11–20 of 121 posts
...women don't give a crap what kind of car you have... How strange. OP advises being able to afford anything by being "frugal" and then claims to know what women care about. He must not be married. I agree with much of OP's advice. Just be aware that the quickest way to stop following it isn't loss of discipline but falling in love with someone who doesn't want to live that way.
I love reading Ken's articles. He talks about the weirdest things.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personalised service and nicer surroundings? Meh, I just want to buy stuff. If I want to hang around chatting to people, I'll go to a bar. Questions? Nah, I've done my homework already, and the answers didn't come from salesmen. Faster? How does all that chatting, questioning and soaking up the ambience speed up a purchase? 'Buying' is swapping money for something you want. 'Shopping' is that too, plus all the things…
The point I was trying to make was that accusing someone of being stupid for shopping in boutiques tells more about your lack of perspective for other people - which is one definition of one being stupid.
I was more-or-less with him up until the "Don't Rent" advice. By his own admission, purchasing a condo and riding it up to the very top of the largest real estate bubble in history netted him only a 1% return. Any other market at any other time would likely have netted him a loss on that purchase. In a non-bubble market, I wonder how much more he would have gained by renting that very same condo and investing the dif…
Renting is just like insurance, you pay a premium so that others take the greater financial risk: You're not tied down, you can move anytime, and you don't have to care about the housing market or interest rates. For some people this is worth it, for some it's not. Your mileage may wary.
The only other problem I have with his text is that he seems to suffer from analysis paralysis by not buying a computer for years since they drop off in value so fast. There's also a value in having a computer, or whatever other item, in that time.
Yes, if you wait one year you'll get a faster computer than what you can buy now, but you'll also be stuck with your current computer for one more year. How much does that cost? Sometimes you just have to suck it up.
...women don't give a crap what kind of car you have... How strange. OP advises being able to afford anything by being "frugal" and then claims to know what women care about. He must not be married. I agree with much of OP's advice. Just be aware that the quickest way to stop following it isn't loss of discipline but falling in love with someone who doesn't want to live that way.
He addresses this specific issue further down.
Not to nitpik this, but I don't consider eating off the dollar menu at McDonalds anyway to save money. In the long haul--that's probably what will end up killing you or at least racking up some medical bills. I'd rather spend 10x the dollar menu at a local lunch spot with real food that won't send me to an early grave. All around, good advice--but don't use fast food as a way to slim down the budget.
I was more-or-less with him up until the "Don't Rent" advice. By his own admission, purchasing a condo and riding it up to the very top of the largest real estate bubble in history netted him only a 1% return. Any other market at any other time would likely have netted him a loss on that purchase. In a non-bubble market, I wonder how much more he would have gained by renting that very same condo and investing the dif…
Right now an average sized house is about as much to rent as it is to buy with a mortgage (at least here in the UK anyway). There is no sane way anyone should be renting a whole house.
...women don't give a crap what kind of car you have... How strange. OP advises being able to afford anything by being "frugal" and then claims to know what women care about. He must not be married. I agree with much of OP's advice. Just be aware that the quickest way to stop following it isn't loss of discipline but falling in love with someone who doesn't want to live that way.
Ken is, in fact, married, as you'll find out if you just read further down the article.
Marrying smart means to marry someone as cheap as you are.
That would require me to marry someone from the intersection of the sets WomenWhoWouldMarryMe and WomenWhoAreAsCheapAsMe. I suspect that the population of that intersection asymptotically approaches zero.
> ==Live with Your Parents==
> I'm serious: This is what I did!
...women don't give a crap what kind of car you have... How strange. OP advises being able to afford anything by being "frugal" and then claims to know what women care about. He must not be married. I agree with much of OP's advice. Just be aware that the quickest way to stop following it isn't loss of discipline but falling in love with someone who doesn't want to live that way.