David Bach wrote a self-help finance guide called ““The Latte Factor: Why You Don’t Have to Be Rich to Live Rich”. I hate this book. I once checked it out from the library, but couldn’t get past the sexist, condescending bullshit. The book is aimed at women, and since our feeble little minds can’t handle straightforward personal finance; Bach sets it up as a story. Young Zoey is struggling on her salary until she meets an older man (a barista, no less) and he teaches her the secrets of money management. Barf!
But, beyond the grossness of the setup, I don’t like it how it is used in popular culture as an explanation of why people aren’t financially secure. If someone is blithely spending money on lattes without ever considering the rest of their finances, they probably aren’t going to save that money if they stop buying lattes. I think it is used to suggest any frivolous spending is wrong, where frivolous is defined by the attacker. This leads to a really grim future to be staring down, and I think it makes it much more likely that someone will fail. I think Trashy has addressed this issue in some of his writing on personal finance. His wife has been less than enthusiastic over the idea that they will always have to watch their pennies, and I don’t blame her.
This sort of attack on frivolous spending is the same attack used on millennials to beat them up over avocado toast. I don’t eat out very often because I like to go to fancy restaurants where chefs are doing interesting things and enjoy what the chef is doing, enjoy the ambiance, and talk with friends. While I seek restaurants known for their food, most people go out to spend time with friends. If you’re going out to meet your friends for brunch, avocado toast is probably the least expensive thing on the menu. Buying it isn’t necessarily a waste of money if someone gets value from it from spending time with friends.
This is actually the point of my favorite self-help personal finance book: “Your Money or Your Life” by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez. This book is focused on making sure you actually value the things you’re buying. The authors lead you there by first having you track all the time you spend to earn a living. Not just the hours you spend at work, but also the time you spend commuting or stressing about work. That is the total number of hours (or life energy) you spend to earn a living. Divide your salary by that number to figure out your real, hourly wage. Next, they want you track all your spending (every penny) and categorize it. At the end of the month, divide what you spent on that category by your new, calculated hourly wage to determine how many hours of your life you spent to buy that category. Finally ask yourself, are you happy with spending that many hours on that category. In David Bach’s case, you would ask are lattes worth say 5 hours of your life? If no, spend less on that stuff. If yes, you may even want to spend more on that category. The goal is to find the amount of spending on every category where you don’t want to spend more or less. That’s your ‘bliss point’ in economics terms.
The authors then talk about finding ways to increase your earnings or spend less while still achieving bliss, but the main point is – adjust your spending to match your values, while considering your overall income. If that means having a latte every day so you can flirt with the barista, then that’s ok. No judgment. It seems tailor made for libertarians.
I have been working on drinking less diet coke, so I buy a lot of flavored, sparkling water. Someone else looking at my spending would no doubt say buying sparkling water is frivolous. Fuck ‘em. I like it.
What do you buy that others would consider frivolous, but you just don’t care?
you can be as frivolous as you wish
so long as you’re keeping to your budget for frivolity
and your budget makes sense
Hence: “…adjust your spending to match your values, while considering your overall income.”
Derp.
NO ONE NEEDS 23 DIFFERENT KINDS OF GUNZZ!!!!
/BernieTard
Having one gun is like having one golf club.
LOL.
You can get a lot done on a golf course (if you’re good) with just a 7 iron.
If we were gun-limited, I think I would have to pick the shotgun as the most versatile. Sooooo many options and so much that gun can do. I know, I know, it can’t reach out very far, but still…
I know, I know, it can’t reach out very far
With the rifled barrel and the right slugs, my Remington 1100 can hit the paper plate at over 100 yards. The drop starts getting pretty bad after 125 yards. Off a rest, it puts up 3 – 4″ groups at 100 yards.
I haven’t tested the Beretta for distance with slugs, but it should be good to 75 yards, anyway. This is why I always have a slug on my shotgun somewhere – in the unlikely event I get in a firefight with somebody who has a rifle and is at range, I’ve got a shot. Honestly, though, its very, very hard to imagine a good self-defense shoot at more than 30 or 40 yards.
If I could own only one gun, it would be a Mossberg 500 or Remington 870, in 12 gauge. There are literally millions of these around, so parts shouldn’t be a problem. They are accessorizable and versatile, and both will easily swap barrels for different tasks. And 12-gauge ammo is… well, as readily available as any ammo is these days.
100% concur with you both.
Versatility, in guns, is an interesting concept.
Shotguns are unquestionably the most versatile weapon when it comes to target selection. You can engage anything from dove, to deer, to humans, to bear, all with one gun and proper ammo selection. That’s pretty cool and useful, assuming of course that you have access to all that ammo.
If I could only have one gun though, it would be a pistol in the Glock 19 vein. The ability to carry a gun without attracting attention is just too valuable to pass up.
Agreed.
An argument could be made, alternatively, for a .357 with a 3″ or 4″ barrel.
Indeed. Revolvers have some advantages, but some pretty serious disadvantages too.
Advantages for me would include the lack of a detachable magazine, function is completely separated from ammunition type, and generally better accuracy. Oh, and you’re not throwing your brass around unless you have to reload.
Disadvantages would include lower capacity, more difficult to shoot and manipulate, more fragile and harder to repair in the field.
There are always trade-offs this side of paradise.
More fragile?
Is you automatic a brick shaped 9mm paper-weight with the initials HP?
More fragile. I said it and I meant it.
Take ten random automatics and drop them from waist height onto a hard surface, and you’ll have some finish damage and dents, cracked stocks, like that. Do the same with ten random revolvers, two or three of them will wind up completely nonfunctional.
If I could have only one gun, it would be a Stoner 63A (and all its assorted accessories). Talk about versatility!
A true connoisseur.
If you’re really skilled, you could even use your one gun as a golf club. Just be sure it’s not loaded.
My everything club is my six iron.
My everything club… is RIGHT HERE!!!
/grabs crotch like Michael Jackson (whoo!)
+1 Heee Heee
I agree wholeheartedly. I used to feel the same way about vehicles but then my lifestyle dramatically changed and a stickshift economy sedan with a roofbox for the skis actually does everything I need.
Once upon a time there seem to have been two kinds of BernieTards, the socialists and the wannabe Europeans. The harder core socialists seem to have mostly moved on from Bernie, and so he’s left as the standard-bearer for people who think Norway or Denmark are paradises but yet never seem to want to move there.
Isn’t it amazing that Bernie – despite being a fucking commie – is passe now. Not radical enough.
And generally, the only thing they know about how these places are governed is ‘gibs free shit.’ IIRC, Denmark has low to no corporate tax or income tax (I can’t remember which).
If 22% corporate tax is low. Income taxes are pretty high, iirc.
I might be thinking of something else. *shrug*
Booze, ammunition, books, the occasional video game, and some stuff that I probably don’t want to get into on a semi-public forum.
We don’t kink-shame here, ES. It’s a (mostly) safespace.
But what if kink-shaming is my kink?
You do you.
(“It’s not gay, it’s masturbation!”)
We have a friend who is a prolific saver (which is good) but constantly criticizes people on the shit they buy. One of my friends got pissed and was like, “If it doesn’t hurt your pockets why do you give a shit? People work hard and actually want to enjoy their hard earned labor.”
Money: if you don’t spend it, it’s just paper.
Worse, it might just be a number in a database.
Money: if you don’t have it when you need it, you’re fucked.
Its a balance.
