouldn't be smart with your money, most especially when the cost of doing so in resources or obnoxiousness is small. I didn't say you should always pay sticker price, and never seek a good deal.
I merely encourage judiciousness about the wisdom and worth-it-ness of bargain-hunting in a given situation, and the recognition that doing it in every situation is not necessarily the best thing ipso facto.
Also, left unsaid is that I am coming from the perspective of someone who started a business from cash, with nothing, in a high-cost area. Having had to tenaciously brute force my way through every step of of the process without the benefit of 5% APY offers or anything of the sort has taught me important lessons in when it's worth it to pursue a discount.
To be fair, the example you used was haggling over a loaf of bread.
You thought I was kidding? I wish I were. I ran into a woman the day before yesterday who was at Publix (www.publix.com) here in Atlanta, asserting that the identical multigrain rye was 30c cheaper at Kroger down the street and she was taking her business elsewhere.
She didn't exactly look indigent, either; I'd take pity upon someone who managed to panhandle $2 but not $2.30. She was in a smart business suit.
It's not the first, second or third time I've seen something this ridiculous lately. I can only conclude it's a trend.
It's not Publix's policy to price-match across the board but often will. They'll also accept competitors coupons. They also accept B1G1 Manufacturer coupons when they themselves are running a B1G1 free sale, getting you both items free.
Joke all you want, she's the smart one here. You crowing about her here has no "social cost." And you say that your POV comes from running a business. So does mine. In my case, I contract myself out. I've grown into a very high hourly rate. I have an assistant to help with things so I can add more billable hours.
But what I've learned from running a business is to guard every damn cent that goes out the door. Not spending dollars to save dimes, but spending one dime to save 2.
Dude, 30 cents is a huge, HUGE deal. Dealbreaker even. And you don't have to be indigent to realize that. On wall street, IBs routinely send out managers who make seven figures to the exchanges to negotiate a 0.0001$ per share instead of 0.0002$. Entire trading platforms are swapped because some bean counter in the settlements desk thinks you can squeeze an extra penny out of the other platform. When your trading volume averages 100m$ per DAY, these point one-thousandth of a cent add up very quickly.
But your time has a cost. How much time do you spend cutting coupons, seeking discounts, finding, and then pursuing rebates, cash back offers, etc? Could you spend it doing something else? Would that time expenditure make more money than $3k/yr? The last calculations I saw, you were almost always better off picking up a part-time job or a hobby that makes stuff you can sell.
Not nearly as much time as you think. And $3000 is the low-end that I used to make a point.
In truth, last year, using those things I mentioned, I received slightly over $25,000 in extra perks and bonuses. That's not an exaggeration. The bulk of that is 2 free first class tickets to Europe. After that, about $3k in coupon savings, and $2k in cashback on my credit card, and a few hundred dollars in the "open this checking account and get a $100 bonus" type of rewards.
This is in addition to 50-60 hour weeks billing hourly and working from my home office.
Next year I probably won't be able to repeat that: it looks like I'll only be scoring _one_ free first class ticket to CDG. Even still, that's an estimated $16k this year
Wow, I disagree. Starting with expensive shoes. I wear flip-flops, shorts, and a t-shirt to work everyday. I'm pretty comfortable. I don't see the correlation between expensive footwear and comfort.
Beds. Yes, you spend 1/3 your life in bed. And you spend it unconscious. You spend about 0.03% of your conscious life in bed while falling asleep (30 mins a day).
But more importantly: Relax. Just because you make a certain decision doesn't mean everyone else needs to.
> "I don't see the correlation between expensive footwear and comfort."
They often are more comfortable, it all depends on what you're doing. You wouldn't go on a long walk in those flip-flops, but if you did, you'd hope you'd have better shoes than $15 runners (seriously, huge difference).
But it's not just about comfort - it's about perception: how others perceive you, and how you perceive yourself. It's about hacking how others see you, and more importantly knowing yourself well enough to hack around your own behavior with your environment and possessions.
For example: cute girl over there, you want to go talk to her. What do you think will give you more confidence, you in a ratty but comfy t-shirt and shorts, or you dressed to the nines and knowing you look good enough to eat?
Another example: that work laptop you use every single day. They both compile code just as well as one another, but one is plasticky and flimsy, and the keyboard creaks annoyingly when you press a key a little too hard. The other is rock solid and feels like Zeus himself cast it out of Mt. Olympus. Which increases your productivity and general satisfaction while working?
> "Beds. Yes, you spend 1/3 your life in bed. And you spend it unconscious. You spend about 0.03% of your conscious life in bed while falling asleep (30 mins a day)."
Yes, but how rested you feel when you regain consciousness is very much related to the quality of your mattress. If we take your logic to its natural conclusion, we'd all just sleep on cardboard.
I don't see the correlation between expensive footwear and comfort.
Neither did I, until I got plantar fasciitis from wearing cheap shoes, and couldn't stand or walk for more than 10 minutes without pain. Cheap shoes tend to skimp on the parts that provide support and impact resistance.
If nothing else, good shoes are worth the money they save you on podiatry.
I don't see the correlation between expensive footwear and comfort.
For me the difference between good shoes and bad shoes is desperately wanting to sit down after a an hour on my feet and being able to walk for 8-10 hours without really feeling it. And while far from all expensive shoes are comfortable, I've yet to find a pair of comfortable shoes for less than $120, and my $350+ hiking boots are pure magic and somehow make even the hardest hike under the heaviest of loads so much easier.
As for beds, you're not unconscious while you're sleeping, you're sleeping, and not all sleep is equal. Sleeping in a comfortable bed means I wake up far more refreshed and with far less stiffness and muscle pain, than sleeping exactly the same amount of time in an uncomfortable bed.
I hate hiking boots and just use trail running shoes for everything that doesn't require rigid crampons. They're lighter, faster, more comfortable, dry more quickly, and cost around $100. Of course they wear out faster so it's not necessarily cheaper in the long run.
30 minutes a day is about 2% of your life, not 0.03%.
If a less comfortable bed makes it take longer to fall asleep, then that figure just got bigger and there's an extra cost in time every single day.
If a less comfortable bed means you sleep worse, then again there's an extra cost in happiness and productivity every single day.
Now, whether spending more on your bed always makes it more comfortable, and whether that makes you sleep sooner and better, is a separate question. Got any evidence that bears on it?
I don't know about you, but I also have sex in my bed. And personally I prefer to have sex on a reasonably comfortable surface. Not saying that the floor can't be nice, but carpet burn isn't really my thing ...
How young/old are you? Sure, you can sleep on total crap when you're 18; when you are 40+, not so much. You'll damage a lot and might have serious problems later on in life. This goes for a lot of things. If you keep wearing flip-flops into your 40s, you'll probably get serious back, knee and hip problems. Good (and usually they are expensive) footwear is a must if you care about your body. So is a good night sleep on a well developed bed, if probably a medical bed (not sure what the English word is; in Germany tons of hotels have them and that made me buy one, in my 20s, i've never looked back), at any age (and those are expensive).
But if you don't care about the future, then sure; it's your life. But maybe you just never thought about this.
Edit: changed some 'will' into 'might'; some people just are unbreakable. Most of us are not though although we think so when nothing ever happened so far.
Edit: another good example is an office chair or standing table; just SPEND the money on really good desks and chairs; it's just plain stupid not to.
>I don't see the correlation between expensive footwear and comfort.<
There is a close correlation, but only if you buy genuine leather shoes. Good leather gets into shape while you wear it. If the leather is really tough, it takes a while, but afterwards these shoes will fit as if they were made for you. There is nothing that can be as comfortable, IMHO. The feet are always dry, warm and comfortable.
The price is high, of course. Good leather costs a fortune (you want the one without chemicals in them). Repairing these shoes is expensive too. Find the right person who does it well, find the right brands, so you don't buy expensive fake, etc. pp.
I own many hand made pairs, none of them less then 400 Euros worth (some more). This is not frugal, this is luxury. But I have 20 year old pairs that still look great and can easily be worn to the opera or a concert (if that's your kind of occupation). Calculating the price per year is also pretty good value for money.
