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Maladaptive Frugality

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Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#101

Post by davemp »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #85
freetime2 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For sure it's more common for people not to save enough. But for people who are frugal and save diligently for most of their lives, there often comes a point where they cross a threshold where they have met all of their financial goals, and the "problem" is no longer how save money but to enjoy spending it. And this can be a real challenge for people who have built up deeply ingrained saving habits. My mother, for ex…

When I started driving my car had vinyl seats that you had to peel yourself out of on a hot day, a plastic steering wheel that you could barely touch when the sun was out, hand wound windows, fixed seat belts and a handbrake that barely worked. Even the cheapest car on the market feels luxurious now. In comparison the difference between a Toyota and a Lexus is marginal. Expensive cars are mostly about status signalli…

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Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#102

Post by komali2 »

wallst07 wrote: post #96
komali2 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to act optimally according to the current system, I don't. My concern is many seem to try to act optimally without understanding how depressing the reality of its incentives are.

I think the thing you are missing is that people are quite complex in how they model these things internally. What works for you, may not work for them. I don't think your advice is good "general advice" but if you treat it as a "this works for me, it might for you", then it might be worth reading.

I'm not sure if you caught that my post was a criticism of the system. I'm just describing what the optimal strategy is as prescribed by how our society is structured, not advocating for it.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#103

Post by ubermonkey »

hhh wrote: post #100
wallst07 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Expensive cars are mostly about status signalling Uhm, only if you are counting the most basic utility, then you're right. However if you actually enjoy driving (A->A driving), there is a HGUE difference and it's not just signaling. It's that you probably can't tell the difference, or don't care. There is no comparison between driving a new Porsche or Bentley vs a new Toyota or even a Lexus.

Can you explain why?

They cannot, because they are wrong. And I say this as a person who has owned no small number of fancy cars (but I got better).

A new base-model Prius is absurdly luxurious compared to a base model car of 1975 or 1985 or even 1995. If you have lived long enough to see this change, then dropping 2x or 3x or 10x the cost of the Prius self-evidently puts you wildly beyond the point of diminishing returns.

The Prius is going to have excellent climate control, and a phenomenal stereo. It's going to have adaptive cruise control, and will warn you when you drift out of your lane, or if you're about to run into an obstacle.

Outside of motorsports-sorts of things, what you get out of more expensive vehicles is of limited utility. Mostly, it's just showing off.

Now, if you want a track weapon, then yeah, you DO get more by spending. But for a regular person who wants to get from point A to point B comfortably and safely? The Prius is fantastic, and it's hard to justify spending more unless you're willing to admit that it's a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses kind of thing.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#104

Post by steveBK123 »

My spouse and I both grew up in this kind of household. Interesting to see how we & our siblings all responded, some followed suit and others had opposite reaction. I think some people are good at frugality and some are good at income maximizing, and few are good at both.

I turned into an income maximizer.. started working at 14.. post college left home, took a high stakes career and hopped to new opportunities proactively. Response to not wanting anyone to be able to control me via money.

For my spouse & I it was a reaction to 1) having a lot of childhood of consequences/regrets of over-frugality like frozen pipes bursting, parents lamenting not going back home for 10 years during which their own parents died, asking for a single $10 toy for birthday and having them buy a knock-off instead, etc.

2) a reaction to teenage parental control via money like when I was moving to the big city for my job and the housing deposit was due before the hiring company was going to wire me my housing stipend, and my parents refused to float me $1k for a month (and then gifted me more than this as a graduation gift a few months later).

So I think you want to instill a respect for money in your children but not a fear.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#105

Post by steveBK123 »

dnnddidiej wrote: post #23
zephyrthenoble wrote: post #3

I was so frugal that I didn't refinance my (admittedly already low) interest rate during Covid because "we were planning on selling the house in a year or so". Oh well :)

Thats more of a forecasting thing than frugality.