Yeah, as Ozy implied below, neither living like a monk forever nor spending like there’s no tomorrow is good. You need to balance thrift and fun spending within your means.
Because it is fun to point out people’s dumb decisions?
I give a shit when I’m expected to bail out the people who wasted their money. Bought too much house? Took out a home equity loan to buy an expensive car? Didn’t save for a rainy day and then you lost your job? Why should my tax dollars go to bail you out? Yeah, I have someone specific in mind with this example.
This right here. Pisses me off to no end. “We spend on all our money on toys, vacation house, house much more than we could sensibly afford, etc” Now listen to all the sob stories and need for government programs to bail out these poor folks who have no/minimal retirement savings, no buffer to weather downturns, and no personal investments to bolster retirement. And nevermind that the government response is inflating away your savings so that, in addition to having forgone blowing your (financial) wad for years, you don’t even have the benefit of not having to worry about expenses in your old age. Congratulations on being a simpleton!
If the people objecting to your friend criticizing their spending aren’t the type to place any burden of the results of their decisions on others, then they’re on solid ground telling the nattering saver to pound sand…
There’s a guy in the neighborhood who is a DJ (mostly for weddings) that was obviously wrecked by the government shutting things down. However, during the last two years he has apparently found enough money to buy his wife (a private school teacher) a new SUV, they put in a swimming pool, and his son does private soccer lessons.
My sympathy only goes so far.
Damn, I would think that stuff would be out of reach on a DJ’s earnings, even without getting wrecked by Uncle Sugar. I work a desk job, and I can’t afford that stuff. Man I’m in the wrong business….
I watch a lot of true crime shows (I’m a middle aged lady – it’s mandatory).
Anyhoo, I always see these murder cases and they’re like “The victim was a medical office assistant and was gunned down in his Cadillac Escalade on his way home”.
WTF?
Gunned down in an Escalade?
Vic was a dealer in streetside pharma.
Maybe his satisfaction is derived from giving people shit for the money they spend. Who are you to deprive him of such joy?
Good article, Tulip.
I think the self-help finance books that tell you to live like a monk are setting people up for failure in the same way that some diet books do.
HOWEVER, at some point, you do have to live within your means (or eat less & exercise more).
There are as many ways to achieve “success” at either as there are people trying to establish some fiscal (or eating) discipline in their lives.
Car stuff. Gun stuff. Quality food. Salted sweet cream nitro cold brew (shut up). Probably a lot of shit. I have no debt, an emergency fund, and save for retirement and my kids’ futures. So yeah, I don’t give a shit what anyone says about where I spend the rest of my money.
Except my wife. I give a shit what she says.
And by give a shit, him mean “do what told.”
/Married Smith
Nods head approvingly.
Plastic crack.
Got a pre-order Castigator tank I’m going to pick up tomorrow. Still waiting for the plastic Kriegers.
Is this warhammer? I’m glad I’m naive to all this.
Yes.
What is the deal with sudden hatred for the company behind Warhammer 40k? I see references on reddit, but dont care enough to read what is going on. I still dont understand gamergate.
There is a very active and much beloved community of fan creators who make content set in the warhammer universe and post their work online. This included a number of very talented animators who made short films.
When GW decided to get into the animation business, they hired some of these fans (to rejoicing) then turned around and told the rest: “Stop making derivitive works and take down what you’ve posted Or Else!” This latter part didn’t go over well, as most of these people didn’t get hired and their work was quite popular.
From the perspective of needing to defend their IP, it may have been legally required, but the way it was handled was… poor.
They have gone after their Intellectual Property lately. There are/were some people making excellent content that wasn’t Games Workshops. They brought down the legal hammer and got them all demonetized. Then as a kicker offered them all jobs with GW for a pittance to continue their work.
From what I understand it was mostly animation related. GW is wanting to start up their own large scale animation department and subscription service and all of the content creators that’ve been out there for years are the first thing that needs razed.
I’m lightly following along. It sucks though because a ton of artists across the board have now just switched to other universes.
What do you buy that others would consider frivolous, but you just don’t care?
Expensive restaurant meals, guitars, amps.
Check out the scratch & dent section. I got $400 off a p-bass because the neck was slightly off-color. I got close to the same amount off a cherry red Les Paul, partly because it was a model they were going to stop selling, and partly because it had some invisible flaw.
I am a sucker for Steam (online computer game store) sales. I’ve always got a wishlist of 20 or so games, half of which I will probably eventually remove after I go through multiple sales never buying them. But I pick up ten or so games a year at $10 or $20 apiece. Some I never end up playing; most I put at least an hour into, then there are some I’ve put hundreds of hours into.
Then there’s certain stores I can rarely walk out of without buying something; hardware stores, office supply stores, and Micro Center (computers and electronics). I’ve got some SD cards and Staedtler white erasers that have never been touched in years. Consequently, I try to avoid going into these stores to begin with, though the hardware store is a little hard to avoid since I can be pretty handy around the house.
If a game has been on my wishlist for too many months and has released, I ask myself if I actually want to play it. A lot of times, I’ll just remove it.
I think I’ll take Biomutant off the wishlist when I get home. I’m not really that interested in it.
Micro Center is the heat.
I loved that place when I lived in the Denver Metro. Even if it was a cable for something that I didn’t own from the clearance bin, I would never leave empty-handed.
Yeah, it’s something else. The whole existence of the place is like a blast from the mid-90s past, where computers and electronics were still tinker’s toys. Like a heyday Circuit City or Radio Shack but without the suck you remember from those franchises’ dying days. There’s not many of them either, which probably helps keep them from becoming too “mainstream”. I’m sure someday they’ll either go under or sell out, but it’s glorious in the present.
I describe it as the Super Walmart of Radio Shack.
My pc at home is a toaster and my laptop is a potato. I do have a switch but nintendo games are priced all monopolistically fixed at 60 bones. I bought the mainstays for the console (zelda, mario, smash) and that’s it. I always tell myself that someday I’ll be a pc gamer but with how few hours I put into playing video games these days the switch more than provides a scratch for that itch. I even enjoyed the doom eternal switch port which must be graphically dogshit but I wouldn’t know because I am untainted by the knowledge of anything better. I thought it was awesome.
I have a switch because In recent years I’ve developed a Pokemon habit. I have this need to collect things in video games, and the whole franchise just feeds into that.
That reminds me, I need to finish building out my Power Armor display room in my new Fallout 4 playthrough.
I’ve been a little hooked on Pokemon Unite recently. Free to play too.
I really really want to get into a custom PC build, but it’s pretty daunting and I haven’t taken the plunge yet. I have many games purchased on Steam, GoG, and Epic, that I can’t play because I don’t have a PC Master Race rig.
Oh come on, it’s only a few thousand dollars.
I admit I specced out my rig so that I can have a bunch of crap running and still play games on one monitor. I apparently dislike closing programs. So I have a bunch of firefox windows with a bunch of tabs, a ton of libreoffice documents, and at least one video player going when I start up a game.
Mostly it required going hog wild on RAM.
Yep. Last PC I had custom-built for me (’bout 20 months ago, replacing a PC I had for ten years before that), the salesperson helping me spec it out asked “How much RAM do you want, and how fast?”
“How much you got?”
He just smirked and said “Max out the fastest RAM, copy that.”
A few thousand? Fuck that! I keep it under $2k pretty easily. More than that is just compensating. I can do a nice dual monitor setup that can run anything for 2 grand!