But I would never dispute that flip flops are cheaper ;o). If you loose them, if they are damaged, no problem. Investment is also always a commitment.
The interesting question would be (to come back to what the original article is about): Do I feel better because I wear expensive shoes?
The answer is: no!
I feel good, because I want to wear nice shoes (sometimes, for reasons I have to discuss with Mr. Freud sometimes) and what makes me feel good is that I can fulfill my wish. Definitely not the fact that some of my shows are expensive.
The biggest correlation is between upfront expense and long-term durability. Good shoes can be resoled, which is fairly cheap and can be done quickly. A good pair of leather shoes could last you 10 years. All you'd have to do is get them resoled each year or however often you wear through them.
Flip flops don't provide a lot of ankle support, and for some people that can be an issue. I walk between 5-7 miles a day, and while I find flip flops comfortable for lounging around, I wouldn't want to walk any serious distance in them.
I've found that certain shoes are much more comfortable than others, and they tend to not be on the cheap end of things (not the most expensive either). Because of how much I walk, I'd go through several shoes a year, and now I'm switching to only buying shoes that can be resoled. It will save me a lot of money in the long term.
I don't think that being frugal has ever been about going cheap.
Frugality is not about consuming but investing in your life: that often contradicts with cheap.
Frugality is about not buying things you don't need but buying things you can't live without. A frugal person will typically invest in quality because he knows he'll be using the item for years and doesn't want to replace it every few.
I wouldn't consider myself extremely frugal but my favorite shoes I'm wearing today I bought in the year 2000. They feel great, they have never had to been repaired, they resist water enough, the leather is in good condition and actually they didn't cost much (guesstimate in today's currency: 100-150€). But I have this mindset that I don't need new shoes just for the sake of new shoes. That's frugality. I will wear mine for another ten years if only they'll hold together and still look tidy enough to walk into the public. (They look used of course, but still tidy.) If they don't, I'll have to buy a replacement pair.
Frugality is also sometimes buying the cheapest thing. Buying a cheap electric drill is frugal if you only drill a few times a year, which makes the drill last for decades. Buying the best that money can buy would be frugal if you're a carpenter or do renovations every week and need a professional grade durability; however, if you're not doing that you're not frugal but rather just going on the hifi tangent and in reality you want to buy the expensive model because of your ego only.
Frugality also brings focus to—I was going to say consumption but I'll say personal investment instead. It makes sense to buy quality items for what you love: if you love riding a bike then investing in a quality bike is frugal because it saves you and the environment from unneeded consumption and hair-pulling. But you can't love everything either. You can't have the top of the line computer, screen, home theater, coffee grinder, washing machine, mattress, toilet seat, motorcycle, car, bike, camera, video camera, clothes, shoes, accessories and consider yourself frugal. You can have one or two because you simply can't be spending all of your time only grinding coffee, coding, washing laundry, riding a motorbike, and shooting photos.
And yes, being frugal inevitably does make me look like a loser in the eyes of some people. But then what?
Other people's opinions about me are none of my business anyway.
I think the disconnect here is your use of the term frugal. In the US (at least the south) every time I've ever heard anyone say they were frugal they meant they were cheap. They would buy the cheapest possible thing and use it well past the point it was presentable. I've even heard such people claim the cheaper thing must be better quality because it's cheaper. Sadly, I'm not even exaggerating.
I'm from the NE, and the word "frugal" does not mean the same thing here as it does in the South. As someone above said about New England, frugal is an art form here. Frugal is spending more on Calphalon cookware because you don't waste a ton of money eating out 3x a week, and want cooking gear that lasts a lifetime so you don't have to spend more money re-buying cheap stuff later.
Sure, I've heard people use it this way down South, it's part of the politeness culture there, where using "cheap" would be perceived as insulting or pejorative.
I can concur, being from New England myself frugal is looked at as a desirable trait. In fact, I'd say its synonymous with the term "thrifty" which is another positive association for us.
It's an intentional rhetorical device. For the opposite take on frugality, you can read In Cheap We Trust: The Story of a Misunderstood American Virtue.
Agreed. Another good way of looking at it is that managing your spending should be like managing any other finite resource, like time.
No one really thinks it makes sense to save your time by not spending time on anything at all. You want to be frugal with your time -- you save it in order to splurge on the things that matter and will give you the most benefit/productivity. I think it's the same with money -- cheapness is a mentally lazy way to save money, frugality is a smarter way.
As a side note, I've never understood the obsession with making food purchases your main source of money-saving. The idea of "cheap calories" seems so misguided when you take into account that, down the line, those diabetes and heart disease treatments will be anything but cheap. Not to mention what you lose in productivity with the mental and physical sluggishness that comes from eating crappy, fake food.
I'm all for ramen-profitable, but I'll pass on the ramen. If only "3 year old shoes and grass-fed steak profitable" had a better ring to it.
Indeed, and I think that's what the author was saying too.
One example: Craftsman Hand Tools. They have a lifetime guarantee, so provided you don't lose them, you're done buying screwdrivers and wrenches for life.
True story. I walked into Sears with a broken socket wrench.
Sears guy: "Wow. What happened to that?"
Me: "Well, I had a bolt that really didn't want to come loose, so I had a six foot cheater bar and I was bouncing my whole weight on it when suddenly it exploded."
Sears guy: "Yeah, that would do it. Let me see what I can do..."
[check in the back]
"Well, we don't have that model in stock, so here's a new one from our Pro line. It's a bit more expensive, but it's probably a bit stronger too. Good luck with that bolt."
I've had that same conversation on 3 different occasions, each with ludicrously mis-used tools broken entirely through my foolishness. All replaced for free with a smile.
I've had that same conversation on 3 different occasions,
each with ludicrously mis-used tools broken entirely
through my foolishness. All replaced for free with a
smile.
Uh, sure. You're right. Sears are thin on the ground over here.
In case I wasn't clear, all the abovementioned conversations happened at Sears department store, the sole distributor of Craftsman hand tools. They have an explicit policy of replacing any broken tool, regardless of how you broke it.
So if you rock up with the snapped-off handle of one of those tiny little flathead screwdrivers (complete with a little clip so that you can keep it in your shirt pocket), and a story about how you were trying to pry off a rusted-on cylinder head using it and a large hammer, they'll replace it.
(as I have personally verified)
And yeah, you're right about the European version of customer service (at least the English variant). Since moving here, I've never once come across a merchant who was familiar with the concept of "the customer is always right". Rather, "It's my shop, so by definition I'm right. And why are there so many customers in here, anyway? I think I'll start closing at 5:30 so I don't have to deal with them."
Yep, UK customer service is pretty mixed. At it's best it's pretty good but at it's worst it's absolutely shocking. Sadly good customer service is still enough of a rarity that it's genuinely noteworthy when you do come across it.
Spending a month in France made me realize just how great customer service is in North America. (Luckily France has other features.)
The one HUGE exception was the French national rail service. They must get great compensation, or have good hiring policies, because everyone I dealt with was spontaneously helpful and didn't mind spending extra time with me, even to the point of extending their work hours.
Along those lines, one of the purchases I am most happy with is notebook insurance -- the kind that covers me being a bonehead.
My notebook computer is my main tool, without it I couldn't work. So when something happens, it's critical to be able to pick up the phone, dial a toll-free number, and have a new part or computer arriving very quickly by an overnight carrier. Saved my bacon many times.
I've actually found ancient Craftsman tools in the yard, left over from the workers who built my house decades before, and Sears happily replaced them.
Of course, if Sears tanks in a few years, then those tools aren't such a good deal anymore.
Yes, but when the original author said it he was rude and condescending. Rude because there is simply no polite way to call someone a loser. Condescending because he assumed that ignorance was the only reason someone would buy something of low quality and that everyone reading the article would have money to buy high quality things.
Almost everyone in the U.S. has access to an internet connection. If not in their home, in their local library. The median household income in the U.S. is around $50k. Many people earn much less than that, and they still manage to get access to the internet. If you are used to living with above-median income, you should be humble when saying what people earning much less than median can and can't afford.
