“From Savings to Snafus: 69 Cost-Cutting Decisions That Went Horribly Wrong!”
My goal right now is to be financially free by 40 years old; saving 50% or more of my income is crucial for this. Happiness is not attained by buying things you don’t need, it is about having experiences with the people you love.
So what if I die earlier than I expect with a lot of money? I still would have lived a wonderful life without the hyper-consumer nonsense.
I bought a container of generic Dijon mustard from Walmart.
It was the worst mustard I’ve ever had.
I live in tropic climate, SEA,
my first house is heavily shaded and almost no windows, the bedroom is located at the most inner part of the house, no sunlight, it needs lots of lighting and heatpump, fan to circulate the air and cool the house, and without heatpump cooling, it felt like sauna, but I can’t smell smoke, I can’t hear anything.
I decided to built my current house with good cross ventilation lots of sunlight, problem is I can smell smoke from trash burning from 100 meters away, there are lot more dust, I can also hear music playing from 100meters away.
the electricity consumption decrease from 1800 kwh to 1000kwh a month, but at what cost?
btw the location of both house is 40meter away. the size of the house is almost equal.
Bought an upright carpet cleaner. Bad idea-it has to be stored and there is never time to even vacuum, let alone wash the carpeting. Better to rent one..
Books. As Mark Twain said, “the man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.”
Travel. From low budget road trips across the U.S. to Bora Bora and snorkeling, or car racing in Saudi Arabia, it really expands your world perspective.
Condoms.
Experiences.
Good food.
The moment my boyfriend asked me if I was re-using Ziplock bags, that I had used to hold toiletries on flights, for storing baby carrots. Okay, I guess I thought it was a good idea at first! I mean, they’re perfectly clean!
I got out of a cab at 4:00AM 1km from my house, to save 3-4 dollars.
I walked the rest of the way with a two inch gash on my leg, spewing out blood. Unsure as to wether I had severed an artery or anything else major.
Every step squelched as my right shoe was literally filled with blood. I received 15 stitches later that day.
At the time, I had close to $1000 dollars cash in my wallet and waited for the change from the cab driver.
I’m sure I spent in excess of $150 dollars that night on alcohol, food, friends and gambling.
It is important not to confuse being frugal, with being cheap.
When I read the end of Scrooge McDuck’s youth.
You know, when he spends Christmas all alone in his fancy mansion, crying.
Instead of spending an extra $50 bucks on a later flight out, I bought an earlier flight that went out at 7am. My boyfriend at the time had to take me to the airport on a Monday before work. We left his place around 5:30am. For some background information, we were long distance and I was in town visiting him, he wouldn’t have to be into the office until around 11am, even later if he chose, but he isn’t a morning person, so it was rough on him. Two weeks later he broke up with me; having to take me to the airport that morning was one of the reasons that influenced his decision.
Refusing to use the heaters when the temperature is -10° and end up having swollen digits due to chilblains for the rest of winter. Didn’t have to go to the doctor (there wasn’t much to do about it anyway), but soon figured out that my fellow housemates have been living in a ‘tropical’ environment in their rooms to the point where they roam around topless.
I’m in a share house, and we spilt the rent.
TLDR: Tried to save money on heating, end up with painful chilblains; and paying for housemates ‘tropical’ getaway.
*Edit, I still don’t use the heaters (I don’t know why, but I just refuse to).
I realize this somewhat goes against the spirit of this subreddit, but sometimes it’s important to remind ourselves that we should spend some of our money “guilt free” since we can’t take our savings to the grave.
My two contributions:
I had a college friend who became an investment banker. He was an early immigrant from India so he was extremely frugal throughout life. He was the rice+lentils kind of guy, camped in the airport overnight for the first AM flight out since the bus stopped running at 11pm, wore the same sh*tty shoes all the time – even though we later found out, he had been working since he was a kid and already had close to 6 figures in savings by the time he finished college.
He worked himself to death, but had amassed over 2 million in assets by his mid 30s. Unfortunately he was diagnosed with porphyria. He continued to be frugal and work until he couldnt so that his wife and 2 kids would live good lives. He died a ~3 years after diagnosis.