I go a long time between refreshes, and try to make the build one that will last a good long while. I do partial component upgrades, but sometimes that leads to a whole cluster of interrelated components (ie, the new CPU means a new motherboard and new memory format). While these tend to each be only about $1k, the sum of the various silos goes over $2k.
I’m intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Online tutorial?
Uhh.. sure.
intel I5 Quad
Nvidia 2060
16gb ram (32 if you’re feeling splurgy)
1 m.2 hard drive
1 4tb disk HD
650w power supply
Plug it all in. Manage your cords. Turn it on. Figure out why it didn’t turn on. It turned on!
Bob’s your uncle!
https://www.newegg.com/
Amazon has some pretty competitive prices too or as was mentioned earlier, Microcenters are a lot of fun if you have one around!
Steer clear of Bestbuy unless it’s window shopping.
Finding a decent midtower for sale and slapping a decent video card in it is always a pretty inexpensive solid plan.
Stay away from Alienware. They’re not bad computers they’re just heavily overpriced. Used market Alienware has some pretty decent stuff.
Or this flashback to the past:
https://www.tigerdirect.com/?cm_sp=Masthead-_-Logo-_-NA
I haven’t purchased anything from tiger in 320 years, so I can’t attest to their quality.
Guess we’ve reached the limits for nested replies. Cy Esquire, I’ll let you know how it goes with my first build. My brother used to do it all the time for his own system, so how hard can it be? Thanks for the advice.
My Steam wishlist exists solely to notify me when the games I want drop below $20 (I got Battlefield V a few weeks ago and there is a Far Cry 5/Far Cry New Dawn bundle that I am seriously considering right now.)
Microcenter is awesome; I’m equidistant from a Brooklyn, exceedingly hipster pier conversion, location and one in Lawn Guyland. I go whenever I receive their mailers with the free memory cards/USB drives; great deals can be had in their open box/returns section.
I spend gas money driving to Chicago twice a week to play hockey. It takes time and money. But too bad, I love it.
I also really enjoy fancy loose leaf teas. Speaking of which, I think I’ll place an order today.
Get Alokozay!
I’ll admit I think this way. That said, I do still make frivolous expenses and I limit myself to one frivolous expense per month, under $100.
This is how I’ve always thought. Maybe I just value my time a lot more than others.
More likely I’m just a miserly SOB.
That’s not a bad approach, but its incomplete. Unless you are willing to live in pretty dire poverty after retirement, or work until you die, you have to be building wealth somehow, somewhere. You can easily spend every penny on “non-frivolous” stuff, and that’s fine if you are unconcerned about the long game.
Yeah, there is a category problem for sure, who gets to say what is frivolous? I ‘need’ a car, but do I need a safe, reliable one? How about meat? I could just eat gruel everyday and save $50 a week.
Of course. Maxing out my retirement account at work and IRA contributions outside that every year. Any additional savings goes into non-retirement investments. I save ~25% of what we earn. Would be more, but medical expenses.
Direct deposit and, especially, pre-tax 401(k)s are your friend. If you never see the money, it’s natural to budget around that lower amount.
“never see the money”
I think credit cards generally are bad for normal folk this same way: it’s one thing to not have a budget, but it gets insane when there is no pain in a transaction because they don’t even know what they’re spending
Sounds like switching from one frivolous expense to another, but at least you’re making a goal in doing so. One day you might even join the ubermenschen and drink only tap water.
Board games/wargaming but I’m getting about 50 hours of relaxation per hour spent at work, give or take. There are worse deals out there.
Calculate your income and your essential expenditures (including retirement/savings), what’s leftover is disposable. Dispose of it however you please; whether it’s lattes, avocado toast, granny porn, whatever you like.
OT: History repeats, first as tragedy, second as bigger tragedy?
https://www.bmj.com/content/362/bmj.k3948
Also, my “frivolous” expenses?
I spend a lot on beef jerky; my coworkers comment on that a lot.
Ramit Sethi, who wrote “I Will Teach Your to be Rich”, also thinks you should enjoy your lattes. I’ve heard him on podcasts, and he thinks you should concentrate on making more money and investing more wisely instead of pinching pennies. Nobody ever became a millionaire because they saved $500 a year not buying lattes.
Stanley of The Millionaire Next Door and Stop Acting Rich suggests otherwise.
you should concentrate on making more money and investing more wisely instead of pinching pennies
Embrace the enriching power of “and”. Nobody made a profit unless they increased the top line and clamped down on expenses.
but I’m pretty sure Bill Gates made his fortune putting everything on his Delta Airlines credit card!
He made his fortune because he didn’t need to seek out outside of the family investors.
We live different lives if avocado toast is the cheapest thing on the menu.
I dont the Waffle House even has avocados.
Sure they do, they run the kitchen
*narrows gaze*
Yeah; the most upscale place we’d go to for Sunday brunch if we did that (in the Before Times it was most likely when the whole family got together at Christmas) is a place that is also a bakery. Still fairly traditional diner breakfast food.
I’ve noticed that during the covid panic that it’s the “avocado toast” type of places that get talked about if the news ever does a story on businesses struggling during the “pandemic”. It’s always what 20-something Aspirational Class women seem to be into. Boutiques, organic vegan food, social justice stuff where they can talk about a minority-owned business, and the like. Never the greasy spoon place.
In fact, I tend to think the Aspirational Class wants to put the non-Aspirational Class businesses out of business.
I tend to think the Aspirational Class wants to put the non-Aspirational Class completely out-of-sight, out-of-mind. And because they tend to be such raging narcissists, I wonder if there are any limits to what they would be willing to do to be completely rid of the Deplorables and the Irredeemables. The rage over vaccination is just one expression of the contempt the Aspirational Class has for others.
The truth is that, even for one person, what is frivolous changes over time. What would be frivolous to me now wouldn’t necessarily be frivolous to me twenty or twenty-five years ago. Say spending money going out on Friday or Saturday night. Yeah, that would be frivolous to 49-year-old wdalasio (not to say I never actually do it). But, 25-year-old wdalasio? Gee, the options are that or having a social life consisting of sitting in the bedroom pulling your pud. There are ways to economize. And, by all means, I recommend them (my first date with my first wife was a rooftop picnic). But, living a life based solely on what you absolutely need is a recipe for misery. The only things you really need are water, maybe some beans, some rice and a roof over your head.
STEVE SMITH NEED WATER. HIM NO LIKE BEANS, RICE. HIM STICK WITH SNACKS HIM RAID FROM RV AND CAMPS. HIM NO NEED ROOF – HIM HAVE CAVE! STEVE SMITH SEE ONE MISSING NEED….BY NEED, MEAN RAPE.
Nobody ever became a millionaire because they saved $500 a year not buying lattes.
True, but nobody every became a millionaire because they spent $500/year on lattes, $4,000/year on designer shoes, $1,500/year on their cell plan, $15,000/year on their leased luxury automobile, etc. until the credit card is maxed out.
One got to blow a ton of money in their youth, the other might get to spend a ton of money in their later days. YOLO, however ridiculous it is, isn’t wrong.
When I was a young man, I spent all my money on booze, cars and girls.
I sure wish I had back all the money I spent on booze and cars.
YOLO, however ridiculous it is, isn’t wrong.
No, its a truism. What you do with it is what matters.
People generally use it as an excuse to do stupid shortsighted things. “Why not, I only live once!”