And that's just considering the U.S., which is easily in the top 10 of median income.
By contrast, yason did not assume anything about the readers ability to afford things and he or she did not put anyone down, except maybe people who buy the best of absolutely everything and still claim to be frugal, and even then, yason only addressed their behavior, not them as people.
There is a right and a wrong way to say things. The original author went with the wrong way.
There are people who take consumption too far, and there are people who take frugality to the point of miserliness. I don't think it's fair to peg the definition of frugality to either of these extremes.
Furthermore, I take issue with the author's (or anyone's) attempts to stake out objective ground on what does or does not constitute "the right place" to spend money. Everyone lives differently. "The right places" are subjective. If I derive a ton of personal utility and happiness from splurging on something someone else considers worthless, while saving on something someone else considers vital, then that's my prerogative. So long as my overall strategy is sound, and I'm living within or under my means, I'm fine with my choices.
I tend to buy in two strategies. Either so cheap but functional I don't mind throwing it out later (as eco bad as that might be), or buying good quality wares. I believe that if you can afford good quality wares, that that will both make you happier and leave you with something of substantial resale value. So it may be a better financial strategy. Compare cheap Target cabinet with "Handmade Amish Furniture."
That said, the tone of the article is well, smug and obnoxious, and makes no effort to understand that many people cannot afford the quality goods the author can, or just have different values.
For example, I use to drive sports cars and convertibles, but now I drive cheap econo-boxes. Why? They tend to be more reliable, less expensive per mile to maintain, and I drive too damn much and drive them into the ground. (And I have a poor resales strategy -- I don't get rid of the cars fast enough.) I sure do miss my convertibles. Really miss them too at this time of year. But they just had accelerated decrepitude in my hands.
> and makes no effort to understand that many people cannot afford the quality goods the author can
A study done years ago found that the reason poor people stay poor is because they always buy the cheapest option so any money they save up ends up getting used right away to replace something. A never ending cycle of buy cheap/replace broken cheap stuff.
>For example, I use to drive sports cars and convertibles, but now I drive cheap econo-boxes. Why? They tend to be more reliable, less expensive per mile to maintain,
The point of buying quality is that it is cheaper to use and maintain. I think you're doing an apple/orange comparison here. Your sports cars were probably on the low end (and the quality end is probably just not attainable by working class people) while your "cheap econo-boxes" are probably higher on the quality scale for their class. You weren't being cheap here.
I know plenty of people who do go cheap with cars: they buy old used cars so they can do the repairs themselves. And every weekend that's exactly what they're doing: repairs. If they ever stopped and counted up their costs in time, parts and eventually replacing with another clunker they could probably lease a BMW cheaper.
You can eat your cake and have it, too. I have never spent more than $5000 on a vehicle, and I have only ended up with one lemon. Sometimes I do mechanical work myself, but only because I enjoy it. The rest of the time, I spend the money on a decent mechanic. I still come out ahead cost wise, even if you count my time, trouble, and other intangibles. Even better when you realize that my vehicles suffer virtually no depreciation.
A few hours of research and a $100 inspection prior to purchase will ensure you good odds of buying a reliable vehicle. There are no guarantees, but you can get pretty damn close. If you aren't comfortable with your own judgment, I'm sure you know someone who can advise you.
If you do choose to buy new (or relatively new), an 8-10 year ownership should be your goal. It usually takes that long to get real value for your money.
Considering that a new car loses a huge chunk of its "value" the second you drive it out of the car dealer's, if you're buying new the only sensible strategy is to drive it nearly into the ground. If you have to pay a wrecker to take it away, I agree, you may have taken it too far. But unless there are obscure tax reasons, I can't see any benefit to flipping cars regularly.
The warranty. Every time I've tried to follow your intuitive logic here I've ended up spending more per month to keep the car usable. Personally I view cars as a tax that I just have to pay, so I get the (long term) cheapest I can that uses as little gas as possible.
I once read about a strategy that made a great deal of sense to me, and that was to buy a 2-3 year old used car from a new car dealer, and sell it after 2-3 years to a private party.
There were all sorts of good reasons for that, some of which may no longer be valid, but some of the reasons were that a 2-3 year old car still had a lot of value but was at the end of it's steep price depreciation curve, and that the new car dealer didn't actually know how much the car was worth, they just knew that every day it sat there was another day of insurance they had to pay for, and sort of more proof to them that the car was not worth much. Also, by buying from a new car dealer, the car was probably in pretty good shape, the worse cars they had gotten rid of, the rest they had fixed up and cleaned up at rates that you or I couldn't get.
Because of that, with good negotiation, you could, in a sense, capture much of the profit the dealer had just made by giving the former owner of the used car a terribly low resale price followed by selling them a high priced new car.
They just made 20,000 by cheating the former owner on both ends of his deal. They don't know how much the used car is worth, but they are scared of it sitting there, and if you know how to price it, value it, and negotiate for it, you can get them to go very low on the price just so they can move it off the lot. You could in fact buy it for far below market rate. That was the theory then. And my own used car purchases showed that to be reasonable.
The claim was that by buying so cheaply a good used car from a dealer, you could sell it in 2-3 years to a private party at a good market rate, but probably very close to what you had paid for the used car 2-3 years earlier.
So... This strategy has actually worked out very well for me. And kept me in some very fun, relatively high end convertibles, starting with a Saab Turbo 900. Buying used cars from new car dealers seems to be a winning strategy.
But you have to remember to flip them. And that's been hard for me to do, in part because like an idiot, I drive too many miles to work, and have no time for selling cars to private parties. But if you're going to put a lot of miles on cars, I think you do need to either flip them or drive them to death, which is one reason I recently bought a low end econobox.
the new car dealer didn't actually know how much the car was worth
This statement confuses me. When I talk to car dealers, I notice that they always refer to the NADA guide to determine the worth -- even if you think that the blue book is too high, the sales guy certainly knows exactly what the car is worth, and would rather lose the sale than drop significantly below that price. I conclude that insurance and lot space must not be major costs per car.
Dealers make far more profit on used cars than they do new. Because of that, they are often much more willing to negotiate down if it's a tough-to-sell car that has been on their lot for an extended period of time.
There have been some amazing improvements in car safety and crash worthiness just in the past few years (at least at the higher end of the market). This has been driven by stricter government standards and widespread publication of safety data.
The thing is, it's really hard to quantify how much that extra safety is actually worth in terms of reduced risk of injury or death for a typical driver. If a QALY is worth, let's say $200K to me, then how many QALYs am I theoretically saving by trading in a 10 year old car for a new one? I would love to see a web application for this.
The way I see it there is a price/value curve where it's worth buying things at both ends.
At the high end you're paying a premium but you're getting a well designed and constructed item, which should last you a long time.
At the low end you're buying cheap crap but you're paying peanuts. You know there's no high end features, that it's not well made and if it breaks you just throw it out.
But in the middle you're paying more than the cheap stuff but you're mostly still getting crap, although here's it's likely to be 'branded' crap. Same thing as the cheap stuff, just more expensive.
So buy at both ends of the scale, not in the middle: buy cheap and get what value you can out of it, buy expensive and appreciate its value for a long time.
eh, several comments have gone on about the sears brand 'craftsman' wrenches. I like them too, but they are solidly in the middle of the price curve for tools. I also like kingston ram for my servers; Much like Craftsman tools, the stuff is good enough to get the job done and has an excellent warranty, but it's far from the best money can buy.
I think the top end usually has a huge 'you must be rich' price premium that doesn't usually make sense unless you use this tool all the time.
(Of course, we're both falling in to the trap of evaluating a product based on it's price positioning, which, I think, is quite often a mistake. The evaluation should be based on what you are paying for what you are getting, not based on where in the price curve your particular tool lies, I think.)
There is a cost to just throwing things out, even if its externalized. This cheap stuff has to be landfilled and much of it doesn't break down for thousands or millions of years. Many of it is also harmful to the environment, impacting and shortening human lives, including yours.
I didn't grow up with a lot of money, and was raised on the 'If it's available Wal-Mart, buy it at Wal-Mart' mentality.
