Money, Consumerism and Advertising

[BasicTruthParticipant 76]

[Blue SkiesParticipant 15665]

great video.

i enjoy minimalism b/c it is not the things, put rather the experiences that make life worth living

MGTOW is not a movement, it is a way of life.

[WhackerGuy2030Participant 999]

I’ve had the “money” talk with lots of people in my life. It’s no secret I’m a very frugal person. I worked very hard at my old job, and continue to do so in my new job. I’ve been successful. I was also a militant saver and investor. I avoided accumualtion of debt after college with unwavering discipline.
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Today, I’m fairly well off for my age. What’s funny, is women give me s~~~ for being “MONEY HUNGRY!” They say I’m too focused on money. I’m greedy.
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My response is fairly simple.

I don’t give a s~~~ about money. (At this point I start picking out things I can see or know about and insert into my response) I don’t need to have a giant TV (giant tv right there in her place), I don’t need a fancy luxury SUV to drive around (she drives one). I don’t need fancy decorations or furniture. I don’t need fancy clothes, jewelry, and makeup, and a Level III trauma center sized bathroom to put it all on. When it comes to money, I am focused on the one thing money cannot purchase, but rather only protect. Freedom. I don’t need to blow every penny I earn, and borrow ten others, on s~~~ to fill some void of uselessness in my life. If wanting to be free makes me greedy, then oink oink mama!

[BeerParticipant 11832]

WhackerGuy2030 wrote:

Today, I’m fairly well off for my age. What’s funny, is women give me s~~~ for being “MONEY HUNGRY!” They say I’m too focused on money. I’m greedy.

I’m the same way man…I just kind of learned not to talk about money with most people. I’ve lost track of how many times I talked about money with a friend, and made a suggestion like no more vacations until your car is paid off…or shut off that 180 dollar a month cable package and get 10 dollar a month netflix instead…etc etc, and they’ll always look at you like you are nuts because they NEED that s~~~.

The beauty is when you do live well beneath your means, you stay off of women’s radars nicely. They’ll go chase after some dude with fancy clothes, jewelry, and a BMW thinking he is loaded even though he could be a week away from getting it repossessed and has maxed out credit cards. Meanwhile they are totally oblivious to the average dressed guy with the average looking car who could pay cash for a BMW for each day of the week if he wanted.

Some people simply can’t stop viewing money as the means to buy “stuff” right now. The way I look at it…money is something I only need so much of, and something that will grow when invested. When I’m stuffing money into investments like a madman its not because I’m too cheap to spend it…its because soon as I get enough stashed so the growth funds my lifestyle I bought myself the best f~~~ing thing imaginable…an extra 40 hours a week of free time.

[FunInTheSunParticipant 8283]

It’s really hard for me not to spend money. I struggle with this daily. If I stay inside of my apartment all day, I won’t spend money—but then I’ll get cabin fever.

"I saw that there comes a point, in the defeat of any man of virtue, when his own consent is needed for evil to win-and that no manner of injury done to him by others can succeed if he chooses to withhold his consent. I saw that I could put an end to your outrages by pronouncing a single word in my mind. I pronounced it. The word was ‘No.’" (Atlas Shrugged)

[BeerParticipant 11832]

FunInTheSun wrote:

It’s really hard for me not to spend money. I struggle with this daily. If I stay inside of my apartment all day, I won’t spend money—but then I’ll get cabin fever.

Yup, but you can do things like go for a hike and stop for an ice cream after which will entertain you for hours for a total cost of less than 5 dollars, or you can car pool to the beach with friends where your only costs for the day are splitting parking, sun screen, and packing a lunch to bring with you. I’m not saying don’t splurge and do s~~~ on occasion, but I know people that will routinely buy 50+ dollar tickets on the weekend for different concerts and comedians and stuff, and accompany that with a fancy dinner…between them and a date they’ll drop well over 200 bucks in a single afternoon regularly on their weekend outings, yet they can’t figure out why their credit card balance never seems to go away. When you add it up over the course of the year, there is a huge different in costs between the guy who figures out how to enjoy a Saturday for less than 20 bucks and the guy who routinely spends hundreds of dollars every weekend. You just gotta find a balance…sure 0 fun money is no good and will burn you out, but a fun budget that dwarfs your savings budget is probably a great way to ensure you’ll spend most of your life broke…do you really want either of those?