I take it more as, I got one shot to not fuck this up. Yeah, I got one life. I don’t want to spend it working or wind up in poverty.
You can spin it as either valuing short-term decision making or long-term decision making. Interesting that nearly everyone goes with the former.
Only on a libertarian forum can a statement of agreement begin with “No”.
One of the questions macro economics seeks to answer is how do people make trade-offs across time.
Nobody ever became a millionaire because they saved $500 a year not buying lattes.
$500/year, invested monthly, and growing at an 8% rate on average from age 20 to age 65 is $2.4 million.
You can literally become a multimillionaire if you cut lattes out and invest that cash.
Sorry, off by an order of magnitude (I’ll blame over reliance on the calculator and not myself, ?) . Youll have over $200k.
May not be able to retire on it, but that’s a chunk of change.
To belabor the point, if you take your $42/month latte expense and add in your $150/month happy hour expense and your $58/month fast food expense and invest them all over the same period, you’re over $1M.
is $2.4 million.
Which will be stolen by FedGov one way or another.
“Your money, your life.”
That sounds an awful lot like a highwayman slogan.
*pulls up scarf, draws flintlock*
“Your money or your life.”
Highwayman: “Didn’t you hear me? I said your money or your life!”
Jack Benny: “I’m thinking it over!”
Stand and deliver! Your money I’ll be taking!
Arguably the best Metallica song.
“I said LIFE, not WIFE!”
THIS
I think I’ve set myself up for an excellent hourly wage. I have the type of job that I rarely think about when I’m not on the clock. There’s something to be said for maximizing your earnings in non-managerial positions. At ~50 years old, I’m the lowest man on the totem pole at work, but I make more than enough to live comfortably & debt-free, and by and large, stress-free.
It’s not how much you make, it’s how much you save.
The book is aimed at women, and since our feeble little minds can’t handle straightforward personal finance; Bach sets it up as a story. Young Zoey is struggling on her salary until she meets an older man (a barista, no less) and he teaches her the secrets of money management. Barf!
It sounds like a fairy tale romance.
And they lived happily ever after.
Also- Value is subjective. I try not to concern myself with the spending habits of others. Travel, for instance. My desire to go to Europe is nil. My sister and her husband love going to Europe, and that’s okay with me.
It helps to recognize the difference between an investment and an expense.
Like ‘investing’ in people ala the democrats?
You talk crazy!
Can I have gone with your sister a decade or more ago?
Cameras. Digital cameras.
People forget that, although modern digital camera bodies are expensive compared to their film counterparts from back in the day, the modern body has one distinct advantage: the marginal cost of each photograph is effectively zero.
An old “pro” camera body would’ve cost up to ten thousand dollars in today’s coin, but that was just the start, even if you already owned all of the interchangeable lenses you wanted/needed. Each 36-exposure roll of film cost about fifteen dollars (again, today’s coin) or more, and then after you’d taken the shot, you’d have to get it developed by a lab (or do it yourself). If by a lab, call it, very conservatively, $25.00/roll for some crappy 4×6 photos. So now we’re at $40.00 for 36 images.
The modern digital body will easily give 100,000 to 150,000 exposures before losing the shutter to wear-and-tear. Divide 100,000 by 36 = 2,778 36-exposure rolls; multiply by $40.00, and you get a cost of $111,120.00 for those same 2,778 fully-developed 36-roll film canisters.
Digital cameras, particularly the pro bodies, are expensive up-front, but a HUGE bargain over their lives compared to the old film bodies. ”Prosumer” ones are even more of an incredible bargain.
On the other hand, consumer video cameras are now 3 times as expensive and 1/3 as good.
Whatever, they’re just going to take vertical video anyway.
Whenever I hear “consumer video camera” I think “Oh, you’ve got a cellphone.”
I’ve never shot video. If I did, I’d be spending some serious coin for at least a lowish-end “prosumer” model. I despise shitty image quality. Degradation of the image is something that should be done intentionally via filters/special effects, if at all possible.
Before I left the bidness, the Canon 5D was the digital camera I would see in use most often on commercial shoots. I think those are only a couple thousand dollars.
They’re very good (I own one), but there are some things a “dedicated” video camera does better, at least according to the various reviews I’ve read over the years. Like I said, I’ve never shot video.
I’m still waiting for someone to produce an SLR-like form-factor still image camera that does true 16-bit capture. I’m surprised no-one’s done so yet.
“Digital zoom”? Ooh, sounds good. /Homer Simpson
35mm film and gift cards to get it developed used to be my go to baby gift.
Ditto film stock v. digital shooting for TV commercials. On some commercials I’ve worked the director insists on film, which runs about $3 – $5 per foot when developing is factored in. A week of shooting for a particular department store ran through about 35,000 feet per day. Contrast that with a digital shoot where the producer gives a PA a couple thousand in petty cash and sends them to Best Buy/Staples/Office Depot for a handful of external hard drives.
Aw, don’t make me nostalgic for the bad old days. 33¢ a frame, enlargers, developer stains.
Up to 10K? Maybe if stuck to SLRs. I remember pricing a Hasselblad medium format. Ouch. Pro amateur buddy had a selection up to large format
My last film camera was a EOS1v. Send Kodachrome to Dwaynes for developing. Get it back and scan the slides. Manipulate and then print a priming one. Terrible workflow.
Now I just take pics on my phone. It’s 80% of what I want, always handy, and doesn’t take up bulky space. And I despise a screen in place of a viewfinder on a camera body.
I have a “Turing test” for electronic viewfinders; if I can’t tell the difference anymore, I no longer care. I haven’t seen a mirrorless yet that passes that test, although Olympus comes damn close. I still miss Oly gear, even after all these years of shooting Canon.
On the other hand, my little Sony RX10’s a mirrorless, and I almost always just take it on vacation (remember vacation?) now, rather than the Canon stuff. Great little camera.
Digital viewfinder is fine, particularly if it’s indistinguishable. I hate the flat back screen that forces you to hold it a foot in front of you instead of the normal and natural camera positioning against the eye.
I buy Transformers toys. But thanks for reminding I needed to make a car payment.
My buddy collected the 4″ GI Joes. He had them standing in formation for a barracks inspection. He took the time to make a proper correct formation with Flint (the senior NCO) in front and General Hawk (the Commanding Officer) behind the formation.
“…and to my wife, who spent money like there was no tomorrow, I leave one hundred dollars and a calendar.”
“Finally ask yourself, are you happy with spending that many hours on that category.”
I like this line of thinking. My son has a horrible sense of entitlement and thinks up all kinds of ways I should spend my money, mostly on stuff he wants. “You can afford it”. Sure I can, but you are making demands on my life and on the time it took me to earn that money, and I object to how blithely you think you are entitled to it.
My rules for buying presents for my nieces and nephews when they were young was: I had to think they would spend more time playing with it than I spent working to buy it.
Decent rule.
It’s why I simply give gift cards or cash now. I have no idea whether they’ll actually enjoy or use anything I buy ’em.
Cash, the (theoretically*) economically most valuable gift.
*I’ve been gifted things whose value far exceeded their cost and also which I would have never bought for myself. I do not possess that level of gifting prowess, and thus prefer cash.
Estate sales and garage sales are where you buy kids toys. If it’s still in a wrapper, don’t buy it, it’s too expensive.
Sadly, the best bang for your buck to occupy a kid is an amazon fire. It’s going to rot their brain and give them shitty social habits, but at least they stop bugging the cat and I can catch the latest episode of Loki.