Looking back on this, I wasted so much money on crap that just got replaced.
Now, I spare no expense (within reason....) to buy the nicest of what I want. End result? I'm more picky about what I buy, so I have fewer, but nicer things. and I am rarely left thinking "Well I wish my X could do Y".
The privilege of spending extra on "nice things" is almost purely in the realm of the well-to-do. This is the rationale Rich White People™ use when buying L.L. Bean backpacks (LIFETIME WARRANTY GUYS) that end up piled in attics and covered in dust from neglect. Also, a downside of 'nice stuff' is you have to lug it everywhere. If you lead even a moderately itinerant lifestyle, this totally blows. Don't listen to some guy on the internet telling you your stuff sucks, just buy what you damn well please and what you think will do the job. Your tools don't make you great, your skills do.
You don't have to be well-to-do to afford something a little better than the absolute cheapest possible sh*t every now and again. What this article is really about is electing to allocate more money to important items if possible, rather than being pennywise and pound foolish.
Sounds like you're a "frugal" person who got offended at this (correct) message.
>Also, a downside of 'nice stuff' is you have to lug it everywhere.
What on earth are you talking about? If you buy a cheap generic $200 17" laptop you'll have to lug it around just as much as a nice MBP. The difference is; you'll have to replace the cheapy about 10 times in the lifetime of my MBP.
>I can throw out or resell a 400$ laptop with some ease; not so easy with a more expensive model.
I disagree here. If you pay $400 for it what is your resale value after a year? I wouldn't even pay $50 for a year old $400 laptop since it's nearing end of life. A good MBP, however could be sold three years later for half value or a little less. This is not a bad option for people who want the quality but can't afford a new one (and unless something big changes in the line it's not always so compelling to get the newest model anyway).
>I can't invest too much on a bed as I can't lug it around with my bedouin lifestyle.
Sounds sensible.
>I can imagine that is the case for quite a few people.
I can't imagine this being a very high % of people.
>It's great that you have stability of location but that isn't true for us all.
For me the key is to be sensible with money. If you're getting the cheapest thing because you've actually thought it out and it doesn't make sense to go for the long term (e.g. because there wont be one) then fair enough. Most of the people I know who go cheap do it because they're too intellectually lazy to work out that they're actually spending more in the long term (and conversations confirm this, I'm not being cynical).
It's hard to find a buyer for an expensive laptop. Furthermore, you can find people who buy Pentium 4 laptops for more than 50$ if the battery is working properly. Point being, a one-year old 400$ laptop selling for 200-300$ is not utterly unheard of, especially if you have kept good care of it. I understand that it may be different in other parts of the world. The additional liquidity of a cheaper asset shouldn't be underestimated.
I do think that we "computer people" are far more mobile than someone in more traditional fields; it's part and parcel of online / startup life. I used to shuttle between Montreal, Tokyo and Singapore all the time, and for a time I expected I would wind up in Singapore. Instead, I ended up in Tokyo. Who could have known? Thank God I didn't drop 2gs on a bed. (I wound up buying one on Craigslist for about $450)
I do agree with you for the most part about the disgusting low quality crap that people buy to save a dollar. However, I do feel the need to express why some people may come to different value propositions.
You're experience is totally different to mine here in Europe. I don't know anyone who would even consider buying a cheap windows laptop online. You might be able to sell it to a family member or friend directly but that's it. Used macs, however, are an active market.
> It's hard to find a buyer for an expensive laptop.
Not to mention selling stuff is a pain in the ass. I'm a programmer, not a professional craigslist haggler. Buying things "because I can sell them later" has always burned me in the end.
> Sounds like you're a "frugal" person who got offended at this (correct) message.
Sweet ad hominem attack, bro.
> The difference is; you'll have to replace the cheapy about 10 times in the lifetime of my MBP.
And when that sweet MBP gets stolen or you spill tea all over it rendering it useless, you have to spend a ton more to get it back/working again.
People keep saying "I never have to think about it again!!!" but the opposite happens: you turn into a little gollum thinking about and protecting your stuff whenever it's in danger. Again, I'm not advocating one or the other, just be aware that expensive stuff has downsides and making fun of people who choose not to have that is a shitty move.
I protect my laptop whether it's a $3k top-of-the-line MBP of a $200 Aldi special. The valuable part of my laptop is what's stored on it, not the eq itself which I have insured against theft.
Besides the incredibly aggravating link-bait title—frugal is not equivalent to cheap. I consider myself to be quite frugal, but for the stuff that I do own, I have no objection to spending extra for the quality, luxury version—I couldn't agree more with the post's message.
I try to live my life in the most minimalistic fashion (see my apartment[1]), and am constantly looking to throw away things that add no value to my experiences. I strive to keep my desktop and mailbox empty. But by no means does that make me cheap: I pay for music, video streaming services. I buy premium items and food, because I know that improving my quality of life is the purpose of having money in the first place.
The cliche but somewhat true statement is: what good is all the money in my bank account going to do me when or if I'm not around to spend them. I'd rather live a good life now than the possibility of a better one in the future.
Another thing not touched on, when you are buying the cheapest you can find you are often buying the product made from the lowest quality materials and assembled by the cheapest workers in the world often in terrible conditions.
One of the keys in all of this is differentiating between "cheap crap", "cheap crap with a big price tag", and "expensive but worth it". I recently went shoe shopping. I was looking for a pair of comfortable, casual shoes. What I came across were:
$50 bunch-of-choices, made in China
$150 Boss/Diesel/etc, made in China
$225 Mephisto, made in France
$325 Ferragamo, made in Italy.
There is one obvious "wrong" choice here, yet it's the one that many people end up with when they think they're going to "buy something nice".
I don't know about Ferragamo, but I do own several pairs (gasp!) of shoes in that price range from a famous shoe brand here ("van Bommel", for the Dutch reading this, and in case it matters). They will last for decades with proper care and resoling every couple of years, but that's not the reason I bought them; I'm pretty sure that after 15 years I'll want something different, vareity being the spice of life and all. It's because they look super sharp under my (priced to match, second gasp!) suits.
I have no way to measure if the dressing up has ever made a difference in a deal or presentation. Or that the extra confidence has ever been the tipping point. All I know is that the engineers who go on and on about how they're sticking it to The Man by doing their demos in jeans and sneakers stand there looking like just another barely socially adapted dude from the lab, while those who dress to look the part are the ones that people come to afterwards and remember.
Appearance matters. Not understanding this, or trying to be a rebel by breaking rules you don't fully understand, makes you a hacker who is only capable of hacking code (or circuits or whatever); and incapable of understanding and 'hacking' social customs and psychology.
(PS It may be different in the US, around these parts Mephisto is a brand for old people with bad feet; good shoes but not something you'd wear as a (even slightly) fashion-conscious professional. Is Mephisto 'fancy' in the US?).
I was not implying the Ferragamos were the wrong choice. Rather, the Boss/Diesel/etc. "designer" stuff that is probably made in the exact same Chinese factory as the $50 equivalents. I was trying to say "get it cheap, or get it right"
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 248 ms ] threadI generally disagree with the post. I think fountain pens and fancy notebooks are are a waste of time, though I've been through phases with both. For me - cheap pencils, cheap graph-paper, cheap folders, and a system to keep order.
There are often ways to be smart that don't involve spending money. There's an idea of people who have more money than sense who go with an expensive option because they're hoping that this increases their chance of getting the thing they will want/need.
I have a digital watch. It has a lap timer in it, and shows the full date, cost less than USD100 and far more reliable than the swiss watch I have.
But there is some truth in the article - if you're just frugal all the time out of principle it sends bad signals.
I also find strange the stigma attached to being a "loser".
For play, I use a ratio I call the Fun Factor. Essentially, that's the $/hr of fun I get out of something. So if you go see a movie and it is $10, and it is the rare money that is actually fun to watch, then the fun factor is roughly $5.
So then you apply it to other things. Sure, $2,000 is a lot to spend a mountain bike, but divided out by the number of hours I've had on it, I'm way below $5 these days, so I consider it a fair deal.
