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No Desire To Spend

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Re: No Desire To Spend

#61

Post by natrius »

IgorPartola wrote: post #43
debacle wrote: post #27

"The people who generally have their financial shit together don't usually realize when it's pay day." Seems like a pretty specious argument. If you pay bills, then you know when bills are due and you know when payday is. That's finance in a nutshell - managing your AR and your AP. "Do you live within biking distance from work? No? Then move closer to work." I live in one of the better school districts in the area an…

"Do you live within biking distance from work? No? Then move closer to work." is dubious advice. If you have to pay 2x what you pay now to live closer to work, are you saving enough by not having a longer commute? Better advice is "Use common sense with where you live and work."

The vast majority of the American public underprices their commute. "Common sense" would be incorrect. If people actually put together the price of commuting and compared it to the cost of rent closer in, more people would live in urban areas. It'd be even more lopsided if roads and pollution were priced correctly and schools were purchased separately from housing.

Re: No Desire To Spend

#62

Post by engtech »

cperciva wrote: post #10
engtech wrote: post #2

I'm always surprised that more people don't bike to work, if they can do it in a reasonable amount of time and safety.

There's a lot of people who are physically incapable of biking to work -- not because of distance, but because of some combination of {age, injuries, lack of fitness, difficult terrain, luggage}. It's easy for a fit 20 year old who lives on a flood plain to say that more people should cycle to work. It's not so easy for an overweight 40 year old who needs to drop her kids off at daycare, works at the top of a steep h…

out of the ~25 people who bike to work at my office the youngest person is 35. The majority of the hardcore cyclists are 45-55.

But there is only one person who uses a chariot to drop their toddler off at daycare on the way.

Re: No Desire To Spend

#63

Post by engtech »

debacle wrote: post #27

"The people who generally have their financial shit together don't usually realize when it's pay day." Seems like a pretty specious argument. If you pay bills, then you know when bills are due and you know when payday is. That's finance in a nutshell - managing your AR and your AP. "Do you live within biking distance from work? No? Then move closer to work." I live in one of the better school districts in the area an…

I've always known when bill day is, but in the last years I have never thought about which weeks pay day falls on except for one bad month when property tax and first+last at daycare happened during the same week.

Re: No Desire To Spend

#64

Post by engtech »

dagw wrote: post #58
legulere wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the quality of the housing mean space? Living a more minimalist life also means having less stuff. The reason why we build everincreasing houses is that we need space for our stuff.

Sure it can mean space. I disagree that the only reason to want more space is to hold more stuff. I want more space so that I can have a room that I can close the door on and call my own (and by extension let my daughter and girlfriend have their own rooms as well). I'd like rooms with dedicated functions like a workshop for me to build things in and a room where my girlfriend can paint. I'd like a guest room so I ca…

I sometimes question the utility of guest rooms.

I've often seen people layout their house so the guest room is in some prime area of the house and the workroom they use all the time is in a horrible dungeon.

I've always thought that the rooms should be allocated based on their utility.

Re: No Desire To Spend

#65

Post by engtech »

tomp wrote: post #14
Robin_Message wrote: post #8

If you like this, you'll love http://mrmoneymustache.com (no affiliation.)

Please explain why, otherwise it still looks like spam.

I've read a few of the MMM articles that have landed on HN before, and I think the original article was very reminiscent of the tone and style of MMM (but without the details and examples that MMM would have included).

Re: No Desire To Spend

#66

Post by debacle »

leeHS wrote: post #46
patio11 wrote: post #40

I spent more than a few years scrimping to the bone earlier in my twenties. The notion has an intrinsic appeal to me. Just so you know the context when I say: For what it's worth, if you're a HNer, I'll tell you something Ramit Sethi says often which would have been useful to internalize, oh, five years earlier: it is very hard to cut expenditures in such a meaningful fashion that your financial situation qualitative…

If you can get a raise, that's fantastic, and congrats! My experience however is that without asking "why do I buy the things I do", people tend to raise their spending to their new salary level. Why not two or three latte's per day? That's what $15 per day, or about $4000 per year.

> Why not two or three latte's per day?

Because that's close to 900 calories.

Re: No Desire To Spend

#67

Post by engtech »

debacle wrote: post #45
logn wrote: post #28

I found one easy way to save is to think of it like spending. Like, sweet, I just bought $500 in stock, cha-ching.

My wife and I have found this type of investing really fulfilling. Instead of investing in larger but more infrequent chunks, we'll buy stocks 50 or 100 at a time to add to our portfolio. Since we've started, we've increased our annual allocation to long-term savings 100%. Investing is also a lot more fun.

How is that working out with brokerage fees?

Are there only fees for selling?

Re: No Desire To Spend

#68

Post by Robin_Message »

tomp wrote: post #14
Robin_Message wrote: post #8

If you like this, you'll love http://mrmoneymustache.com (no affiliation.)

Please explain why, otherwise it still looks like spam.

I kind of see what you mean, but what more could I have written that wouldn't look like spam desperately trying not to look like spam? I wrote "no affiliation" to indicate it was not spam; since I am the only Robin Message on the internet, and I suspect the whole world, my word is my bond ;-)

Re: No Desire To Spend

#69

Post by zurn »

patio11 wrote: post #40

I spent more than a few years scrimping to the bone earlier in my twenties. The notion has an intrinsic appeal to me. Just so you know the context when I say: For what it's worth, if you're a HNer, I'll tell you something Ramit Sethi says often which would have been useful to internalize, oh, five years earlier: it is very hard to cut expenditures in such a meaningful fashion that your financial situation qualitative…

On difficulty of cutting expenditures: It also means it is very painful to shift down to a lower salary and more satifying (or less stressful etc) job. Income lock-in.

Re: No Desire To Spend

#70

Post by debacle »

engtech wrote: post #67
debacle wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife and I have found this type of investing really fulfilling. Instead of investing in larger but more infrequent chunks, we'll buy stocks 50 or 100 at a time to add to our portfolio. Since we've started, we've increased our annual allocation to long-term savings 100%. Investing is also a lot more fun.

How is that working out with brokerage fees? Are there only fees for selling?

Not too bad. For short-term investments the fees would kill us, but since we're looking at longer term (and paying minimal fees) we're in okay shape.
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