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Maladaptive Frugality

herbertlui.net

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Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#41

Post by petesergeant »

freetime2 wrote: post #5

For years I did this with the thermostat - something I learned from my father who always kept the house under 65F (18C) in Winter. I'm somewhat ashamed to admit it even led to arguments with my spouse early in our marriage when I would enter a room and find the thermostat set to a balmy 70F. Eventually I just sat down, looked at how much it costs keep the house a few degrees warmer in winter, and realized we could af…

I’m always colder in my mother’s house in Scotland (-5°C on cold days) than I am at my MIL’s house in the frozen Canadian wastelands (-40°C/F on cold days), because my mother will play games with thermostat to save money, where my MIL would simply die of exposure if the heating wasn’t on consistently for 6 months of the year.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#42

Post by Quizzical4230 »

pornel wrote: post #33

This is very culture-specific. I've seen this in Poland. Under USSR rule frugality has been necessary to survive, but it left a lot of people forever stuck in that mindset, long after things got better. I know people who have a fortune in the bank, but live like they're broke, because they're afraid to spend anything from a "rainy day fund" even on rainy days.

Yes! I related a little too much with the blog post. My grandparents were Sindhi and they had to flee from Pakistan to India during the partition. As refugees in India, they had to start their life basically from scratch. Now I get why it's ingrained in me to be frugal, and even take pride in it when there's none. I see the very same behaviour in my Sindhi friends when they feel bad for spending money on essentials like hospital visits.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#43

Post by mock-possum »

amarant wrote: post #40

I do something kinda similar, I guess it counts as maladaptive frugality? Whenever I have something a little extra in my fridge, most often Italian prosciutto, I refrain from eating it, instead saving it for a "special occasion" even though it is, like, my favourite thing in the whole world. Eventually I have to throw the mouldy prosciutto away because I was too frugal to eat it. I'm practicing though, learning to ea…

Exactly the key of mindset that drives me to play through entire RPGs without ever popping a single item. It is essential that I collect 99 potions, and never consume even 1.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#44

Post by ehnto »

nneonneo wrote: post #13

For some, I think there’s that satisfaction that comes with saving money (like you’re somehow “cheating the system”, even when it’s just a coupon that gets you to buy something you wouldn’t otherwise). In some cases, that satisfaction grows with the amount of time or effort expended to save the money in the first place, which is ironic because that money-value-of-time probably far exceeds the actual amount saved. Pra…

I've always found the "time is money" hourly rate comparisons a bit contrived, because I can't actually trade my every waking hour for an hourly rate.

The reality for most people is that the trade-off is actually between time spent on looking for bargains, or time doing something else that doesn't make any money.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#45

Post by metabagel »

ehnto wrote: post #44
nneonneo wrote: post #13

For some, I think there’s that satisfaction that comes with saving money (like you’re somehow “cheating the system”, even when it’s just a coupon that gets you to buy something you wouldn’t otherwise). In some cases, that satisfaction grows with the amount of time or effort expended to save the money in the first place, which is ironic because that money-value-of-time probably far exceeds the actual amount saved. Pra…

I've always found the "time is money" hourly rate comparisons a bit contrived, because I can't actually trade my every waking hour for an hourly rate. The reality for most people is that the trade-off is actually between time spent on looking for bargains, or time doing something else that doesn't make any money.

It really depends on whether you enjoy looking for bargains or not. If you don’t, then it feels like you are working, only you’re not getting paid.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#47

Post by chromacity »

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…

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 it's just tiring now.

Basically, I'm at this stage in life where 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". In another ten years, I'll probably just say "no, I'm not doing this again, just let me use my old computer for as long as possible".

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#48

Post by skirmish »

chromacity wrote: post #47
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…

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!

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#50

Post by takinola »

don-code wrote: post #37
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…

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 out to something like $0.75 a day or something equally trivial.

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