A smartphone and laptop I love is always worth it in fun factor dollars.
That said, I do take issue on the 'lasting forever' bit, because wow, stuff just isn't made to last forever anymore and nor would you want to. I think it is a clever trick that we play on ourselves, oh, "This will be the last [blank] I ever have to buy", but how often is that really the case?
I can think of a few things I have that qualify, but they are few. I bought a $100 chef knife about a decade ago, still use it daily, still love it. I don't see my Ortlieb messenger bag ever breaking down, so maybe that's another. A few hand tools, but most hand tools last forever regardless of quality.
What are yours, what have you bought that you think you might keep forever?
Other things I've spent money on (that I'm happy with): heated slate floors for my bathroom - nothing like 85deg toasty floors when you get up in the morning; Benchmade knives; our latex foam mattress. Probably more things I can't think of at the moment.
If a person does any amount of cooking a nice set of knives is one of the best things a person can spend money on. They make preparing meals easier, faster and safer.
One thing that I have spent good money on is sheets. I spend 6-8 hours/day in bed sleeping so why not be as comfortable as possible?
I think frugal people also recognize the importance of good enough. One of the easiest places to see this in action is when buying wine. Going from the $5 bottle of wine to the $10-$20 bottle of wine often yields huge quality increases. When you start going from the $20 to $50 and $100+ the changes are often barely noticeable if at all. Most things that we buy have a similar scale and the key is finding that spot that is good enough for the best price.
As to the "lasting forever bit", I don't think it's necessary that things last literally forever; the point is more that making very long term purchases is a worthy goal. 15-20 years maybe. That said, I do try to buy things that literally will last me forever, though the list isn't very long, yet:
I try to buy tools that will last forever, or close to. With things like digital cameras (or any consumer electronics), it's silly to expect anything to last more than 10 years, on the very long end.
But, with power tools, I buy things expecting them to last forever (with routine maintenance and not heavy duty use). I more or less expect my nice knives to last forever. I expect most of my furniture to last forever. I expect my weight set to last forever.
On the other hand the 2000$ bike is perhaps so much nicer that you ride it more often and have more fun doing it. It might last longer as well lowering the fun factor even more.
> With things like digital cameras (or any consumer electronics), it's silly to expect anything to last more than 10 years, on the very long end.
I think that's an unreasonable assumption. I had a Kyocera camera (designed in 1999) but even though I would call myself frugal (some people would call me cheap) and I didn't have much money I basically had to replace it around 2006 because of technology progress and lack of batteries, replacement parts.
How's that for longevity?
In the garage: Any cars you're committed to taking care of. For me, my passion, is Mercedes. I see somebody slse mention Vette's. But there's all the tools I have. Spend a little more and they'll truly last.
High quality hi-fi equipment.
High quality hardwood furniture.
Aeron Chairs.
Probably more, but that's what came to mine :)
http://www.scharenenmessen.nl/index.php?act=viewProd&pro...
This is the best knife I've owned, better than much more expensive chef's knives. Sometimes the best things are not the cheapest nor the most expensive.
As a rule I've found things that look cheap but are expensive for how they look are the best. You can buy good looking expensive "design" scissors that are likely to be bad in every other department, or you can buy relatively expensive cheap looking scissors that stay sharp forever.
The one thing that I'm still looking for are quality bicycle lights on batteries.
You can skimp on the things you merely want, and still be happy.
Think of all the things you really need, the things you would be really miserable without. These are the ones you should splurge on. I mean, really, spend 2x as much as you think the average person would spend on them. Totally own it. Then you will always feel like your life is good. Because you don't sweat the small stuff :)
Though you can sidestep the chair issue: Just get a standing desk.
Though that's now that I consider being Frugal. Being frugal is not only being practical with my money (buying what I need and knowing what I won't use). I had a strong desire of buying an iPad, but really I know I won't use it. It also involves making sure I take care of my things, I check my tires and oil on my car regularly. Doing the little things to keep your stuff going and not spending frivolously is being frugal.
The idea being, or rather my interpretation of it is: something of high quality that's 2x the price of something else of low quality is probably wroth 10x more, so it's actually "cheap" in the sense that you get a lot more than what you pay for.
It's not a mistake to spend a little extra for something you need. This idiom is designed as a counter-argument to people who buy cheap stuff and boast about how they "saved" money by buying cheap crap that doesn't work well and causes you headaches.
To clarify hasenj's point about the more expensive thing being "worth 10x more", imagine that an expensive couch will last you 10 times longer than the cheap one (in addition to being more comfortable), but it will cost you twice as much. If owning a couch is an essential part of your desired lifestyle, then buying the more expensive couch is just the logical choice.
Of course, the real question is whether or not you really need couch? This is obviously a matter personal preference, but your present decision-making should incorporate your future preferences as well. There is often a lot of uncertainty in gauging your future level of need/want for a given product, which makes this a tricky game.
My experience of wearing out shoes was interesting. I used to buy 'cross trainers' or whatever the 'general use' canvas/plastic tennis shoe was at Big-5 when they went on sale every year. Every year I'd get a new pair of shoes for $10 to $15 and think "Wow look how much I'm saving over buying leather shoes for like $100 - $150." And then someone pointed out that they had leather shoes that they hadn't replaced in 10 years and it occurred to me that maybe I was looking at acquisition cost and not lifetime cost.
I did the math and bought my first pair of Clark's. They lasted 7 years and came out costing roughly $11/year for those 7 years. I replaced them with the same exact model that was on sale for $75. Not only did they look better than tennis shoes, they fit better, and 'wore' better. If I added the time spent shopping, the cost to get the car to/from the Big5 every year, the Clarks were 'cheaper' by being more expensive but of better durability.
So it was still being 'Frugal' but it was being a bit more intelligent about going about calculating the costs. I've long since learned to value my time more reasonably than 'free.'
Just count the number of hours you use an item in a week. Anything you use for a large part of the week should be of high quality.
Bed, office chair, desk, computer screen, computer, cooking utensils if you cook a lot, phone - in my case.
My car is 10 years old and doesn't have an a/c but I use it irregularly for Kiteboarding purposes and don't care.
In essence, it's much harder to bear a small pain for a long time than it is to bear a big pain for a small amount of time. And the mental stress from the smaller and longer pain is much much more IMHO.
Why does anyone spend their time coming up with rules for what other people should do in situations that are inherently based on personal values?
This rule works for me and since it's not actually straight forward to figure out, I thought it would help others.
There's a social cost to making an ass of yourself arguing +/- $0.30 on a loaf of bread, so I don't do it. And--I jest not--I get chided by "frugal" people for not spending a half hour going through my pile of 50+ coupon clippings in front of the register in the express lane, ten people waiting in line behind me be damned.
Nobody in the startup scene here likes a customer that rides them about price no matter the discount, and appears to be fixated solely on price and not on value. Nobody likes the message that sends about the customer's priorities, their character, or the value they attach to the product or service. There is a moral and a psychological valence to the whole thing. It's off-putting, because it says that you don't realise that sometimes there is more to life than cold, rational economic calculus. So why do it to others?
Negotiating big-ticket items like salaries, houses and cars has always been okay in this culture, and there are considerable practical reasons to do it; thousands of dollars are on the line, and the people on the other end of the table have a pricing structure and a sales methodology designed specifically to maximise gains on people reluctant or unable to negotiate. Obviously, I'm not saying you should allow yourself to be screwed for the sake of eschewing confrontation.
However, at the risk of sounding culturally chauvinist, as a Soviet immigrant, one of the things I have always liked about the US and for which I have taken pride in my adopted homeland is the fact that we're above petty bazaar culture here--haggling for the sake of haggling, or being obscenely preoccupied with price. Let's not lose that. Those of us from other cultures that have fewer compunctions about wheel-dealing in petty crap know where that leads, and it's a really detestable trait when not mandated by the necessities of poverty.
Remember what Einstein called "The most powerful force in the universe" -- compound interest.
