How Much $$$ Do You Think You've "Wasted" In Your Life? (move, relative)
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Just on food, I "waste" money every other week or so. I've cut down on that. But it still happens.
BUT, I also do not think of NOT shopping for THE lowest price on everything as wasting money.
Yeah, thousands if not tens of thousands. But it's the overall result that counts, and I've done well. I don't waste very much food, and when I do, I keep thinking about all those starving North Koreans. As far as shopping for the lowest price on everything, even if your time has no value, think of what it costs to drive all over the place. Like stepping over dollars to pick up pennies.
I don't skimp on heat and air conditioning, either. It's bad enough that it's too hot or cold outside, without it being too hot or cold inside.
Just on food, I "waste" money every other week or so. I've cut down on that. But it still happens.
BUT, I also do not think of NOT shopping for THE lowest price on everything as wasting money.
Same here. I try to use up everything I buy, but I won't cheap out on good food just so I can brag about how I saved 30 cents on something.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mshultz
Yeah, thousands if not tens of thousands. But it's the overall result that counts, and I've done well. I don't waste very much food, and when I do, I keep thinking about all those starving North Koreans. As far as shopping for the lowest price on everything, even if your time has no value, think of what it costs to drive all over the place. Like stepping over dollars to pick up pennies.
I don't skimp on heat and air conditioning, either. It's bad enough that it's too hot or cold outside, without it being too hot or cold inside.
Same. I want to be comfortable.
I have a friend who is a compulsive couponer and always looking to save a few pennies to the point where it's almost a sickness. She'll drive 15 minutes down the highway to go to a gas station where it's a few cents cheaper per gallon. She buys so much food "it was on sale!" that her freezer is full so she comes over and puts food in MY freezer. She's 81. Her stash of food will outlast her.
The worst I ever saw her do was when Dunkin Donuts sent a card in the mail a few years ago for seniors to get a free iced coffee on Mondays for a month. She went to the drive-through every Monday for that month, asked for the free coffee "with very little ice" and then took it home to reheat the next morning. She won't go to her church because of COVID, but she has whoever is doing coffee hour at her church bring her the leftover coffee, which she puts in her fridge and reheats. Meanwhile, I've seen her storage room. She has at least a dozen cans of coffee in there.
She goes to such effort to save pennies.
On the other hand, when she does go out to eat, she is always generous with the tip.
Same here. I try to use up everything I buy, but I won't cheap out on good food just so I can brag about how I saved 30 cents on something.
I have a friend who is a compulsive couponer and always looking to save a few pennies to the point where it's almost a sickness. She'll drive 15 minutes down the highway to go to a gas station where it's a few cents cheaper per gallon. She buys so much food "it was on sale!" that her freezer is full so she comes over and puts food in MY freezer. She's 81. Her stash of food will outlast her.
The worst I ever saw her do was when Dunkin Donuts sent a card in the mail a few years ago for seniors to get a free iced coffee on Mondays for a month. She went to the drive-through every Monday for that month, asked for the free coffee "with very little ice" and then took it home to reheat the next morning. She won't go to her church because of COVID, but she has whoever is doing coffee hour at her church bring her the leftover coffee, which she puts in her fridge and reheats. Meanwhile, I've seen her storage room. She has at least a dozen cans of coffee in there.
She goes to such effort to save pennies.
I have a friend like that, he was a Thames lighterman, single, and earned megabucks all his working life, then quit at around 40 and became a London taxi driver, which was like having a licence to print money in the 70s, 80, and 90s.
When we were single, or had understanding wives/girlfriends in our 30s and a little older, a bunch of us guys would rent pool homes by the ocean in Portugal for 3 weeks at a time.
One evening we drove into town to look for a decent restaurant, we found one and started walking in, when Bob, who was perusing the menu in the window said, “Hold on, cataplana is 220 escudos here, (this was way before the euro), I’ve seen it for 210 somewhere, come on.”
At the time one pound bought 245 escudos, we chorused, “Good luck Bob, see you in Los Arcos, (a bar), later!”
Boats...those black holes in the water into which you throw money. Those things.
Thankfully i had it to throw...and still have my eye on a Grand Banks or a Flemming on which to live out my last few decades.
The money that hurt was the cost to get away from my first wife. Had i just knocked her off, plead my case to the judge (who more than likely would have let me off when the truth came out), and did the few years in the coup and been free of that entire expensive episode. That was expensive with a capital "E" and will always haunt me for letting it happen.
At this point I don't care. You can't get back money that you've squandered or take it with you when you die. Now that I'm retired I'm a bit more prudent with my spending but I deny myself very little. I avoid cheapskates like the plague.
To quote the late Errol Flynn: "Anyone that dies with more than $10K in the bank is a complete failure!"
One is reminded of those smarmy self-help books claiming that by canceling the newspaper subscription and brewing our coffee at home, we'll after a few decades amass millions. Or alternatively, that the difference between poverty and wealth is the minor recurring indulgences. Utter nonsense!
The real waste is on blunders and missed opportunities. Blunders, already mentioned in this thread, are marrying the wrong person and/or sustaining a costly divorce. Or malinvestment, such as sinking a large chunk into a private-equity deal that completely fails. Or buying at house in a bad neighborhood, at the top of the market, and watching one's "investment" melt over the decades.
Oh I've "wasted a ton, and beat myself up pretty good over some of it. We were always pretty frugal, but we each have our weaknesses and favorite indulgences. I used to mentally calculate the cost of our evening meals that I cooked daily, and I took a lot of pride in being able to feed us so well, for so little money. Lately we've discovered that being frugal is no longer necessary, but it's hard to break the habit. I love it when I say "Upgrading to X costs a lot" or "The cruise is kind of expensive" and DH shrugs and says "Who cares?". It's SO NOT my husband!!!
A time share in las Vegas. It was totally paid off but we still had to pay more money to the timeshare corporation for relieving us of our yearly maintenance dues. I know I've wasted money on many things but that was the one biggest.
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