241–250 of 326 posts
This would sound strange but the biggest subscription I pay annually (which does not seem like a subscription) is my DMV registration renewal fees. It comes around $300+ every year out-of-the-blue in my mailbox and I realize then that is indeed a subscription for a product which is my Car that I never thought about.
- Nominally 0% interest (albeit we paid sticker price of the vehicle with no discount).
- Deposit + payments such that the car was never 'under water'. In fact, subject to some heavy caveatting about its condition, I think we could have handed the car back and walked away from the agreement at any time, something almost unheard-of in American-style car loans.
- At the end of the PCP period, there was still a big balloon payment, which is how they get you rolling onto a new car+contract of course. But it was a known quantity that was possible to save up for, and due to the monthly payments, as mentioned above, being of sufficient size, the balloon payment was much less than the cost to buy the same car in same age/condition/etc on the open market, so it made sense to pay the money and keep the car.
There are a couple of things I find interesting about the above. One is that I perceived some benefits from the monthly payments being larger rather than smaller - when considering time value of money etc this is presumably irrational. But people do seem to genuinely suffer from upside-down car loans, where they could 'afford' the payments but find themselves trapped making them on an un-sellable vehicle. I guess what I'm saying is the payments were set at a level where I could actually afford the car. The other interesting thing is how easily the formula could be tweaked to make more expensive cars look affordable, and to incentivise rolling onto another contract. The flip side is that such tweaks let the purchaser have a lower payment, or a nicer car for the same payment, but might not be in the purchaser's rational best interest.
> …so if you are into your environmentalism then milk is the SaaS for you. Dairy isn’t know for being great for the environment.
Cattle is key for regenerative agriculture. See also Allan Savory's Holistic management.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great advice, and I echo 95% of it. My observation is that I have found Wifi useful when I need the printer in an odd location in the house, and color is useful for non-professional usage like "the kids need to print out their report for school" and "the med school student needs anatomy diagrams in color" My trusty color Brother laser HL-3170CDW cost ~$300 at the time and has been trucking along for 7+ years now with…
> if all you are ever going to do is print your taxes and financial documents once a year I get that you’re making a point about printers being rarely used. The exact detail though - are there places where printing of your tax documents is still required and they can’t be digital?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even the older double-edged safety razors were designed around such a model, but at least there is a 'standard' for those, with plenty of different companies producing interoperable consumables. Would it be fair to say that any product with consumables that are proprietary to the vendor, is a subscription?
I actually shifted to using a double edged safety razor when the cost of the disposable blades felt like too much. It isnt quite as easy, and I still cut myself from time to time but I also am still using the variety pack of 100 blades that I bought two years ago for like 10$.
> At the end of their 4-5 year contract these secret renters are bamboozled at the dealership and convinced to just "roll over" their deal onto a new car with much the same monthly payment and, again, no ownership. It costs considerably more to do this great rigmarole than just to buy outright. And yet, about 1/4 to 1/3rd of new cars are leased ( https://www.statista.com/statistics/453122/share-of-new-vehi... ), and…
Whilst most finance deals are scams, there are good ones. In our case double dipping on scrappage and sourcing a second hand car from a cheaper geography certainly played a part; and for once I'm sure I'm not deluded - with a family member running their own dealership we had quite the inside look at alternatives.
That said, an ongoing profiteering racket is servicing and associated consumables. Most independents are cheaper, though it does take work to find a good one - you have to check the quality of alternative consumables.
Semi-Off-Topic but related to Opex vs Capex: One of the weird aspects of Japanese tax law is the Capital Assets tax. Every year your local city taxes any capital goods at 1.5%. What is a capital good? Anything which takes multiple years to deduct. A couple examples: Cars, Machines, Factories. A couple odd examples: desks, chairs, TV, elevators. In the past other first world countries had such capital goods taxes but…
My US county (Wake County, NC) has such a tax... worse even. Each year I have to catalog every pencil, pen, paperclip and ream of paper in my office. The desk, tables, shelves, printer ink, bottle of windex, each of my books, even individual USB cables all need to be listed. I need years acquired and purchase prices for every little object owned by each of my 4 businesses. Each summer, a tax bill shows up for my pers…
Printers. Yeah. Herewith, my standard advice. Buy a Brother monochrome laser with duplex, an ethernet port, and BRScript/3 (their PostScript clone). Even if you're sure you will never need one or more of those features, get them all. Wifi and Bluetooth and NFC are strictly optional, and probably not worthwhile. If you need color printing, send it to a printing company. There might even be a local one. It will be done…
It's worth it.
Printers. Yeah. Herewith, my standard advice. Buy a Brother monochrome laser with duplex, an ethernet port, and BRScript/3 (their PostScript clone). Even if you're sure you will never need one or more of those features, get them all. Wifi and Bluetooth and NFC are strictly optional, and probably not worthwhile. If you need color printing, send it to a printing company. There might even be a local one. It will be done…
One I found in the trash, one I bought for 150€.
Do I generally want to move as much as possible to OPEX, so I don't have to pay any taxes in the end?