Small savings, done consistently, can grow into fortunes. Haggling; Couponing; Finding the best cash-back credit offers (and changing regularly to the currently-best credit card), the best APYs, the best coupon codes for websites;
Three general things I listed. In my own personal experience, you can very easily save $1000 a year from each of those 3, so in total, $3000 a year. (In fact, we save that from couponing alone.)
At a fair, 5% APY, when I retire in 40 years, that has grown to nearly $400,000. And if you can approach a historically-avergae 8%... wow: That's now $840,000.
There's no "social cost" to that. There's certainly pressure to conform: Pay the asking price, don't waste the time using coupons to full-effectiveness which often requires doing more than one transaction when you checkout, don't have the audacity to use the best deals possible from every bank you can find. But "cost"? No. There's no cost. Having strangers like you upset at us doesn't cost me a thing.
I've noticed that others with your POV dismiss the potential, they think they have it figured out. That coupons waste hours to save pennies and even then only on things you may not want or need anyway. That there's no way to "win" when you game the banking systems rewards. That haggling just doesn't work unless you're buying a car or a house.
But an additional $840k at retirement should illustrate to anybody that discounts the potential that they're just wrong on this one.
I merely encourage judiciousness about the wisdom and worth-it-ness of bargain-hunting in a given situation, and the recognition that doing it in every situation is not necessarily the best thing ipso facto.
Also, left unsaid is that I am coming from the perspective of someone who started a business from cash, with nothing, in a high-cost area. Having had to tenaciously brute force my way through every step of of the process without the benefit of 5% APY offers or anything of the sort has taught me important lessons in when it's worth it to pursue a discount.
Your comment was hyperbole before I got to it.
You thought I was kidding? I wish I were. I ran into a woman the day before yesterday who was at Publix (www.publix.com) here in Atlanta, asserting that the identical multigrain rye was 30c cheaper at Kroger down the street and she was taking her business elsewhere.
She didn't exactly look indigent, either; I'd take pity upon someone who managed to panhandle $2 but not $2.30. She was in a smart business suit.
It's not the first, second or third time I've seen something this ridiculous lately. I can only conclude it's a trend.
Joke all you want, she's the smart one here. You crowing about her here has no "social cost." And you say that your POV comes from running a business. So does mine. In my case, I contract myself out. I've grown into a very high hourly rate. I have an assistant to help with things so I can add more billable hours.
But what I've learned from running a business is to guard every damn cent that goes out the door. Not spending dollars to save dimes, but spending one dime to save 2.
In truth, last year, using those things I mentioned, I received slightly over $25,000 in extra perks and bonuses. That's not an exaggeration. The bulk of that is 2 free first class tickets to Europe. After that, about $3k in coupon savings, and $2k in cashback on my credit card, and a few hundred dollars in the "open this checking account and get a $100 bonus" type of rewards.
This is in addition to 50-60 hour weeks billing hourly and working from my home office.
Next year I probably won't be able to repeat that: it looks like I'll only be scoring _one_ free first class ticket to CDG. Even still, that's an estimated $16k this year
Beds. Yes, you spend 1/3 your life in bed. And you spend it unconscious. You spend about 0.03% of your conscious life in bed while falling asleep (30 mins a day).
But more importantly: Relax. Just because you make a certain decision doesn't mean everyone else needs to.
They often are more comfortable, it all depends on what you're doing. You wouldn't go on a long walk in those flip-flops, but if you did, you'd hope you'd have better shoes than $15 runners (seriously, huge difference).
But it's not just about comfort - it's about perception: how others perceive you, and how you perceive yourself. It's about hacking how others see you, and more importantly knowing yourself well enough to hack around your own behavior with your environment and possessions.
For example: cute girl over there, you want to go talk to her. What do you think will give you more confidence, you in a ratty but comfy t-shirt and shorts, or you dressed to the nines and knowing you look good enough to eat?
Another example: that work laptop you use every single day. They both compile code just as well as one another, but one is plasticky and flimsy, and the keyboard creaks annoyingly when you press a key a little too hard. The other is rock solid and feels like Zeus himself cast it out of Mt. Olympus. Which increases your productivity and general satisfaction while working?
> "Beds. Yes, you spend 1/3 your life in bed. And you spend it unconscious. You spend about 0.03% of your conscious life in bed while falling asleep (30 mins a day)."
Yes, but how rested you feel when you regain consciousness is very much related to the quality of your mattress. If we take your logic to its natural conclusion, we'd all just sleep on cardboard.
Neither did I, until I got plantar fasciitis from wearing cheap shoes, and couldn't stand or walk for more than 10 minutes without pain. Cheap shoes tend to skimp on the parts that provide support and impact resistance.
If nothing else, good shoes are worth the money they save you on podiatry.
For me the difference between good shoes and bad shoes is desperately wanting to sit down after a an hour on my feet and being able to walk for 8-10 hours without really feeling it. And while far from all expensive shoes are comfortable, I've yet to find a pair of comfortable shoes for less than $120, and my $350+ hiking boots are pure magic and somehow make even the hardest hike under the heaviest of loads so much easier.
As for beds, you're not unconscious while you're sleeping, you're sleeping, and not all sleep is equal. Sleeping in a comfortable bed means I wake up far more refreshed and with far less stiffness and muscle pain, than sleeping exactly the same amount of time in an uncomfortable bed.
If a less comfortable bed makes it take longer to fall asleep, then that figure just got bigger and there's an extra cost in time every single day.
If a less comfortable bed means you sleep worse, then again there's an extra cost in happiness and productivity every single day.
Now, whether spending more on your bed always makes it more comfortable, and whether that makes you sleep sooner and better, is a separate question. Got any evidence that bears on it?
But if you don't care about the future, then sure; it's your life. But maybe you just never thought about this.
Edit: changed some 'will' into 'might'; some people just are unbreakable. Most of us are not though although we think so when nothing ever happened so far.
Edit: another good example is an office chair or standing table; just SPEND the money on really good desks and chairs; it's just plain stupid not to.
There is a close correlation, but only if you buy genuine leather shoes. Good leather gets into shape while you wear it. If the leather is really tough, it takes a while, but afterwards these shoes will fit as if they were made for you. There is nothing that can be as comfortable, IMHO. The feet are always dry, warm and comfortable.
The price is high, of course. Good leather costs a fortune (you want the one without chemicals in them). Repairing these shoes is expensive too. Find the right person who does it well, find the right brands, so you don't buy expensive fake, etc. pp.
I own many hand made pairs, none of them less then 400 Euros worth (some more). This is not frugal, this is luxury. But I have 20 year old pairs that still look great and can easily be worn to the opera or a concert (if that's your kind of occupation). Calculating the price per year is also pretty good value for money.
But I would never dispute that flip flops are cheaper ;o). If you loose them, if they are damaged, no problem. Investment is also always a commitment.
The answer is: no!
I feel good, because I want to wear nice shoes (sometimes, for reasons I have to discuss with Mr. Freud sometimes) and what makes me feel good is that I can fulfill my wish. Definitely not the fact that some of my shows are expensive.
I actually wear leather flip-flops. They are quite painful to break in, but ultimately curve exactly like my foot and have a wonderful feel.
Part of our opinions are also cultural. I live by the beach in California and wearing flip-flops can actually be stylish.
Thanks for the informative reply.
Flip flops don't provide a lot of ankle support, and for some people that can be an issue. I walk between 5-7 miles a day, and while I find flip flops comfortable for lounging around, I wouldn't want to walk any serious distance in them.
I've found that certain shoes are much more comfortable than others, and they tend to not be on the cheap end of things (not the most expensive either). Because of how much I walk, I'd go through several shoes a year, and now I'm switching to only buying shoes that can be resoled. It will save me a lot of money in the long term.
> You’re such a dick, Scott.
It's a little unfortunate that viridiandesign.org is basically unreadable due to that terrible background image.
Frugality is not about consuming but investing in your life: that often contradicts with cheap.
Frugality is about not buying things you don't need but buying things you can't live without. A frugal person will typically invest in quality because he knows he'll be using the item for years and doesn't want to replace it every few.
