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Maladaptive Frugality

herbertlui.net

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Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#121

Post by bachmeier »

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…

Heavy debt is a part of the US culture. You can probably imagine the responses folks would have when they found out I was 40, a tenured professor with a family, and didn't own a house. Nobody had a heart attack but I'm sure some were close. I was just violating cultural norms too much by not going into debt to buy a house as anyone in my position was supposed to do. Then they'd find out I drove an old vehicle and didn't take expensive vacations...sometimes you have to go with the math rather than cultural norms.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#122

Post by welldoneator »

anticorporate wrote: post #114
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm perhaps pathologically frugal myself. I've found for myself the best compromise is to force yourself to pick at least one feature other than cost. We've got a 17 year old Toyota Yaris that I tell myself is for fuel efficiency, and an old Ford Ranger because I wanted at least one of our vehicles to be able to move sheet goods. Technically I could probably walk onto most any lot and pay cash for whatever I wanted,…

With cars if you wanted to bias yourself towards newer cars you could prioritize safety features alongside cost.

A Yaris and a Ranger (who doesn’t love a Ranger!) are going to serve you well, but they’re not going to have the active and passive safety features of a more modern car. Put next to cost it makes it a bit harder to perform maladaptive frugality.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#123

Post by adithyassekhar »

anticorporate wrote: post #118

I struggle with this. I feel so guilty for replacing my four year old phone this week, even though my old phone has had hardware issues for more than a year. There wasn't really a puritanical element for me, it seems to be just from growing below the poverty line. The flip side of it is I've accidentally joined the FIRE movement. Making a moderate tech salary for most of my time since graduating college but feeling g…

You know there’s an upcoming generation of developers who are so jealous of you? Not your fault or anything.

We managed to make the latter irrelevant or by no means a high earner.

Everything is expensive, tech took over all the jobs, now tech itself has found ways to end those jobs. You either have to be a medical professional/media person now to live without worry.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#124

Post by engineer_22 »

I am a consulting engineer serving small communities in Central New York.

Ostensibly my job is to design construction projects to fix a problem, but most of my job is actually helping the community figure out how to pay for the fix.

My greatest frustration is Maladaptive Frugality. There are whole communities with this mindset, and it takes a lot of effort to communicate the reality to the town/village board that they're losing money by trying to save money. I've invested a lot of work into projects which come to naught because the decision makers can't imagine a future where spending money saves them money.

"Tripping over dimes to pick up pennies" observed one old farmer.

"I'm too poor to afford cheap tools" say the wiser tradesmen.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#125

Post by insom »

adithyassekhar wrote: post #123
anticorporate wrote: post #118

I struggle with this. I feel so guilty for replacing my four year old phone this week, even though my old phone has had hardware issues for more than a year. There wasn't really a puritanical element for me, it seems to be just from growing below the poverty line. The flip side of it is I've accidentally joined the FIRE movement. Making a moderate tech salary for most of my time since graduating college but feeling g…

You know there’s an upcoming generation of developers who are so jealous of you? Not your fault or anything. We managed to make the latter irrelevant or by no means a high earner. Everything is expensive, tech took over all the jobs, now tech itself has found ways to end those jobs. You either have to be a medical professional/media person now to live without worry.

I'm in the same situation as GP and while I think you're right (we're some of the last well paid software developers who aren't also founders) it doesn't help with feeling less guilty!

It's a weird kind of guilt because it's not like we individually created these economic conditions; we were just there at the right time to take advantage of them before they were gone. I tend to think of this as "useless guilt" (vs. guilt about taking a transatlantic flight or other high-impact activity -- which I still do, but I think that guilt is societally useful)

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#126

Post by anticorporate »

adithyassekhar wrote: post #123
anticorporate wrote: post #118

I struggle with this. I feel so guilty for replacing my four year old phone this week, even though my old phone has had hardware issues for more than a year. There wasn't really a puritanical element for me, it seems to be just from growing below the poverty line. The flip side of it is I've accidentally joined the FIRE movement. Making a moderate tech salary for most of my time since graduating college but feeling g…

You know there’s an upcoming generation of developers who are so jealous of you? Not your fault or anything. We managed to make the latter irrelevant or by no means a high earner. Everything is expensive, tech took over all the jobs, now tech itself has found ways to end those jobs. You either have to be a medical professional/media person now to live without worry.

> You know there’s an upcoming generation of developers who are so jealous of you? Not your fault or anything.

