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Maladaptive Frugality

herbertlui.net

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Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#191

Post by wing-_-nuts »

alphawhisky wrote: post #131
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. Civil Engineer here. Used to get clowned on by other STEM students for going into one of the "lowest paying" engineering majors. Post grad, I can't imagine a more stable job, and my generational cohort is having a hard time. Boy do I feel smart. And the bonuses after construction season? Forget about it.

I would think the biggest reward in civil engineering is seeing some tangible piece of infrastructure you designed, built, and serving society. Software engineering has been an interesting career, but I die a little inside when software I've written gets blown away like a Tibetan sand painting.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#192

Post by wing-_-nuts »

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.

Bah. I've driven luxury bmws, porches, and corvettes. You want to know what my daily driver is? A miata. Those other cars are faster, yes, but nothing else makes driving quite the occasion that a miata does. You don't have to go expensive to buy something you actually enjoy driving.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#193

Post by cloverich »

engineer_22 wrote: post #187
adithyassekhar wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 healt…

> What you see is [...] packaged in a way to make the viewers feel good and not sad. Maybe. Or maybe they are genuinely young, free, and happy. > Most of us, educated, are aware of the fact that we are one medical emergency away from being bankrupt. Yes, but being aware of your mortality is inextricably linked to the human experience. Not a bug, a feature. > Means for me personally includes not worrying about healthc…

> but being aware of your mortality is inextricably linked to the human experience.

They aren't aware / afraid of their mortality. They are aware of the lack of financial safety net / social support. It is in effect everyone accepting a more primal state of affairs, where the weak die, as a virtue. Rather than a state of affairs that we are economically capable of: Universal healthcare. Many of us understand this is a political hurdle. But that is precisely what makes it so disheartening. If we were all too poor to afford socialized healthcare, we could at least take solace in our shared experience. But that is not the state of affairs. It is an invented problem. And most frustrating of all, we already spend more than people with universal healthcare. Maddening.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#194

Post by wing-_-nuts »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #165
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…

> By most estimates, only about 10-20% of US households are debt-free. This needs to be qualified with the fact that it doesn't make sense for many people to be debt-free if they are financially literate. I know many people, myself included, who carry debt they could easily pay off because it would be irrational to do so. Being debt-free would actually make them poorer. This often holds true even when ignoring obviou…

*Cries in paid off 3.25% mortgage...

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#195

Post by SoftTalker »

adrianN wrote: post #53
takinola wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Depending on the kind of heating system you have and the temperature differences you talk about it can be cheaper to heat the house to a constant temperature (because your heating can run more efficiently under lower load).

I once got a programmable thermostat and went through the trouble to set it up for the times we were normally at home and away, and my energy bills went up.

Now I just set a temperature that everyone can tolerate and I forget about it.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#196

Post by randusername »

Maladaptive frugality is just one of many "maladaptive X" where X is something that we overgeneralized in childhood.

I think it is especially easy to overgeneralize frugality because, either because it is taboo or conventionally boring, parents don't always share the situational details that prompt their behavior.

In my life I internalized "everyone should rule the thermostat with an iron fist always" when the more complete picture would have been "because we're cash-strapped in the 2008 recession and our house is old and leaky we're ruling the thermostat with an iron fist for now".

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#197

Post by wing-_-nuts »

square_usual wrote: post #185
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I ask, how old are you now? I notice this sort of 'black and white' thinking in a lot of younger folks. You don't have to live like a miser (especially in tech!) to be able to FIRE. You simply have to be disciplined and consistently save and invest instead of trying to keep up with the Joneses. I admit, I was probably more frugal in my 20's than I should have been, but 40 something me is very grateful to 20 somet…

You're the fifth person to assume me being against FIRE means you should burn all your money, which is kind of the problem with the mindset!

In fairness, if I'm the fifth person to misinterpret what you wrote, you did not do a good job of explaining your position.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#198

Post by neogodless »

square_usual wrote: post #180
neogodless wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> many people who get into FIRE commit themselves to a lifetime of slight misery instead of learning to be okay with living life when they can Source for this assertion? I've been in contact with various people at various points on the FIRE journey, and I haven't seen a lot that go "too far" towards being miserly, cheap, and miserable. Especially when they are high earners like the parent comment. They live lifestyle…

The point of FIRE isn't that you invest in your future. I think it's unreasonable to say the opposite of FIRE is to save nothing, when it is in fact saving at good rate while aiming to retire in your 60s. My point is that aiming to retire early - like 20 years early, when you're in you're 40s and still eager to work - is likely to make your life miserable if you're the kind of person who actually enjoys work and can…

> The point of FIRE isn't that you invest in your future

Huh? "Financial Independence, Retire Early" Sure sounds like you're saving money and investing it in such a fashion that at some future date, you're no longer obligated to do paid work -- before the traditional retirement age.

> I think it's unreasonable to say the opposite of FIRE is to save nothing, when it is in fact saving at good rate while aiming to retire in your 60s.

Again you confuse me. Most people do not save enough for a solid retirement in their 60s, so it does not seem like you can say that is the "opposite" of FIRE. The "opposite" is simply being financially dependent on your working income (at least) until traditional retirement age.

"Retire early" does not force you to "never work again" if it's something you desire. It means you have the financial independence and means to decide how to spend your time. If you really like working for money, being financially independent does not prevent you from doing it, and I can't see how it will make you miserable.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#199

Post by bdangubic »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #165
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…

> By most estimates, only about 10-20% of US households are debt-free. This needs to be qualified with the fact that it doesn't make sense for many people to be debt-free if they are financially literate. I know many people, myself included, who carry debt they could easily pay off because it would be irrational to do so. Being debt-free would actually make them poorer. This often holds true even when ignoring obviou…

being debt assumes appreciation on the asset you are holding under that debt which has been artificially inflated by the governments for yeeeeears now. you would never hold a debt on the house (even at 3.5%) if the house stayed the same price the day of the purchase and date of the sale. too many people are saying “some debt is good/great” which is only marginally true if you make certain assumptions which is exactly what they are - assumptions.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#200

Post by wing-_-nuts »

catcowcostume wrote: post #11
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…

Just a reminder that since a couple of centuries ago in most Western societies, wives are not "things" anymore, but rather human beings on the same level as husbands.

Whatever happened to the idea that one should assume someone else is speaking in good faith, and that you should chose the most charitable interpretation of someone's words?
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