I wouldn't consider myself extremely frugal but my favorite shoes I'm wearing today I bought in the year 2000. They feel great, they have never had to been repaired, they resist water enough, the leather is in good condition and actually they didn't cost much (guesstimate in today's currency: 100-150€). But I have this mindset that I don't need new shoes just for the sake of new shoes. That's frugality. I will wear mine for another ten years if only they'll hold together and still look tidy enough to walk into the public. (They look used of course, but still tidy.) If they don't, I'll have to buy a replacement pair.
Frugality is also sometimes buying the cheapest thing. Buying a cheap electric drill is frugal if you only drill a few times a year, which makes the drill last for decades. Buying the best that money can buy would be frugal if you're a carpenter or do renovations every week and need a professional grade durability; however, if you're not doing that you're not frugal but rather just going on the hifi tangent and in reality you want to buy the expensive model because of your ego only.
Frugality also brings focus to—I was going to say consumption but I'll say personal investment instead. It makes sense to buy quality items for what you love: if you love riding a bike then investing in a quality bike is frugal because it saves you and the environment from unneeded consumption and hair-pulling. But you can't love everything either. You can't have the top of the line computer, screen, home theater, coffee grinder, washing machine, mattress, toilet seat, motorcycle, car, bike, camera, video camera, clothes, shoes, accessories and consider yourself frugal. You can have one or two because you simply can't be spending all of your time only grinding coffee, coding, washing laundry, riding a motorbike, and shooting photos.
And yes, being frugal inevitably does make me look like a loser in the eyes of some people. But then what?
Other people's opinions about me are none of my business anyway.
Interesting.
In Canada, I've lived in Ontario, Alberta and BC. In each province frugal means someone who spends money wisely.
ie buying a Toyota Camry instead of a BMW
No one really thinks it makes sense to save your time by not spending time on anything at all. You want to be frugal with your time -- you save it in order to splurge on the things that matter and will give you the most benefit/productivity. I think it's the same with money -- cheapness is a mentally lazy way to save money, frugality is a smarter way.
As a side note, I've never understood the obsession with making food purchases your main source of money-saving. The idea of "cheap calories" seems so misguided when you take into account that, down the line, those diabetes and heart disease treatments will be anything but cheap. Not to mention what you lose in productivity with the mental and physical sluggishness that comes from eating crappy, fake food.
I'm all for ramen-profitable, but I'll pass on the ramen. If only "3 year old shoes and grass-fed steak profitable" had a better ring to it.
Though I do like to splurge on food.
One example: Craftsman Hand Tools. They have a lifetime guarantee, so provided you don't lose them, you're done buying screwdrivers and wrenches for life.
True story. I walked into Sears with a broken socket wrench.
Sears guy: "Wow. What happened to that?"
Me: "Well, I had a bolt that really didn't want to come loose, so I had a six foot cheater bar and I was bouncing my whole weight on it when suddenly it exploded."
Sears guy: "Yeah, that would do it. Let me see what I can do..."
[check in the back]
"Well, we don't have that model in stock, so here's a new one from our Pro line. It's a bit more expensive, but it's probably a bit stronger too. Good luck with that bolt."
I've had that same conversation on 3 different occasions, each with ludicrously mis-used tools broken entirely through my foolishness. All replaced for free with a smile.
Good luck getting the same result in Europe ;)
In case I wasn't clear, all the abovementioned conversations happened at Sears department store, the sole distributor of Craftsman hand tools. They have an explicit policy of replacing any broken tool, regardless of how you broke it.
So if you rock up with the snapped-off handle of one of those tiny little flathead screwdrivers (complete with a little clip so that you can keep it in your shirt pocket), and a story about how you were trying to pry off a rusted-on cylinder head using it and a large hammer, they'll replace it.
(as I have personally verified)
And yeah, you're right about the European version of customer service (at least the English variant). Since moving here, I've never once come across a merchant who was familiar with the concept of "the customer is always right". Rather, "It's my shop, so by definition I'm right. And why are there so many customers in here, anyway? I think I'll start closing at 5:30 so I don't have to deal with them."
The one HUGE exception was the French national rail service. They must get great compensation, or have good hiring policies, because everyone I dealt with was spontaneously helpful and didn't mind spending extra time with me, even to the point of extending their work hours.
My notebook computer is my main tool, without it I couldn't work. So when something happens, it's critical to be able to pick up the phone, dial a toll-free number, and have a new part or computer arriving very quickly by an overnight carrier. Saved my bacon many times.
Me: "My keyboard seems to have acquired this big fist-shaped dent, and now the spacebar doesn't work right."
Dell Onsite Rep: "Let me grab you a new one out of the truck."
Of course, if Sears tanks in a few years, then those tools aren't such a good deal anymore.
Almost everyone in the U.S. has access to an internet connection. If not in their home, in their local library. The median household income in the U.S. is around $50k. Many people earn much less than that, and they still manage to get access to the internet. If you are used to living with above-median income, you should be humble when saying what people earning much less than median can and can't afford.
And that's just considering the U.S., which is easily in the top 10 of median income.
By contrast, yason did not assume anything about the readers ability to afford things and he or she did not put anyone down, except maybe people who buy the best of absolutely everything and still claim to be frugal, and even then, yason only addressed their behavior, not them as people.
There is a right and a wrong way to say things. The original author went with the wrong way.
"You will certainly do great next time!"
You can also get them repaired.
There are people who take consumption too far, and there are people who take frugality to the point of miserliness. I don't think it's fair to peg the definition of frugality to either of these extremes.
Furthermore, I take issue with the author's (or anyone's) attempts to stake out objective ground on what does or does not constitute "the right place" to spend money. Everyone lives differently. "The right places" are subjective. If I derive a ton of personal utility and happiness from splurging on something someone else considers worthless, while saving on something someone else considers vital, then that's my prerogative. So long as my overall strategy is sound, and I'm living within or under my means, I'm fine with my choices.
That said, the tone of the article is well, smug and obnoxious, and makes no effort to understand that many people cannot afford the quality goods the author can, or just have different values.
For example, I use to drive sports cars and convertibles, but now I drive cheap econo-boxes. Why? They tend to be more reliable, less expensive per mile to maintain, and I drive too damn much and drive them into the ground. (And I have a poor resales strategy -- I don't get rid of the cars fast enough.) I sure do miss my convertibles. Really miss them too at this time of year. But they just had accelerated decrepitude in my hands.
A study done years ago found that the reason poor people stay poor is because they always buy the cheapest option so any money they save up ends up getting used right away to replace something. A never ending cycle of buy cheap/replace broken cheap stuff.
>For example, I use to drive sports cars and convertibles, but now I drive cheap econo-boxes. Why? They tend to be more reliable, less expensive per mile to maintain,
The point of buying quality is that it is cheaper to use and maintain. I think you're doing an apple/orange comparison here. Your sports cars were probably on the low end (and the quality end is probably just not attainable by working class people) while your "cheap econo-boxes" are probably higher on the quality scale for their class. You weren't being cheap here.
I know plenty of people who do go cheap with cars: they buy old used cars so they can do the repairs themselves. And every weekend that's exactly what they're doing: repairs. If they ever stopped and counted up their costs in time, parts and eventually replacing with another clunker they could probably lease a BMW cheaper.
A few hours of research and a $100 inspection prior to purchase will ensure you good odds of buying a reliable vehicle. There are no guarantees, but you can get pretty damn close. If you aren't comfortable with your own judgment, I'm sure you know someone who can advise you.
If you do choose to buy new (or relatively new), an 8-10 year ownership should be your goal. It usually takes that long to get real value for your money.
Considering that a new car loses a huge chunk of its "value" the second you drive it out of the car dealer's, if you're buying new the only sensible strategy is to drive it nearly into the ground. If you have to pay a wrecker to take it away, I agree, you may have taken it too far. But unless there are obscure tax reasons, I can't see any benefit to flipping cars regularly.
I once read about a strategy that made a great deal of sense to me, and that was to buy a 2-3 year old used car from a new car dealer, and sell it after 2-3 years to a private party.