I do, and and I think that's part of the reason I feel guilty about not working. Why should I get an easy ride when other people did not? I suppose there's some small element of worrying that I'm wrong about my future needs . I know I have some skills that are still useful and I can put them to work now, but I'm less sure I'd be able to do that in five years. That part of it is probably not maladaptive, however, even though it probably comes from the same place of growing up with very little.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#127

Post by engineer_22 »

adithyassekhar wrote: post #123
anticorporate wrote: post #118

I struggle with this. I feel so guilty for replacing my four year old phone this week, even though my old phone has had hardware issues for more than a year. There wasn't really a puritanical element for me, it seems to be just from growing below the poverty line. The flip side of it is I've accidentally joined the FIRE movement. Making a moderate tech salary for most of my time since graduating college but feeling g…

You know there’s an upcoming generation of developers who are so jealous of you? Not your fault or anything. We managed to make the latter irrelevant or by no means a high earner. Everything is expensive, tech took over all the jobs, now tech itself has found ways to end those jobs. You either have to be a medical professional/media person now to live without worry.

> You either have to be a medical professional/media person now to live without worry.

No, you just need to live within your means.

The internet is amazing, I like to watch videos from developing nations, where people live on a fraction of western budgets... what strikes me is the happy, free people I see. That's hard to fake.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#128

Post by engineer_22 »

arjie wrote: post #8

A wife is a useful thing to have in this respect, not because they tend to profligacy, but because this kind of thing is much easier to detect and fix in someone close to you than in yourself. Both my wife and I have lived frugal lives at various times[0] and I feel much happier with the degree of spending we have now. I'm reminded of the intelligent corvids in Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Memory where the sum of…

> A wife is a useful thing to have in this respect, not because they tend to profligacy, but because this kind of thing is much easier to detect and fix in someone close to you than in yourself.

I think what you mean is, a wife/spouse can help you see maladaptive patterns that you're blind to?

I don't think you propose that you can "fix" your spouse's behavior?

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#129

Post by adithyassekhar »

engineer_22 wrote: post #127
adithyassekhar wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know there’s an upcoming generation of developers who are so jealous of you? Not your fault or anything. We managed to make the latter irrelevant or by no means a high earner. Everything is expensive, tech took over all the jobs, now tech itself has found ways to end those jobs. You either have to be a medical professional/media person now to live without worry.

> You either have to be a medical professional/media person now to live without worry. No, you just need to live within your means. The internet is amazing, I like to watch videos from developing nations, where people live on a fraction of western budgets... what strikes me is the happy, free people I see. That's hard to fake.

What you see is the happy side of things, of a particular section of society, packaged in a way to make the viewers feel good and not sad. They’re either too poor and uneducated or too rich.

Most of us, educated, are aware of the fact that we are one medical emergency away from being bankrupt.

> No, you just need to live within your means.

I politely disagree. Means for me personally includes not worrying about healthcare, losing a job, unexpected expenses, affording the facilities to participate in society rather than becoming a travelling nomad. It’s easy to be blind to your own blessings, even more so if you have already lived a life. These are life goals for people of my generation in my country.

People, educated ones, are no longer marrying. Guess why?

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#130

Post by neogodless »

wallst07 wrote: post #92
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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.

If you compare a Porsche SUV to a Lexus SUV, there's almost no difference.

If you compare a Porsche Boxster to a Toyota, the Porsche is much more of a driver's car and if you're the right kind of driver, there's simply no comparison. (We'll ignore the FT86 / 86 for the moment ;)!)

If you buy a Bentley... you probably pay someone else to drive it for you.

Something to remember in all of this is hedonic adaptation. Buying a Porsche will feel in the moment different from buying a Toyota. But a few months later, you will be driving "your car" and much of the time, you'll be thinking about driving, traffic, signs, speeds, lights, pedestrians, bikers, the song you're playing, your next turn, a dozen other things. For the most part, you won't be thinking about how much "better" your car is in comparison to the alternative. You'll be used to it. You'll have adapted.

Different cars are certainly different for a personality who is drawn to the merits of automobiles. My favorite car was a $20K used Mazda 3 hatchback. I liked it much better than some much more luxurious cars (including the Polestar 2 Performance Plus I have now.) But that wasn't because of luxuries (the Mazda had luxury and heated seats and climate control and swivel headlights and adaptive cruise control and... and...) but because I enjoyed pressing the clutch, pulling the gear lever into second, releasing the clutch, putting my foot down, and steering through a corner. (The Polestar has some merits as well, but they are very different merits.) The Mazda 3 had a whopping ~186 HP... but it was fun. (Don't get me started on my 2007 Honda Fit... oh the memories!)

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