Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The art and science of spending money

collabfund.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 140 posts

Re: The art and science of spending money

#71

Post by sanderjd »

> The more you were snubbed while poor, the more you enjoy displaying your wealth.

Man I dunno about this. It does seem like a thing for certain personality types, but I usually see exactly the opposite. All of the people I know who have "made it" from a less wealthy background are the opposite, living with a ton of guilt about their new wealth. I think this is because of having tons of family and friends still scraping by. It is very unseemly to be flamboyantly wealthy when everyone from your past is struggling. Maybe there is another inflection point of wealth, further down the road than the circles I run in, where you can afford to pull everyone else up too. But I'm pretty skeptical of that too. Something that has frustrated me to no end as I've started making good money is that I can't use any of it to improve the lives of people I actually know. They aren't going to take my money! They're doing just fine thank you very much. Even broaching the subject could ruin a relationship.

Re: The art and science of spending money

#72

Post by mythhouse »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #30
tehCorner wrote: post #24

> Frugality inertia: a lifetime of good savings habits can’t be transitioned to a spending phase. Coming from a poor family and knowing the hard way the issues of not having money I've been obsessed with saving money since I got my first paycheck 8 years ago and I always thought "at the point I would earn current salary + x I will start enjoying life more and stop worrying about money" but that never happened. 8 year…

It’s possible it’s not a problem, I’d be inclined to give yourself a break. A lot of the “essentials” we’re supposed to splurge on (big house, cars, expensive food, etc) are often overrated when you look at it from a “does this make my life better” lens. Investing in yourself - be that skills or life experiences - is worthwhile but you can do even that with a frugal slant.

You made an unconvincing point by reducing money to stereotypical 'expensive cars' . What about going on ski trip while your kids are still young and having a magical and memorable moments in life.

Re: The art and science of spending money

#73

Post by mythhouse »

MaurizioPz wrote: post #51
tehCorner wrote: post #24

> Frugality inertia: a lifetime of good savings habits can’t be transitioned to a spending phase. Coming from a poor family and knowing the hard way the issues of not having money I've been obsessed with saving money since I got my first paycheck 8 years ago and I always thought "at the point I would earn current salary + x I will start enjoying life more and stop worrying about money" but that never happened. 8 year…

Ramit Sethi has good advice on learning to spend, geared towards those that "made it" but can't escape past habits

And What is this advice. I couldn't search for it with the keywords in your comment.

Re: The art and science of spending money

#74

Post by mythhouse »

malnourish wrote: post #38
luxurytent wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is me and I struggle with it on a regular. We are quite comfortable (on my single salary I can cover mortgage, private care for my kids, and good food), but I feel behind -- because I came from a poor family who scraped on a regular. My parents still work their fairly simple factory jobs as they need to pay off their debts (albeit they are below 65) What I'm trying this year is ensuring I can allocate a certain…

I *strongly* encourage you to pick a budgeting program and stick with it. I say this as someone who comes from perhaps more meager means than most in this thread and I now am in a similar position as you. I use YNAB but I'm sure any will do. Essentially, I give every dollar a "job", whether that is to be the next car insurance payment 6 months from now or for our vacation fund. I know what money I have and where it's…

> for our vacation fund.

Well most people with the mentality GP is describing cannot get themselves to do this in first place. not sure if this is a budgeting problem. Ppl save obsessively because they think they might need that money for an unavoidable future expense even though they can't quite tell what that might be.

Re: The art and science of spending money

#75

Post by sanderjd »

luxurytent wrote: post #39
malnourish wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I *strongly* encourage you to pick a budgeting program and stick with it. I say this as someone who comes from perhaps more meager means than most in this thread and I now am in a similar position as you. I use YNAB but I'm sure any will do. Essentially, I give every dollar a "job", whether that is to be the next car insurance payment 6 months from now or for our vacation fund. I know what money I have and where it's…

I think you're right. I've mostly stayed away from budgeting apps. I'm already quite busy with work and parenting two young kids, but it may be the best way to train the mind. Thank you

I also work a lot and have two young kids. Going through and updating the budget each week or two is one of the main things I do to relax :)

Re: The art and science of spending money

#76

Post by curation »

tehCorner wrote: post #24

> Frugality inertia: a lifetime of good savings habits can’t be transitioned to a spending phase. Coming from a poor family and knowing the hard way the issues of not having money I've been obsessed with saving money since I got my first paycheck 8 years ago and I always thought "at the point I would earn current salary + x I will start enjoying life more and stop worrying about money" but that never happened. 8 year…

Similar. I left home at 15 made my own way. I saved 95% of what I made - drank powdered milk, worked 7 days a week for 15 years multiple jobs, side jobs (flip houses, production company). But I set a goal so, unlike my grandmother, who never stopped fearing the return of the Great Depression, I could stop. I retired in my mid-thirties and now I study languages and write and travel, but I don't buy stuff. Maybe if you set an achievable goal it will help.

Re: The art and science of spending money

#77

Post by boringg »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #63
ant6n wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can buy any meal at any restaurant I want and I never care about the price. It’s a glorious feeling. I eat whatever I want. Unfathomable My budget for food used to be limited by money, now it’s limited by calories.

And time. Restaurants are very time consuming.

Not really. Include food prep and clean up in your equation.

Re: The art and science of spending money

#78

Post by sanderjd »

wtfmcgrill wrote: post #40
luxurytent wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're right. I've mostly stayed away from budgeting apps. I'm already quite busy with work and parenting two young kids, but it may be the best way to train the mind. Thank you

I have the same problem, I don't track my spending but have money automatically plowed into different investments and am generally frugal. Been looking into money manager ex and home bank as foss softwares. Mint, quicken and ynab are popular but I don't want a cloud solution where I have to pay a subscription fee, I mostly just want transactions with labelled data so I can see where the money goes.

Personally, I realized that I was wasting a lot more in opportunity cost by trying to make all the various non-subscription solutions work for me (and writing my own for awhile), and I'm much happier now paying ynab a yearly pittance instead of spending all that time on something without much actual value to me. (And by switching to a subscription model they've been able to improve the product much more quickly than they were with the classic version.)

Re: The art and science of spending money

#80

Post by sanderjd »

sokoloff wrote: post #28

> Frugality inertia: a lifetime of good savings habits can’t be transitioned to a spending phase I think a lot of financial planners start from a base assumption that their clients will be happiest if they spend their accumulated wealth. That’s not true in my case (at least as far as I can self-analyze). Whatever we don’t spend isn’t lost potential for us, but rather is future potential for our kids. Taking only the…

Check in with your kids about this. I'd rather my parents spend what they have saved. I don't need or really even want them to pass anything on to me. I'd much rather they enjoy their retirement more, pay for more visits to their grandchildren, and have lots of interesting stories and about what they've been doing to tell them.
Post reply on HN