Before I started writing one, I barely even looked at blogs. Most of my online experience was making website layouts, gaming and shopping. I still make layouts, but gave up the gaming and the shopping. With normal blogs you don't have to start reading from post #1, but with finance blogs, you really should. You miss out on some great advice if you don't.
I read an article from Poorer Than You posted in September, called "Does My Frugal Life Make Me Miserable?" which was a response to another blog article by Trent from The Simple Dollar, "The Backlash Against Frugality".
Basically, both articles were about living without expensive gadgets and new clothes.
I admit, I hate Goodwill. I'm an eccentric dresser and nothing they have fits my style, but I hardly ever buy clothes. I get one outfit every 6 months or so. I spend about $50-100 and they last a long time. I'm not an obsessive shoe shopper either. I've been wearing the same $40 Nike sneakers for 2 years and have two pairs of dress shoes that hardly get worn.
The part that annoyed me most was the iPhone. It's stupid to pay $2,000 for a cellphone. I have a cute LG Plum mp3/camera phone from AT&T that cost me $50, plus $18 for the 2GB microSD card and adaptor (I bought the card from Wal-mart because AT&T's ran $50 and up). The card adaptor is used to load files from my hard drive and it doubles as a jump drive. The camera takes very good pictures and video. There are several other features I don't even use, but I'm perfectly happy. For everything else, I have my computer.
Living without television might seem like masochism to some of you, but I have for 12 years, and I can easily say I don't miss it. The only shows worth watching for me are House, Dexter and Burn Notice. I learned about them from watching clips on the network websites and bought the DVDs. Pretty much everything I enjoy watching is on DVD. I choose when, where and how long to watch it and I can see it as many times as I want.
When you fork over that monthly fee for satellite or cable, you are being charged 100% for access to the channels, but you only watch 10% between all the worthless shows and advertisement. You might as well take the amount you would have paid for the privilege of that 10% and buy the DVDs. At least then it would be commercial free.
Frugal means finding more beneficial uses for your money. It doesn't have to mean deprivation.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
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Thanks for linking to my site! I'm glad the article resonated with you. I can understand not shopping at Goodwill - to be honest, I'm (freakishly) tall, so it's hard for me to find stuff that fits me there. It's all about balance, I think.
ReplyDeleteAlso, you're totally right about which shows are worth watching ;)
LOL, my first comment and I totally missed it until today! :P No problem. I'm just shocked that you know so much just from being in financial crisis for the last few years. I'm not good at learning things revolving around numbers, money or stock options, so when someone younger than me does, it makes me think you have super powers. :P
ReplyDeleteSuperpowers? Nope, I'm just a nerd. I subscribe to way too many other sites and I read too many books. Mostly, I'm just glad to have found something that I'm passionate about - I was sort of... floating, for a while there.
ReplyDelete