No that can be a frugality mindset of not wanting to pay the refinancing closing costs (which can be 5 figures) .. I've seen family make similar sorts of short term savings vs long term savings trade-offs.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#106

Post by layer8 »

freetime2 wrote: post #39
chromacity wrote: post #4

Most people in the US are pulled into living on credit straight out of school. You get a student loan, then a car loan, then a credit card, then a mortgage. You finance vacations, appliances, kitchen remodels, smartphones - mostly to keep up with friends and coworkers who finance their lifestyles too. A lot of people are in non-stop debt from the age of 18 to 55, if not longer. By most estimates, only about 10-20% of…

For sure it's more common for people not to save enough. But for people who are frugal and save diligently for most of their lives, there often comes a point where they cross a threshold where they have met all of their financial goals, and the "problem" is no longer how save money but to enjoy spending it. And this can be a real challenge for people who have built up deeply ingrained saving habits. My mother, for ex…

> The idea of spending $1,000 on a phone is just something she is unable to bring herself to do

She wouldn’t need to spend that much. You can get a perfectly fine refurbished iPhone 16e for $400.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#108

Post by steveBK123 »

wenc wrote: post #36

I read this article 10 years ago by a guy named Ricky Yean who went to Stanford as an economically disadvantaged admit and couldn’t shake his poverty mindset and it cost him when he was running a startup. Why “few successful startup founders grew up desperately poor” https://rickyyean.com/2016/01/22/privilege-and-inequality-in... Poverty mindset is maladaptive because it teaches you only money is worth anything, so y…

> Poverty mindset is maladaptive because it teaches you only money is worth anything, so you hoard it. But in truth time is also worth a lot and sometimes it’s wise to use money to buy time.

This is something I've observed in overly frugal family. Stuff/money is worth too much to them.

You can't gift them anything "nice" because they will put it on the shelf and never open it (don't want to damage it).

Gifting them consumables with an expiration date also doesn't work as they'll "save it" until the expiration date lapses and then eat expired food.

Taking them out is weird because they'll insist on taking leftovers home off every other persons plate at the table, including stuff they don't normally eat.

They'll fill up 2 bedrooms in their home with 40 year old cheap clothes & furniture that is worth so little we'll need to pay someone to haul it away. They won't donate it because they think the people who receive it will waste it. So they'll pay money to ship some of the 40 year old cheap clothing to poorer family back home who it doesn't fit and could just buy cheap clothes there with the money they paid for shipping.

Owning multiple 30+ year old cars until the mechanic literally refuses to work on them anymore telling you they are too rusted out to repair or drive.

This from people who are wealth enough to own multiple properties, have retired early, have government pensions, etc.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#109

Post by forgotTheLast »

david-gpu wrote: post #97
cwillu wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the relative humidity is 100%, then being wet won't make you colder: the water has to evaporate in order to cool you, and it can't do that at 100% relative humidity. The problem that high humidity cold causes is increased convection, and the problem being wet causes is the dramatic near-complete loss of the insulation value of many garments. There is a _lot_ of folk science about cold weather that is just plain wr…

> The problem that high humidity cold causes is increased convection Can you help me understand? How does higher relative humidity increase convection?

Humid air has higher heat capacity and higher heat conductivity than dry air which both increase convective heat loss.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#110

Post by quickthrowman »

takinola wrote: post #50
don-code wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience has been that it's easy to say, "oh, it's just me", but much harder to subject someone you care about to the same standard that you would yourself. I'm in a similar position with the thermostat, even though something we initially bonded over was that we both kept our thermostats at a low temperature that was outside the window of being socially acceptable.

In the winter, I keep the thermostat at frigid temperatures when I am home alone and jack it up to warm just before any one else gets home. My thinking is that it is wasteful to warm up the entire house when it's just me since I can put on a sweater but I don't want to subject others to my, shall we say, quirks. I keep meaning to calculate how much I am actually saving by freezing my butt off. My guess is it'll work…

It probably costs more to do that than to maintain a constant temperature. When you turn the setpoint down, everything inside your house and also your house itself starts losing heat. When you turn the setpoint back up, the cooled off house and items inside of it will suck up most of the heat until the stuff is warm again, and then the air warms up.

This is much more noticeable when you go into a freezing cold building and turn on the thermostat, it takes almost an entire day to heat up the stuff and building.

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