The problem is that I’m not talking about toys for a kid. I’m talking about a 22 year old.
Once they were about 14, yep, cash. This was when they were small.
Like ‘investing’ in people ala the democrats?
Precisely. Spending billions on a system of public indoctrination which will render its victims useless, unemployable and incapable of creating wealth is not an “investment”.
It’s a great investment for the Democrat Party and the teacher’s unions… They push for policies that enrich the teacher’s unions, and the unions donate to the Democrat Party. I’d kill to have a sweet deal like that in my portfolio!
1) Eat less; move more
2) Spend less; earn more
That about covers everything.
OT:
This could end very badly.
Would that close the wet market, or merely redefine it?
I suppose it would become the ‘Wetter Market.’
“Wettest” Market.
The CCP would insist on the superlative for anything in the People’s Republic.
That sounds like it could be a Trumpism too.
Eh, people have been saying that for weeks/months.
The fact is concrete cracks and under load will have some displacement. Without any actual data to look at such reports are nearly meaningless.
The fact is we know two other things – 1: CCP construction jobs are infamously shoddy. 2: They are not letting anyone take a close look at the dam.
Your second point is what gives me pause.
Given that they handled the Kung Flu by denying that it was a problem until it was too late.
I just don’t see how the dam has a catastrophic failure. It’s certainly massive enough that flooding alone won’t destroy it. It would probably require flooding and a substantial seismic event. However, a failure of this dam would surely mean the CCP has lost the ‘mandate of heaven’. So there’s that.
I have to disagree. It may be massive, but the volume of water behind it could toss it aside if even a small failure propigates. That propigation could take years, but with each expansion of the flaws, the strain on the intact mass goes up. The ‘catastrophic failure’ is when what is left uncompromised is no longer able to to hold back the water. At that point the ungodly volume of water tosses the concrete aside like paper.
I suspect you’re thinking hammer blows instead of erosion.
You’re both right.
Some failure modes can take years to develop- this usually happens in embankment dams and in the foundation.
3 Gorges is concrete, so that is a point in it’s favor, but I know nothing about the local geology.
First filling of a dam is also it’s most likely time to fail, it is my understanding that 3 gorges has been filled in the past and not had serious structural defects arise (that we know of). The likelihood of it failing just from water loading should be low (but not zero).
The only caveat I would add to your good analysis is the wildcard of concrete quality. It’s admittedly been a while since I’ve studied concrete, but I recall it being possible that substandard concrete degrades over time. Get it right, and it can last forever (like the Pantheon), get it wrong and there’s a lifespan on it.
I think the problem that they have is that the currents hitting the dam are eroding the base of the dam or the bedrock underneath.
I would think that this would be a common problem in dam building and I am sure that there are any number of engineering solutions to address this but who knows if they were implemented correctly or at all.
Relevent.
An aside, the water around the lock and dams on the Mississippi are great places to catch enormous catfish.
Typically that occurs downstream of the dam outlets (and can work back toward the dam). Typical solutions are building a stilling basin, lining the channel and banks immediately downstream with concrete, and the banks further down with rock.
From images of the area, it seems they would have taken at least 2 of those precautions. That said, those are still common problem areas on dams that experience high flow rates.
“In a land criss-crossed by rivers”
Rivers dont do that.
yes they do
Do they make you want to jump?
Well, if Covid didn’t kill off enough of their population for them (assuming that was a goal of a bioweapon), then the dam failure could finish the job and get rid of the evidence.
Ugh, sidebar is on.
Thanks Tulip!
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/08/05/kamala-harris-frustrated-with-media-for-ignoring-her-depth-and-thought/
*cackles*
I’d find her argument more compelling if I thought she had any actual thoughts.
I do not believe there is a thought in her head that isn’t, “How do I get more power?”
She’s like Nixon, without the charisma.
I spend too much, but I don’t consider most of it frivolous, and not nearly as much as I could spend.
Polls show Harris as the least popular vice president in modern history.
Whaaaaa?
She’s less popular than Spiro Agnew LOL
Do we have numbers for Andrew Johnson? He was probably not well-liked from 1861-1865
Probably because he wasn’t Vice-President then.
How can that be. She had the most votes in history to become vice president. It was a mandate of the people!
Polls show Harris as the least popular vice president in
modernhistory.I’ve no idea if my amendment above is true, but I would not be surprised. So many highly-competent women to choose from (even if I recoil at their ideology), and the Dems had to choose Harris.
This is the ‘failed upwards’ administration.
Even in his heyday Biden was never considered sharp. He was a jobber and reliable career crook. He was past his sell-by date when he was tapped to be VP. This farce we have to endure know is just retch-inducing. Kamala is the perfect VP as she’s the only thing that could make people want to stick with Joe. I don’t understand how people defend this administration but they do. They dutifully circle the wagons every dam day. One has to wonder, what would a Trump administration have been like with the same treatment? Maybe we’re better off not knowing.
Wait. Mebbe her being incompetent is a good thing.
I’m so confused.
Evil and inept is far better than evil and competent by any measure.
My fear is that she’ll be President someday and will have surrounded herself with evil and competent minions.
But, man she is just really bad at doing politics. She makes Dan Quayle look like a wunderkind. I can’t imagine she could do well on the campaign trail. I mean at least Joe can still remember his talking points, most of the time. She just acts like a lunatic when she is asked a question that is not the softest of softballs.
Harris’ level of unlikability is only slightly lower than Hilary Clinton’s, and that’s probably the worst thing I can say about another human being.
They picked her because they knew she would do what they told her to.
Unfortunately, she’s not otherwise competent in any way or manner.
Well, the first thing did was drain the pool of talent by 90% by saying only a female minority would be considered for VP.
Once they did that, their odds of getting a good one were reduced. Not by 90%, but reduced.
Then consider that the pool they were looking at was established Dem politicians. Who were minority women. Take a gander at the “headline names” they were left with – the grifter in GA who imagines herself the governor in exile, the lunatic with the bizarre cowboy hats in Congress, the “Squad”, etc. Jeebus. Honestly, Harris may have been the best of that lot.
The only one who isn’t a complete loss is the one they hate the most and would never consider – the cute one from Hawaii.
What do you buy that others would consider frivolous, but you just don’t care? – I would say expensive whisky expensive wine expensive beer but with this lot round these parts not all would consider frivolous.
also expensive steak
Never frivolous.
Just returned from a grocery trip over my lunch hour.
Our local major grocery chain (Giant Eagle) has reinstated masking, however, I only saw about 15%-20% of customers wearing masks. All the employess were masked, but several had pulled theirs down to talk with unmasked customers.
I was not asked to put a mask on, unless you count the sign on the entryway.
The masking requirements were only reinstated a couple of days ago (according to Nephilium), but I hope to continue to see mostly unmasked folks at the store in the future.
Good. I’m not masking.
I noted that everyone in my local 711 was masked today, whereas just yesterday only the employees and the occasional customer was wearing a mask. Maybe just a coincidence. I hope so.
I spend most of my money on booze, gambling, and women. The rest I waste.
how many women?
Wife and daughter. So two.
Cuomo Aide Who Says He Groped Her Files Criminal Complaint in Albany
The complaint from the woman, an executive assistant whose name has not been publicized, increases the possibility that Gov. Andrew Cuomo could face criminal charges.
Thanks, Tulip! Good article.
