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Maladaptive Frugality

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Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#211

Post by bellowsgulch »

themafia wrote: post #208
randusername wrote: post #196

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 c…

I fixed it by simply placing a value on my own time. When I started I figured my time was worth at least $50/hr. Spending an hour trying to save less than $50 is an absolute loss, recognizing that, my behavior changed easily.

Paradoxically, this works less and less the higher your income is.

If you value your time at, say $200/hr and you work with other people who claim their billable labor is also close to $200/hr, and you value it at $15/hr, then, no, you’re going to do it yourself.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#212

Post by mieubrisse »

I see this with my dad as he approaches retirement. I try to remind him that if he doesn't pay with money, he's going to pay with his time... and right now he's saving money he doesn't need for time he doesn't have.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#213

Post by sundarurfriend »

Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much is a pretty good book about the psychology of this. The stronger your the necessity for saving (whether from poverty or external influence like here), the deeper it gets embedded in your psyche as well, and can start to feel like "this is just who I am" as in habits around this becoming something you see as intrinsic to your personality.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#214

Post by rawgabbit »

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?

I think he was talking about the weather conditions. Cold weather fronts with high humidity means strong winds.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#215

Post by rwmj »

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 best part of FIRE is the Financial Independence bit. When my boss asks me to do something, I'll do it if I think it's a good idea, and ignore it otherwise, because what's the worst that can happen?

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#216

Post by adithyassekhar »

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…

> What I mean by "live within your means" is to spend less than you earn.

I see where you are coming from, I genuinely take it in good faith. There's just this constant pressure to be this or that at certain stages of our lives, especially in the asian culture I am part of. I've managed to avoid these all my life but lately I've been falling for it as well.

> I have been in poverty in my life, and I feel fortunate that we were able to escape it.

Genuinely happy to hear this. :) It gives a lot of hope.

> I have my own theories, but I'd be happy to know yours

It's a cultural thing, I have friends who haven't married yet because they feel they can't afford a family with their current circumstances. Here marriages are a family thing, so the parents need to approve. And no father or mother will send their daughter to such a person when they have more options available to them. You could live the frugal life or the glamorous instagram life people are brainwashed with. Everyone is running in a constant state of survive or die mentality because no one has a safety net to fall back to.

I am not saying all are like that, there are independent strong women/men but they are dime a dozen.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#217

Post by randusername »

themafia wrote: post #208
randusername wrote: post #196

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 c…

I fixed it by simply placing a value on my own time. When I started I figured my time was worth at least $50/hr. Spending an hour trying to save less than $50 is an absolute loss, recognizing that, my behavior changed easily.

This helps but it brings its own dangers.

At high income it can make you feel silly for doing anything other than working. You second-guess walking the dog even if you enjoy it because you can pay someone to do it for so much less.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#218

Post by m463 »

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…

Lots of people who retire poorly, die. I don't mean money, I mean a plan.

I think even if you retire, you need a JOB. You can define it, but you need something to do, to engage you. You also need vigorous exercise and strength training.

great book: younger next year

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#219

Post by rawgabbit »

oleggromov wrote: post #82
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…

A deep and thoughtful piece, thanks for sharing. I'm wondering at this point what are known methods of overcoming "mindset inequality". Any advice will be appreciated.

I grew up poor. Everyone I knew was poor or barely getting by. It took me a lifetime to realize over-frugality can also be self-destructive.

My extended family members use to trade stories of working dangerous jobs or getting mugged and laugh it off. That was until my aunt got shot in the head working the late shift at a convenience store. She was in the news and the community and the hospital paid all her medical bills; but she was never the same after that.

Growing up gambling was a mysterious force that ran through my family. They worked hard. Like their bodies were physically wrecked and they saved and saved. They would often spend so much time at work or at their side hustles, they would neglect their children who would teach themselves how to cook because no adult was at home. And yet, they would blow their entire savings in a weekend in Las Vegas. Or sometimes came back even in debt.

Now, I would say that frugality is not a moral imperative. Being poor is not a virtue. Sometimes fate deals it to you. But no job is worth wrecking your health. And it is not a sin to spend a little on something that makes life a bit sweeter.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#220

Post by rurp »

skirmish wrote: post #48
chromacity wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what you're attributing to frugality might be a more a matter of age? Many older folks are just wary of change. I'm not that old, but every time I upgrade my PC or phone, some of my workflows break and I need to pointlessly re-learn things I'd rather not re-learn. UI buttons get moved around, icons change, some settings are removed and others are added... this was exciting the first ten or twenty times, but i…

> my reaction to systemd wasn't "oh wow, this is progress" but "ugh, I need to learn how to start, stop, or modify services again" I must be young at heart while >60 years old; my reaction was "why is everybody whining about it, it's pretty nice, I like it". Same with jj vs git, jj is amazing!

It's definitely varies by person. I'm much more like the GP where relearning how to do basic things I already know how to do is one of the absolute last things I want to spend my time on, but I know plenty of people who are the opposite. Newness and novelty are genuine features for some, and that's totally fine.

The annoying thing is that the latter group is over-represented in tech and a lot of core products like phones force people into that path. Most of the non-tech people I know couldn't care less about the latest iphone/android update,they just want the damn buttons to stay the same so they can do the stuff they were doing yesterday. But the only two phone platforms both change their UX regularly and users just have to go along with it.

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