[DarkRyuParticipant 2354]

I love spending money, on QUALITY things. Then I won’t have to replace them all the time. Case in point, my PC’s. I put in only the highest quality parts. My power supply has a 10 year warranty, so does my SSD. They were a little more expensive than the cheaper s~~~, but I’d be replacing the cheaper s~~~ ever 2 years or so.

I have a ton of old s~~~. Although my PC’s are relatively new (2, 3 and 4 years), my main laptop is 9 years old now and running strong. I put in a new SSD and a fresh install of Windows, bought a new battery for $35 and it’s much better than the $300 Walmart computers. It’s a little heavier, but it’s also higher quality. I remember buying the sucker back in 2007. Cost me a good $700.

It has an Intel Pentium 1.86Ghz dual core processor, 2GB of RAM (I upgraded to 4GB about 4 years ago), and now has a 250GB SSD (upgraded from the 160GB hard drive). It had Windows Vista but I loaded Windows 7 on it about 6 years ago. I don’t think it would run Windows 10 very well, so I’ll probably have to retire the thing by 2020. But hell, that’s 13 years to own a laptop. Not bad.

Advertising makes you want to buy s~~~. Solution? Shut off all advertising. Don’t watch TV and get an ad blocker for your computer. It’s rare that I want to buy new things. I just bought a $400 printer last week. It replaced my 21 year old HP printer from 1995. I finally got sick and tired of the f~~~er jamming up all the time and I couldn’t take it anymore. Still, I doubt my new one will last 21 years. Maybe 5 if I’m lucky. I wish the parts existed to fix my old faithful printer. Drivers were easy as pie. They were included in XP, Vista, 7, 8, and 10. All you had to do is plug it in (with the help of an adapter) and it installed. No CD’s, no bulls~~~.

[WhackerGuy2030Participant 999]

FunInTheSun wrote:

It’s really hard for me not to spend money. I struggle with this daily. If I stay inside of my apartment all day, I won’t spend money—but then I’ll get cabin fever.

You must not have found your hobby yet. Once you figure out what that is, you’ll get more mileage out of what interests you. Just pray that it’s not fishing or hunting. That gets to be a marriage for how much you can invest in that.
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I agree with the sentiments above. There’s nothing wrong with spending money on fun stuff. I advocate for it. The key is differentiating between fun things that you plan to do ahead of time that create great experiences you’ll remember, and impulse buys that still leave you unfulfilled and poorer for it.
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This year, I’ll have been to two local wrestling shows, one WWE show, a Carrie Underwood concert, hopefully a four day fishing trip about 8 hours away, and many days in the fish house and deer stand. Believe me, i’m not advocating anyone become a scrooge. My litmus test is simple, **If I didn’t want it a month ago, will it really bring me anything now all of a sudden?**

[WhackerGuy2030Participant 999]

I’ve been eyeballing a new Henry .45 Long Colt Rifle for about two years. I never put it at the top of the list for things to get until now. It’s just time to finally get it done, and for good reason. It’s a gun I won’t have to continue to sight in every year and the ammo is cheaper than 7mm-08.
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I also finally ordered the Mare’s leg .22 hip holster I’ve wanted for a couple years. It’s $160 to holster a $350 gun, but it’s needed. I’m set on wanting to carry that gun while deer hunting because I can legally shoot grouse with it while on the deer stand. It generates a pop vs a tremendous BOOM like the deer rifle. And when you’re done you can still eat the grouse.

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