If I know that I will not spend a lot of time using a new thing, then I don’t buy it. Would it be fun to have a new Xbox? Probably, but I know I won’t have much time to play games and I already have other entertainment options. So, I’m not buying it. Plus it’s never available.
Ammo. I do a lot of shooting for fun, and it’s a pretty big expense, but it brings me joy and satisfaction. Along with that, similarly to the “avocado toast with friends,” I shoot with my friends a lot, and it gives us a chance to get together once a week and chat and have fun. Plus we go out afterward and buy good food and good beer, so that’s probably also frivolous.
It’s not frivolous if you value it.
Excellent article, Tulip.
I try not to buy stupid shit, but I find that I don’t mind dropping cash on quality stuff. I buy less, but better. And I’m trying to be ruthless about not buying shit i know in my heart I won’t use. Even if it’s a screaming deal.
I need to do that too. My house is littered with too much cheap junk from Amazon that I used very little.
I’m trying to make things myself too. With the economic situation going the way it is, I think that might be a necessary skill in coming years, kind of like how people had to jerry-rig a lot of things during the Great Depression.
What is with people who schedule a follow-up meeting by rescheduling the original meeting that was already held instead of just putting out a new invite?
The original meeting will already have had its reminders dismissed, meaning they won’t pop again, its webex may have expired since it was held, and since it no longer appears in the original spot makes it harder to assess the amount of time spent on their stuff when it comes around to record timesheets.
I’ve never seen someone perform that particular bit of idiocy. You must work with some real winners.
I’ve seen it from several people.
Most people send a new invite.
I don’t understand the people who reschedule a meeting that was actually held.
Plus, that would show a hole in your schedule at the time of the original meeting. If you use your past calendar to assess what you’ve been working on, or as a reference for time cards or expense reports, that would screw you up royally.
Ah, so that is what some of my project managers fuck up. I always hated it because it removes the (easy) record of when our last meeting was(helps filling in time sheets), and I tend to then miss their meetings as I don’t get the reminder. I didn’t know that was the cause.
Books. People tell me I could save so much money if I got an E-reader, but I like the experience of a physical book. And I like the look of full bookshelves in my house (preferably with books that I’ve actually read).
I think I get way too much screen time as it is – I’m not going to transfer my reading time over to a fucking screen as well.
I can’t do the e-readers either. I get some satisfaction from turning the pages and feeling the paper. Plus I do not have to worry about Bezos et al deciding that a book I have is wrong think and yanking from my library.
The “e-books are cheaper” line doesn’t convince me. Most of ’em seem to be priced within throwing distance of their physical counterparts.
The only benefit I’ve found to e-books is that they’re great to take on vacation. (Remember vacation?) Saves on weight, that’s for sure. But dammit, I want ’em in PDF, so’s I don’t have to screw around with other formats (plus the possibility that they’ll be yanked by the publisher or seller if they decide the book is no longer on someone’s “approved” list). Every device displays PDFs.
If anyone ever finds a great “e-book to PDF” converter, please let me know.
My ebooks are priced such that my profit, whatever the format, is the same between versions ofthe same title. It’s about $7 difference (print usually $10, ebook usually $3)
But I have seen people selling the e-version for the same as the print. Seriously? I’m not going to buy the inferior e-edition for print prices.
Calibre!
*groans*
I fought with that program for a long time. It is very heavily designed around the creator’s own workflow, and is designed to take over the whole kit and kaboodle rather than being a utility for doing a job. It did a lot of things that pissed me off until I abandoned it.
I maintain an archive folder for all my e-books, and then I copy to a folder on my desktop any files I feel like converting or cataloguing with Calibre. It’s true that if you just point the utility toward your raw e-book data folder, it will charge in and establish itself as emperor.
Quality matters to me. I often ask myself, if I’m dead and my kids have to deal my shit, what would they think of this particular item.
Oh, you go to estate sales too? 😉
I often wish I’d known the deceased…
When my close friend & mentor died, they had all his shit up for sale. He had a house full of knickknacks from all over the world. I mean, 100s and 100s of little items like vases and geodes and hookahs and wall hangings and maritime shit.
I couldn’t bring myself to even look at the sale web site. Now I wish I had. It would have been nice to have a physical memento from him.
He also had a closet full of polyester leisure suits. I would have loved to have gotten one of those leisure suits.
Need furniture? Need appliances? Need kitchen Utensils? Pots? Pans? Jackets? Junk Jewelry? Most household tools?
Want it at 15% the cost of retail?
https://www.estatesales.net/
You’re welcome.
“The Doctor is OUT”
This guy must have been pretty cool.
Estate Wine Auction
It’s one hell of a rabbit hole. It’s still amazing to me how many generations before me just bought things that sit on shelfs, so they buy nice shelves for the things that collect dust. No use to them…. just… stuff.
Elvis plates? Really Martha? Did you have to have the Elvis plate collection?
What even crazier is how much of that stuff is still worth something to someone. Lladro, swarovski… don’t get me started on silver plated utensils in wood boxes. What a strange world we live in.
Yes!
I desperately don’t want my kids to have to deal with too much shit. My guns and tools are probably the only things the kids will want.
This move was excellent for clearing out some stuff, but I really wish I’d have nuked another 30%. Less is feeling like more.
For my frivolity, I used to spend $ on Fluevog & Coach. That is in the past, as I am going Spartan. Haven’t bought any Fluevogs or Coaches in over a year. And the ones I have will have to go into storage.
When I travel, I don’t do economy anything. But I haven’t traveled in almost a year.
I feel like I’ve become a fucking Puritan.
I mean, if burning witches is your thing.
Puritans were largely English, and they hanged witches.
Must be why they kept coming back! Everyone knows you need to burn em!
Not much left to cut here. Is it still a gift to be simple?
Yeah, we spend a lot on travel, although that is anything but frivolous.
I mean, I guess a lot of people would think 1st class on a 1-hour flight is a bit much. But I’m far too old & misanthropic for economy, and I did my time flying middle seat overseas.
For us it’s rentals at our destination. I love coming back to a really nice private residence after a day of hiking or whatever.
That’s why I stayed at the Sheraton Johnson Rapid City (OK, and also because of North by Northwest)
I’ve tried economy for a 1 hour flight. I had my choice of views – the window, or the text conversation of the passenger next to me. The seats were so small that for them to use their phone, it had to be practically in my face.
Not worth the savings.
Are you going to throw your weak children off a cliff too?
I think she’s going to start by speaking laconically.
Today I learned that there is a Bluetooth-enabled ear wax cleaner.
EHH?
In case you want to see your eardrum.
It’s the Bluetooth and AI enabled electric toothbrushes that perplex me.
https://www.amazon.com/Oral-B-Rechargeable-Toothbrush-Intelligence-Replacement/dp/B084PPQ7NF/
So it is due to our poor dental hygiene that the machines are going to seek to exterminate us?
Can you imagine the awfulness of being an AI that gets stuck in some dude’s mouth a few times a day, and then left to sit out on the bathroom countertop and be witness to all that goes on in there?
I can see its use if you wanted to make sure that your kids were brushing every night or somesuch. But, no, there is no other reason aside from torturing yourself.
In the immortal words of John (?) McNair, custodian to the Continental Congress,
“Ahhh, Sweet Jesus!”
Here comes my unrepentantly sexist view. TW: I’m probably about to rustle some feathers by talking in generalizations.
