Whenever I buy things I try to prioritize cost per use
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[1]Sam Vimes’s ‘Boots’ Theory of Socio-economic Unfairness, propounded in Men at Arms:
"But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet."
Men at Arms"
[1] https://terrypratchett.com/explore-discworld/sam-vimes-boots...
If someone invests 100€ and makes 1% of profit, they got an extra 1€. You can maybe buy a cup of coffee with it.
But if a someone invests a million euros and gets 1% of profit, they get 1000€. That's a cup of coffee every day for almost 3 years.
Exact same investment, very different outcomes.
If someone starts out with $10k, invests at 5%/y, that's $500/y added.
If that person's rent + food + utility bills are $1000/month, that $500/y is 'peanuts', and other income (like regular job) is needed to make ends meet long-term.
(ignoring inflation for simplicity)
But if starting with $100k, 5% is $5k/y which would cover 5 months/year living expenses. And no worries about losing a job.
Starting with $1m, that's $50k/y interest, or all living expenses covered, no need to have a job, AND $38k/y left over to increase capital or do fun stuff.
That's apart from effect of increases in the cost of living.
So very different effect even if interest % and all else equal. Moving up the ladder from $1k -> $10k -> $100k etc as savings, can take a loooonng time (if possible at all).
not exactly the same. The quantity is itself a difference.
All investments would have a risk. The $1million investment has 1000x the risk, and thus, they obtain 1000x the reward. So, the weighted reward for both situations are the same per dollar.
The one with 100€ won't have access to investment consultants or private banking. Maybe a few youtube videos.
The one with 1M€ will have an accountant, private banking access and unless they found the 1M€ off the street they'll have contacts for investment tips the other person will never have.
I'm not a millionaire, but I do kinda know a few who could be measured as such. I've made good money following investment tips from them. Not life-changing, but fancy vacation amounts.
[0]: https://www.mail-archive.com/kragen-tol@canonical.org/msg003...
For almost everyone--and I hate to admit it but this group includes me--food is a core, irreplaceable pleasure. Even when just doing it alone, not even for social purposes. At this point, I'm receptive to arguments that it's the main thing that most people look forward to every day. You can set up all kinds of plans (read: diets) and tech to assist you in this experience, but I think if you live in the rich world, the primary goal of eating is to feel this pleasure, it is a major part of your pleasure life, and as a result these plans and this tech will only ever assist you in that endeavor. They will never be more than assistants, secondary to this goal.
Next, micronutrients are best ingested in whole food form. Multivitamins are literally a supplement, they really shouldn't be your primary source of micronutrients; unless you're willing to do lots of research, you really shouldn't submit yourself wholly to their vicissitudes. Not only are there micronutrients that can't be combined because they interfere in each others' absorption (iron and calcium are the most infamous for this but there are others), but only some multivitamins will actually show you the amounts that your body absorbs in the first place, and you have to know how to look for that (look for amounts in IUs basically, but that's not 100%). You also can't be sure you're not just eating coagulated sawdust, or worse straight up poison (if you think this is hyperbolic just google around).
It's also likely (though the research on this is pretty fuzzy) there are lots of negative microbiome implications for switching from a varied diet to a diet of soy pancakes and multivitamins.
This diet doesn't have enough of the various forms of fats (Omega 3/6/9s, not just sunflower oil). The only way to get here via supplement is to take them by the handful, which you shouldn't do, if only for cost reasons.
This diet really only has half the fiber content you need (the RDA for which is arguably pretty low, i.e. if you were eating RDAs for leafy greens and whole grains you'd easily exceed it). Add that to your list of supplements.
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To totally argue against myself here, it might be hard to believe but I'm also open to the idea I've seen around that none of this stuff matters as much as research indicates, or at least we're missing something huge. The general idea is that humans have known basically nothing about nutrition for all of our existence--including right now--yet we have somehow thrived, so it seems like no matter what trash we jam into our digestive tracts our bodies find a way to make it work. This is obviously true up to a point, the question is up to what point exactly.
Food and nutrition do not require that much thought for the average breathing human.
Your hominid ancestors figured it out already— without an app.
