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Maladaptive Frugality

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Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#71

Post by Ekaros »

freetime2 wrote: post #51
metabagel wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My mother still clips coupons in the Sunday newspaper, despite being financially well-off enough to not clip coupons. I considered listing this as an example of maladaptive frugality in another post, but then I figured it’s just something she enjoys doing.

Honestly in current state of world. Which is more enjoyment clipping coupons or looking for bargains or being on social media? Would something actually useful or more enjoyable happen with that time?

Hell. Even other type of media consumption unless you really enjoy it might be balance you can question.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#72

Post by ludicrousdispla »

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.

Back when I was younger and earned minimum wage, whenever I thought about buying something I'd run the calculation of how many hours I would need to work to pay for it. That helped me save quite a bit.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#73

Post by swiftcoder »

Fellow frugalite here, and man, is it hard to break the habit of agonising over every purchase. Took me nearly 20 years in tech before I convinced myself I could justify just buying a new laptop every 5 years, and not sit around waiting for things to compile on the old one - and thats an item that is both essential to my work and also tax deductible. The agonising is even worse with items that are technically non-essential (but would make life better)

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#74

Post by koshergweilo »

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…

Thanks for the article, I really enjoyed it!

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#75

Post by cwillu »

kjellsbells wrote: post #65
brailsafe wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also a very different type of cold close to the water. -40C will dry out your skin and make it feel like it's burning, but -5C in Scotland or on one of the Gulf Islands near Vancouver will make your bones feel frozen without good insulation.

You know those Christmas cards that show a frosty twinkly white treescape? That climate will kill you even at -5C. People die on Ben Nevis every few years because they think its not that cold. But Scottish cold in that part of the world is brutal, there's so much moisture in the air that freezes if you get wet and cant quickly get dry you will die fast. Still, it's a beautiful part of the country.

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 wrong.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#77

Post by Havoc »

> What I took away: eating at a good restaurant was bad, taking out cheap food was good because it saved money.

Any sort of morality like framing around it is likely to lead to issues imo.

The closer you can get to an analytical approach the better I think - can I afford it, is it good value for money, is it useful/furthers my goals etc

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#78

Post by ansgri »

solatic wrote: post #61

The most helpful tool here, I've found, is maintaining a personal finances spreadsheet. It's one thing, without a spreadsheet, to have the emotion of "I'm not going to have enough and I need to save more to make sure I have enough." I'd argue it's even evolutionary; we want to make sure we have enough to get through the winter we know is coming. It's quite another when your spreadsheet shows you saved X, your monthly…

That is good if you can count on your cost of living being predictable. It's not for many people, even for relatively well-off ones: you may earn a lot for your area but being an immigrant without a permanent enough status in your current country, and your home country which you always have a right to return to may be unsafe or highly undesirable for whatever reason. So you need to consider the emergency of moving somewhere in a political and legal climate not known in advance.

Thus it becomes a more difficult choice what proportion to bet on stability of the current living situation, and what on long-term savings for emergencies which look quite probable but still unmeasurable. And the latter is complicated by absence of reliable and relatively liquid investment opportunities. All in all, fun to be from a sanctioned country.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#79

Post by cwillu »

Noumenon72 wrote: post #38
komali2 wrote: post #18

> I plan to have fun spending my money in the future, so it’s time to start practicing now. The most optimal thing to do in our world is to pick an age, say, 60, and until your 60th birthday, maximize your suffering via frugality to just under the tolerable limit so as to maximize your potential for compound interest. This leaves you with the most freedom and opportunity during the most fun part of your life, when yo…

Even more optimal would be to pick an age, say, 60, and commit to moving to Canada for MAID at that time. This means you don't need to compound nearly as long, because you don't need to insure against a long life unable to work. Then you can start not selling your labor while you're still young enough to enjoy it.

I'm not sure what you think the MAID program is, but (leaving aside your ineligibility for health care in canada until e.g. you gain permanent resident status) if you're not suffering from a grievous and irremediable health condition, you're not eligible for MAID.

Re: Maladaptive Frugality

#80

Post by lstodd »

There is frugality and there is taking inflation into account when deciding on save vs loan. For the last many years it was net profit to take loans, spend and pay them back later because inflation meant you got more goods/services that way. On the other hand keeping cash/savings over some smallish buffer where opportunity costs dominate is/was always net loss. That not touching US-specific stuff like insane student loans, credit card terms or healthcare.
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