There were all sorts of good reasons for that, some of which may no longer be valid, but some of the reasons were that a 2-3 year old car still had a lot of value but was at the end of it's steep price depreciation curve, and that the new car dealer didn't actually know how much the car was worth, they just knew that every day it sat there was another day of insurance they had to pay for, and sort of more proof to them that the car was not worth much. Also, by buying from a new car dealer, the car was probably in pretty good shape, the worse cars they had gotten rid of, the rest they had fixed up and cleaned up at rates that you or I couldn't get.
Because of that, with good negotiation, you could, in a sense, capture much of the profit the dealer had just made by giving the former owner of the used car a terribly low resale price followed by selling them a high priced new car.
They just made 20,000 by cheating the former owner on both ends of his deal. They don't know how much the used car is worth, but they are scared of it sitting there, and if you know how to price it, value it, and negotiate for it, you can get them to go very low on the price just so they can move it off the lot. You could in fact buy it for far below market rate. That was the theory then. And my own used car purchases showed that to be reasonable.
The claim was that by buying so cheaply a good used car from a dealer, you could sell it in 2-3 years to a private party at a good market rate, but probably very close to what you had paid for the used car 2-3 years earlier.
So... This strategy has actually worked out very well for me. And kept me in some very fun, relatively high end convertibles, starting with a Saab Turbo 900. Buying used cars from new car dealers seems to be a winning strategy.
But you have to remember to flip them. And that's been hard for me to do, in part because like an idiot, I drive too many miles to work, and have no time for selling cars to private parties. But if you're going to put a lot of miles on cars, I think you do need to either flip them or drive them to death, which is one reason I recently bought a low end econobox.
This statement confuses me. When I talk to car dealers, I notice that they always refer to the NADA guide to determine the worth -- even if you think that the blue book is too high, the sales guy certainly knows exactly what the car is worth, and would rather lose the sale than drop significantly below that price. I conclude that insurance and lot space must not be major costs per car.
The thing is, it's really hard to quantify how much that extra safety is actually worth in terms of reduced risk of injury or death for a typical driver. If a QALY is worth, let's say $200K to me, then how many QALYs am I theoretically saving by trading in a 10 year old car for a new one? I would love to see a web application for this.
The way I see it there is a price/value curve where it's worth buying things at both ends.
At the high end you're paying a premium but you're getting a well designed and constructed item, which should last you a long time.
At the low end you're buying cheap crap but you're paying peanuts. You know there's no high end features, that it's not well made and if it breaks you just throw it out.
But in the middle you're paying more than the cheap stuff but you're mostly still getting crap, although here's it's likely to be 'branded' crap. Same thing as the cheap stuff, just more expensive.
So buy at both ends of the scale, not in the middle: buy cheap and get what value you can out of it, buy expensive and appreciate its value for a long time.
I think the top end usually has a huge 'you must be rich' price premium that doesn't usually make sense unless you use this tool all the time.
(Of course, we're both falling in to the trap of evaluating a product based on it's price positioning, which, I think, is quite often a mistake. The evaluation should be based on what you are paying for what you are getting, not based on where in the price curve your particular tool lies, I think.)
I didn't grow up with a lot of money, and was raised on the 'If it's available Wal-Mart, buy it at Wal-Mart' mentality.
Looking back on this, I wasted so much money on crap that just got replaced.
Now, I spare no expense (within reason....) to buy the nicest of what I want. End result? I'm more picky about what I buy, so I have fewer, but nicer things. and I am rarely left thinking "Well I wish my X could do Y".
Buying the right thing can be less expensive in the long run than buying the cheapest.
>Also, a downside of 'nice stuff' is you have to lug it everywhere.
What on earth are you talking about? If you buy a cheap generic $200 17" laptop you'll have to lug it around just as much as a nice MBP. The difference is; you'll have to replace the cheapy about 10 times in the lifetime of my MBP.
I can throw out or resell a 400$ laptop with some ease; not so easy with a more expensive model. (My current laptop is a MBP that I got from work)
I can't invest too much on a bed as I can't lug it around with my bedouin lifestyle. I can imagine that is the case for quite a few people.
It's great that you have stability of location but that isn't true for us all.
I disagree here. If you pay $400 for it what is your resale value after a year? I wouldn't even pay $50 for a year old $400 laptop since it's nearing end of life. A good MBP, however could be sold three years later for half value or a little less. This is not a bad option for people who want the quality but can't afford a new one (and unless something big changes in the line it's not always so compelling to get the newest model anyway).
>I can't invest too much on a bed as I can't lug it around with my bedouin lifestyle.
Sounds sensible.
>I can imagine that is the case for quite a few people.
I can't imagine this being a very high % of people.
>It's great that you have stability of location but that isn't true for us all.
For me the key is to be sensible with money. If you're getting the cheapest thing because you've actually thought it out and it doesn't make sense to go for the long term (e.g. because there wont be one) then fair enough. Most of the people I know who go cheap do it because they're too intellectually lazy to work out that they're actually spending more in the long term (and conversations confirm this, I'm not being cynical).
> Laptops
It's hard to find a buyer for an expensive laptop. Furthermore, you can find people who buy Pentium 4 laptops for more than 50$ if the battery is working properly. Point being, a one-year old 400$ laptop selling for 200-300$ is not utterly unheard of, especially if you have kept good care of it. I understand that it may be different in other parts of the world. The additional liquidity of a cheaper asset shouldn't be underestimated.
I do think that we "computer people" are far more mobile than someone in more traditional fields; it's part and parcel of online / startup life. I used to shuttle between Montreal, Tokyo and Singapore all the time, and for a time I expected I would wind up in Singapore. Instead, I ended up in Tokyo. Who could have known? Thank God I didn't drop 2gs on a bed. (I wound up buying one on Craigslist for about $450)
I do agree with you for the most part about the disgusting low quality crap that people buy to save a dollar. However, I do feel the need to express why some people may come to different value propositions.
Not to mention selling stuff is a pain in the ass. I'm a programmer, not a professional craigslist haggler. Buying things "because I can sell them later" has always burned me in the end.
Sweet ad hominem attack, bro.
> The difference is; you'll have to replace the cheapy about 10 times in the lifetime of my MBP.
And when that sweet MBP gets stolen or you spill tea all over it rendering it useless, you have to spend a ton more to get it back/working again.
People keep saying "I never have to think about it again!!!" but the opposite happens: you turn into a little gollum thinking about and protecting your stuff whenever it's in danger. Again, I'm not advocating one or the other, just be aware that expensive stuff has downsides and making fun of people who choose not to have that is a shitty move.
I try to live my life in the most minimalistic fashion (see my apartment[1]), and am constantly looking to throw away things that add no value to my experiences. I strive to keep my desktop and mailbox empty. But by no means does that make me cheap: I pay for music, video streaming services. I buy premium items and food, because I know that improving my quality of life is the purpose of having money in the first place.
The cliche but somewhat true statement is: what good is all the money in my bank account going to do me when or if I'm not around to spend them. I'd rather live a good life now than the possibility of a better one in the future.
[1]: http://kswizz.com/post/5032419362/new-apartment
$50 bunch-of-choices, made in China
$150 Boss/Diesel/etc, made in China
$225 Mephisto, made in France
$325 Ferragamo, made in Italy.
There is one obvious "wrong" choice here, yet it's the one that many people end up with when they think they're going to "buy something nice".
I have no way to measure if the dressing up has ever made a difference in a deal or presentation. Or that the extra confidence has ever been the tipping point. All I know is that the engineers who go on and on about how they're sticking it to The Man by doing their demos in jeans and sneakers stand there looking like just another barely socially adapted dude from the lab, while those who dress to look the part are the ones that people come to afterwards and remember.
Appearance matters. Not understanding this, or trying to be a rebel by breaking rules you don't fully understand, makes you a hacker who is only capable of hacking code (or circuits or whatever); and incapable of understanding and 'hacking' social customs and psychology.
(PS It may be different in the US, around these parts Mephisto is a brand for old people with bad feet; good shoes but not something you'd wear as a (even slightly) fashion-conscious professional. Is Mephisto 'fancy' in the US?).
No arguments here on appearance.