Even most poor people, when educated about certain products can afford the quality item or change their habits to not need the item at all.
I'd say bunch of cleaning chemicals when vinegar does the job or "branded chemicals" simply contain vinegar anyway.
That said, there's also the other side. I've seen people prioritize paying down their 3% mortgage with extra payments, because, "debt is bad", when they could be earning 5% on that same money and have a "rainy day fund".
That is to say, formerly reliable companies outsourcing their production and selling their future good name for current profits.
You can see some discussion on that from people who actually grew up poor in https://mastodon.social/@danluu/111068036776213383
You don't need starvation level poverty though, remember the comparison point is with a salaried captain of the police. So if the point was "they don't spend more because they can't buy any shoes" it doesn't relate to the original Pratchett bit.
What about something like laundromat fees being higher than the running cost of a washing machine? There's also the concept of "poverty tax".
of course, now that I can afford a car and a place to store months worth of paper towels, they are no longer a substantial part of my budget. go figure.
Being poor means your friends and family and roommates and neighbors are also broke, so you can't buy in bulk because they gonna steal yo shit. So you're forced to buy singles, which are more expensive. Being able to store the bulk goods from a CostCo run without them walking off is a privilege that you're taking for granted.
And as a consequence, anyone who can improve this banking infrastructure can reap the rewards from this infrastructure.
Consider socks (I know there's another thread that calls this a 'micro-optimization', likely right, but still...).
Never buy a pair of socks. Or, never buy one pair of socks -- buy a few packs, identical, well priced, and ideally on sale. If on sale, buy them now: if they're clearance, you may not get to come back tomorrow. Now you save:
- money: when one sock wears out, you don't need to discard an orphan. Also, if they are prone to early wearing out, you get enough warning to look for another sale.
- time: when sorting, you don't need to match individual socks --- the green ones all match
But a dozen or more pairs of socks looks like an investment when you are on minimum wage.
At some point trying to explicitly micro-optimize all your purchases down to the socks you wear starts to get lost in the noise and you expend a lot of mental effort on things of minimal benefit, but this is a good thing to vaguely keep in the back of your mind for expensive and/or very frequent expenses that you know you'll always be using.
The biggest factor in buying something for me is typically resale value vs what I pay for it. This is why I always buy the Amazon Marketplace Used items, or used items from local sellers, where available. This way, I mentally only consider the depreciation over the period of time I use the item as the cost. Usually, the depreciation is minimal over a short period, allowing me to buy stuff I don't need just to experiment with it (I keep a budget for this) Then I divide it by the number of months I'll have it, and then compare the value I get from it relative to eating lunch outside ($20), days of work, or something else like that.
I'm effectively leasing things to myself. I'll own nothing and be happier.
For cheap items - it usually costs me more time and effort to sell than the item is worth. I might do it anyway because it helps others.
For expensive items the problem is risk - especially due to "the market for lemons".
I rarely get market price because I prefer to be honest about the known problems. For example: a car has lots of invisible known issues when you've had it a while. Paying to fix the problems before sale is just not worth it (for multiple good reasons).
The first time I used it, that cost me "1500". The second, it was just 750 per bbq. By the time I cooked a hundred meals on it, it is a 15 bucks per meal. Etc. Longevity is obviously a big factor too
I'm due for an upgrade soon, but I don't have too much reason yet to do it. But when I do, I'll spend another $5k to get a monster machine and it will last me probably until I expire.
I think that's called "investment" :) If "loving" your computer makes you even 1% more productive and raises your income 1% that's amazing. Similarly, I've come around on my previously penny-pinching ways around things that matter.
Eg I pay for Peloton. Yes, I could workout in a cheaper way, but the reality is (turns out) that I am much more likely to work out if I can roll out of bed and climb onto the bike in my underwear and tune in to one of my favorite instructors. Ditto on buying a large car - I want my wife's life to be as easy as possible so while I am sure we "could" get away with a Toyota corolla, I don't want her miserable every time she gets the kids into their seats or the stroller into the trunk.
These things are worth it because they get me more of what I care about: fitness, family happiness, etc.
Sometimes people have to let go of some stubborn ideas they have.