Generally, I’ve observed that men tend to blow their budget on big purchases. Trucks they can’t afford, guns, computers, shit like that. Women tend to blow their budget with nickels and dimes. Lattes, hello fresh, happy hour at that one place down the street with the best margaritas.
Not saying that both genders don’t engage in both types of spending, but there has been a clear separation that I’ve noticed when it comes to that one type of spending that makes everybody say “holy shit, you spent a grand last month on what?”
Yes, budgeting is so that you can spend your money on what you want, including lattes. But here’s the thing. Lattes are a luxury no matter your financial situation. So are giant leased trucks. They’re the kinds of conveniences and toys that you can afford when your financial trajectory is pointed away from Uncle Sam being your primary retirement income provider. Until then, I reserve the right to critique the latte spending category. At the very least, nobody gets to bitch about how expensive life is or how rigged the economy is while clinging to their luxuries like a life preserver.
I have no patience for the “I deserves”. Whether it’s lattes, trucks, organic groceries, booze, or whatever else, it’s all on the table when getting expenses pared down to match income. Until ends are made to meet, one’s “priorities and desires” are just wishful thinking.
Wife and I argued back and forth about 50 flipping dollars in a monthly restaurant fund when paying off our debts. Was 50 dollars a month going to ruin our plans? No. Was 50 dollars going to open a door to a laissez faire view of the budget? I’d say that the evidence leans to yes. We never hit that 50 dollar budget, it was always more than that, many times by an order of magnitude. I’d argue that by not slamming the door shut on eating out entirely, we left an opportunity for the “I deserves” to creep in.
All that said, I don’t know the guy or the book, so I won’t comment on any of that.
This is my major issue with “kids these days”. AOC bleating about not being about to afford to live in DC. On $130k? Dual income? No kids? Are you fucking kidding me?
Anyway, it appears some of these people think they should own a single family home right out of college, instead of having a jillion roommates in a 2-bedroom flat as dog intended.
Girlfriend’s sister does this shit. She smokes 2 packs a day and buys a can of that Monster-brand Mocha every single day (about $3 per can). About once a month, she takes her daughter out and they get their nails professionally done. That girl also has to have the latest iPhone. For all that, she still complains that “God hates me” and tries to bum money from literally everyone she encounters. Zero sympathy from me. The only real victim is her daughter, who is being taught horrible life lessons about personal finance.
One of the drivers for me to quit smoking was the cost. $6/day eats into my beer budget.
G_d, I miss it tho’.
Its been over 30 years since I had a cigarette. I still ocassionally get the urge – very mild and short-lived, but damn those things were nice. I know I’ve lost the taste for it by now and probably wouldn’t like it, but . . .
The wife once remarked that I would go out immediately to find a new wife if she died.
I said, “nope, I would immediately go out and buy a pack of Camels.”
I have four lattes/cappuccinos per day. But my espresso maker makes them for me at home. Sure, it cost more than $1000. But I’m not dropping $5 per cup elsewhere.
Assuming the at home lattes cost $1 each, you hit your break even point in less than three months, which would justify that large initial outlay assuming you would have bought the same amount of lattes elsewhere. Taking those same assumptions, you would have saved over $4K in the first year of switching from professional to at-home lattes. That’s quite a budget friendly move without sacrificing favored frivolities.
That’s where I think that a lot of people miss out on the frugal point. It’s not that you have to live this anhedonic lifestyle. It’s a tradeoff. Can you find ways to get your fix without dropping $4 of the $5 cost into the local barista’s pocket? Frivolities aren’t usually the enemy of frugality. Convenience is. Convenience is damn expensive.
That is definitely the case with the wife and me. At our worst, she nickles and dimes us by hitting the clearance rack at Khols and I drop some big money on car or computer parts and the like.
I didn’t actually answer the question posed… Given free rein, I could burn two grand per month on my various hobbies without blinking. I could double my range time, buy all the interesting name brand kitchen tools, every new disc golf disc and accessory, fancy alcohol, gardening stuff, aquarium stuff, woodworking stuff, etc.
I have some luxuries in my work life like coffee and fizzy water, but I’ve acquired the tools to make both at home cheaply. That reminds me that my CO2 canister needs to be exchanged…
“It helps to recognize the difference between an investment and an expense.”
Every “classic’ car ad ever: “Over [many] thousand dollars invested.”
No, moron. You’ve spent more money “restoring” a car that now isn’t worth the cost of a good paint job.
I restore old electronics for fun, but never for profit. Every last one has been BER (Beyond Economic Repair).
Jugsy, working in the apartment property management field, drags home broken/disused electronics from emptied units all the time. I did electronics-avionics repair in the Army so Ill repair or screw with something to make it barely usable. My specialty seems to be shitty ViewSonic displays that were assembled with even shittier chinese capacitors. Board-level soldering is Zen for me.
shittier chinese capacitors
Don’t trigger me, bro!
There are very few cars that will give you any sort of return on investment, a matching-numbers 1970 Chevy Nova 454, 1960-something Gull-wing Mercedes, 1920s Silver Ghost Rolls-Royce, etc. but they are certainly the exception, and finding a buyer outside of the big auctions would be a challenge.
I learned a long time ago that if you restore a vehicle, or even do a resto-mod, do it for yourself (or in my case, me & Tres Ver. 2.0) and plan to drive or hang on to it. You’ll never get back the money you sunk into it.
Grey and drizzly in Seattle. Thank Jesus.
January was the worst at Fort Lewis.
Thirty-four degrees and misty rain every damn day.
Tools, I buy tools.
That category includes most of my toys as well.
My non-tool toys include my first new bike in 30 years and guns.
That said, I look at most of my stuff as utility first. I can rebuild that Suburban for 20K or buy a new one for 80K. And I bet the rebuilt one will last me longer. It’s not an investment, it’s a tool.
Tool expectations.
I’ve spent probably $1000 on woodworking/joinery tools since taking it up last summer. However, I do get massive enjoyment out of it, and I imagine they’ll pay for themselves sooner or later when I can build high-quality furniture that lasts well beyond my lifetime. Sturdy, beautiful furniture like that is very expensive.
He makes furniture. https://youtu.be/dTcvmmOkqJI
Hahah, well hopefully my first chair will look better than that.
I did finish up this coat/hat rack with 11 hooks and a shelf on top. I’m pretty happy with how it came out:
https://ibb.co/SwSCPXB
Even if you end up using them around the house, you’ve saved yourself quite a bit.
It is very difficult to find a good handyman. I end up redoing their work half the time.
Work pet peeve – stop replying to closed tickets with new requests. Dammit.
Took me a moment to realize you meant it in the “This should be a new ticket” kind of way instead of “This hasn’t been completed” kind of way. I’ve had to reopen too many prematurely closed tickets lately.
Oh, just one more thing…
“Just one more thing…”
Codelumbo
yes
I never have premature closulation on my tickets 😉
“How you doin’?”
Maybe if the help desk stopped closing tickets without actually doing anything with them.
Never once.
(people have failed to check, and have come back saying “I don’t see the [new web page]”, but it’s easily demonstrable that they’re wrong and lazy).
Just don’t ever close or work a ticket. Like our access management group does.
I can rebuild that Suburban for 20K or buy a new one for 80K. And I bet the rebuilt one will last me longer. It’s not an investment, it’s a tool.
You could make a mighty nice restomod Suburban for $20k, I suspect.
The wife might complain about the blower sticking out of the hood and the racing seats though.
My wife gets excited at the local custom and classic car drive-ins.
So I should be safe.