Perhaps I'll put together a spreadsheet with the total inflation adjusted spend for comparison...
I don't game, I write software, and about the only thing I'd like to be faster is compiling an IoT/C project that does slam all my cores and slow things to a crawl. But it's rare that I need a full recompile and the old system does well enough.
I do also have a 12700F system that my work supplied, and while it's brand new and has Windows 11, it's rare that I find it performing any better or making me any happier than my old computer running Windows 10.
For things like tools its often a bad metric unless you truly only need it once. In addition to durability; the ergonomics, cut quality, fidelity, trueness, etc will often be dramatically different across price ranges.
Give me torque or give me death!
As someone who swears by high quality wool socks, I’m going to have to hard-disagree on this example.
But that's basically the real problem. I want to believe decades ago there was more of a relation between higher cost (but not outright a luxury brand) and quality. Now that is completely random and even if you look for reviews hardly anyone does any "5 years later" tests (except for some maybe paid amazon reviews...)
> How much joy can you get out of each dollar? Some things bring lots of joy for a small amount of money: ice cream, sunsets, nature walks. A cheap date can bring many smiles per dollar.
I have a buddy who is constantly buying shit. Every day is a new "thing" and he talks about how he just buys what he wants.
Then I'll go on a nice trip or buy an expensive item and he'll be a bit jealous about it - but I actually spend less per year than he does on these things.
You can also turn this around by stating that you have fallen for the marketing ploys which attempt to connect subjective emotions - happiness, fulfilment, accomplishment - to consumption in general and the consumption of 'premium' products in particular whereas others look past such attempts at emotional bribery. Is that $8 Starbucks Frap worth the cost per use compared to four $2 drip coffees? Not if you've seen the Fnords [1].
For example recently I purchased a Lego set, the biggest one I've ever purchased and it cost £565 (titanic) which is the most amount of money I've ever spent on what is essentially a display piece once built.
However I enjoy the process of building Lego and this set is going to take me months to build, just devoting an hour or two a week to completing a section at a time. So the initial outlay is a lot but breaking it down to
1. the enjoyment of building the set
2. the enjoyment of displaying the set once it's complete as a sort of home decor item
3. the amount of time devoted to it (I reckon it'll take me about 35-40 hours to complete, but it'll be months before I see the end because it's just a lil hobby to do at the weekend)
...the cost almost doesn't matter.
> Whenever I buy things I try to prioritize cost per use. Sometimes I consider other priorities such as cost per smile, cost per thrill, cost per externality, and cost per lesson.
Sometimes I get a lot of enjoyment of buying a thing that I know I will love and considering all of the alternatives. Other times, I just defer to what worked in the past.
I'd add in another factor: gratification.
This isn't for all items, but splurging on certain things because it gives you an emotional boost shouldn't be discounted.
After all, we only get a precious few trips around the sun...
There is also the phenomenon of Quality Fade where a hedge fund buys a storied brand, cuts corners but keeps prices high and extracts money from the company as it is running it into the ground.
This makes it very hard to assess which products are truly durable, and Quality Fade means even the Lindy Effect is not a reliable heuristic.
If my hunch was right and the game is only “ok”, but I got a few hours of enjoyment out of it for only a few bucks, I don’t have any buyers remorse.
I wish they had a free trial for an hour or two, that would be ideal.
I'd much prefer to install the game, play, and get a dialog "your trial is over, would you like to buy to continue?" and I can pay at that point.
on the positive side i did notice a fair number of demos pop up on steam lately, which for those that i have tried, let you play the first few levels of a game, which depending on the game is even better because there is no time limit at all. and no need for a credit card either.
If you bought a game for 60€ and played it for 20-30 hours but didn't finish it, I still count it as a net positive. 2€/hour for a good time, it's hard to beat that.
Unless you're Papa Burch: "If you watch Paul Blart: Mall Cop seven times in a row, it's better than Citizen Kane, The Godfather, and Gone With The Wind combined."
But don't let my kids hear me talking like this...
We already give pedestrians right of way at four-way stops. It's pretty reasonable to extend that to cyclists.
Logical.