My wife gets excited at the local custom and classic car drive-ins.
Go on. I’m paying attention.
I can never figure out if it’s the vehicles or the fact that she gets so much attention from the old guys.
Still paying attention.
The rest requires a subscription to my onlyfans account.
Still paying attention.
Yep. I’ve just got to be willing to do the grunt work on it.
A few weekends in the shop are still better than years of payments.
Im terrible with money, but most of my money goes to food for 3 kids that are eating my dreams and bills.
Frivolous things are the 50 dollars a month i spend on Kratom. Love the stuff. Also i like to do a little gambling during baseball season—this year its been an absolute disaster. Usually i do ok, this year i am doing very not ok.
Still got 60 games left tho.
What do you buy that others would consider frivolous, but you just don’t care?
I just ran out ay lunch and bought a 1974 MGB in BRG. The engine was rebuilt 3700 miles ago, so it’s probably just about due for another.
Wife and I had a ’74 Midget about 20 years ago. For some reason, I don’t recall it being as tight as this slightly larger car.
Oh wait… I weigh 40+ lbs more than I did back then.
Good thing I’m buying it for Das Frau.
This sort of attack on frivolous spending is the same attack used on millennials to beat them up over avocado toast.
I wonder how much of the frowning on avocado toast is just a “kids these days” thing and how much of it is motivated by the fact that the “avocado toast” faction of millennials has a high overlap with the “socialism now” faction of millennials. As a millennial, I don’t care if other millennials waste their money on avocado toast, I just don’t want them to waste my money on avocado toast. Government spending is to me worth perhaps 50-100 hours of my life per year, yet I’m forced to waste an extra 300-400 hours per year beyond what I value, and the avocado toast crowd wants to increase that number.
Finally ask yourself, are you happy with spending that many hours on that category. In David Bach’s case, you would ask are lattes worth say 5 hours of your life? If no, spend less on that stuff. If yes, you may even want to spend more on that category.
This is a very good way of thinking about things, the only caveat being that the person considering things this way has to keep in mind that there are only so many hours in a day. People who have trouble budgeting might need a reminder of that.
What do you buy that others would consider frivolous, but you just don’t care?
Soft drinks. I drink the equivalent of 2-4 cans per day, which adds up. I consider it frivolous, and it’s objectively not healthy, but everyone has their vice.
Comrades! The Avocado Toast Bureau has reported record production this year, and is on track to exceed their Five Year Plan in only three years! However, reports indicate a shortfall in production from the Refrigeration and Food Preservation Bureau, so for the next two years, everyone will have Avocado Toast for every meal! Surplus chickens, swine, and beef will be slaughtered and landfilled to prevent hoarders from wrecking our progress in becoming a world leading producer of Avocado Toast!
My frivolity? Beer. Magic cards lately. Fishing gear.
I’m pretty frugal, but if I do start into something I have to be very careful or I overdo it.
I just ran out ay lunch and bought a 1974 MGB in BRG. The engine was rebuilt 3700 miles ago, so it’s probably just about due for another.
Rover V8, and a 5 speed. You won’t be sorry.
I’m a compulsive book buyer, especially rare and vintage versions. But, I am cheap, and so haunt thrift stores, used book shops of the more active variety (reminds me, I need to do a post on used book buying and the used book world). I have so many books at this point that I will never get around to reading them, and it does get expensive to move the 100’s of cases of books on the rare occasions that this happens.
I also love going to estate sales and garage sales looking for antiques, mainly furniture and tools, but again, books. I collect much of this and furnish my historic home with much of the furniture. But I also sell online, to some antique dealers, and at some swap meets. Again, I am very frugal. But, this allowed me to always pay both my child support and my bar tab.
My wife is, like you, a spender on restaurants as she also loves food innovation. She also spends a lot on gardening, farm food deliveries, and that sort of thing. But, as you say, these are the things that bring us joy. We save a good amount, have investments, our cars are paid for, kid is out of college. Now it’s time for fun things.
I plan on spending a lot of frivolous monies on beer and bourbon this evening.
Neph, Mrs time, and I will be meeting in person tonight.
Any chance of a remote Zoom report from the show?
Give Neph “The Shocker”. And say “Hi from Dayton.”
I thought that was implied in giving someone the Shocker.
I’ll be sure to show him a good time.
Remote Zoom will have to be all Neph as I will be busy as hell. I’ll throw out the idea to him.
OT:
We have a friend who is throwing their kid a birthday party which will be held outside and the group got this note from his on the invite from my friend’s wife:
“Most importantly, we do ask all attendees wear mask and we will be watching the data on covid cases. If the numbers continue to rise, we may cancel. Our family is taking covid very serious but we can’t be in a bubble forever. It won’t be the traditional birthday celebration.”
There’s a part of me that is like, “Fuck it and just go with a mask on,” but another part of me is like , “Fuck that, I’m tired of all of this theatre and will come up with an excuse to not go.” I don’t want to wear a goddamn mask anymore and validate these authoritarian wet dreams of control.
We’ve done both ways. Earlier on, we would bite the bullet and mask up to get some semblance of social interaction. Now we have a big enough social group who are collectively flashing a middle finger at this BS, so we can be choosy when somebody whips out their inner Branch Covidian.
A lot of our friends and acquaintances with the exception of one or two are branch covidians.
We were lucky (in this regard) to have moved during the pandemic. It sucked for about 9 months until we started getting traction renewing old friendships and making new ones, but the most available people were the ones who took covid the least seriously.
This only ends when people stop playing along. Masks don’t work.
How the fuck do you eat cake with a mask on anyway? Tell em to fuck right off.
There’s a part of me that is like, “Fuck it and just go with a mask on,” but another part of me is like , “Fuck that, I’m tired of all of this theatre and will come up with an excuse to not go.” I don’t want to wear a goddamn mask anymore and validate these authoritarian wet dreams of control.
Divide and rule. Divert attention away from the real enemy. They have perfected the technique.
Jugsy learned this week that her employer, PanHyperGlobalRealEstateDevelopmentCorp Inc. is mandating all employees to get vaccinated by Aug 31. And is seriously considering quitting her $90K/year job over a jab.
Principles/Principals. Months ago I knew the process was going to be the punishment.
GF is going to make her boss fire her, if the boss makes it mandatory.
She’s already proclaimed this in front of her boss.
I hope she’s “essential” to the operation. I think DOL made it clear that employers can dismiss employees for not getting the shot.
That and the immunity for the manufacturers and the constant push for everyone to get vaccinated makes me wonder whats really going on.
It’s still EUA. Let the lawsuits fly.
This is all far from over.
GF is going to make her boss fire her, if the boss makes it mandatory.
Same here. Both wife and I will be pleasantly non-compliant until they can our asses. The shot is a non-starter. Employers can make their decisions accordingly.
“Fuck that, I’m tired of all of this theatre and will come up with an excuse to not go.”
Why an excuse? Just tell them you’re not going because you’re not going to wear a mask.
Mrs. Dean and I had this conversation last night, in fact. She decided since the event isn’t asking for RSVPs (its a big fundraising bash that will probably puss out and go “virtual” again anyway), we just won’t go without telling them why.
This. If it’s some fairly anonymous function, I just won’t go. If it was family or friends? I would tell them the exact reason.
Or wear a Lone Ranger mask. “What? You said I had to wear one, so I am wearing it!”
That’s your ‘bliss point’ in economics terms.
I need to buy more tequila tomorrow.