How to get out of cheap mindset?

[jclarke]

@amieeee Once before covid. Sonu Nigam. Had fun.

Yeah, should do more of that

 

[subhumn]

@pushkin OP bhai aisa kaunsa business kar rahe ho..yaha pe toh lagi padi hai loan nikalna mushkil ho rha hai

 

[jclarke]

@subhumn Bhai, web development ka kaam hai

 

[timfield47]

@jclarke think of cost of time. If taking a bus makes you save 5000rs per hour then totally worth it, if its below 500 bucks of savings then u r selling your 1hr worth of time for Rs. 500 which is underpriced. You could rather take a cab and spend time reading.

apart from that nothing wrong in saving money and living a frugal lifestyle. just dont confuse being a minimalist with being frugal. e.g. buying a quality chair which will add years to your backbone vs. a cheap chair, or a place to stay in city center which saves commute time vs. outskirts

other way is to explore FIRE and leanFire

 

[adamkaminski]

@timfield47 Nice answer.

 

[jordanfenwick]

@jclarke For me what helped was getting a budgeting app, I thought I was overspending and that middle class guilt was making me save more and more. Obsessively looking for investments that yeild 0.01% more than the other.

I got a budgeting app and set up budgets for each category and realised I do in fact save comfortably more than my targets for goal based investing and can easily spend a few thousand more.

Previously I used to feel guilty about eating fancy, now I have no guilt about eating the bougie food as long as I'm within that month's food budget and so on.

 

[jesustruegod]

@jordanfenwick Which app you talking about?

 

[jordanfenwick]

@jesustruegod I use axio

 

[askjesus]

@jclarke It’s simple.

Assign a value to your time. And see whatever action you are about to take are they really saving you money or costing you .

Example: I will use very basic and simple calculation to help with the point.

assuming you earned Rs 1,00,00,000 which means you earned roughly are 27,000 per day or say again roughly Rs 1000 / hour. I am using roundish numbers to keep matters simple .

So value of your time is Rs 1000 / hour.

Now judge how much activities cost you, in your airport example , say cab costs Rs 1000 per trip and you spend 1 hour travelling but bus costs Rs 500 but you need to travel 2 hours, which includes going to bus stop and waiting .

In this example you saved Rs 500 but you spent 1 hour extra which is worth Rs 1000. You are at a net loss of Rs 500.

Now similarly , if you cook your own food, and say you have optimized the whole process and spemt 2 hour prepping cooking and cleaning . So it may cost Rs 2000 in terms of time but say ordering food would have cost you Rs 1000.

So you got to judge the value of your activities and time.

Hope this helps.

 

[ready4change]

@jclarke Well what I've observed about myself is that I'm not frugal, I just don't like wasteful expenditure. And that's not going to change. So if I have to book a cab, I need to think about how it increases my work output, how it might save time and how it improves my quality of life. If I see that it's "worth" It. In the sense that 500 bucks indirectly leads to much more value in those three aspects then I can get myself to spend. Otherwise it just sucks even after spending.
Just my 2 paise.

 

[nyamburam]

@jclarke I don't see a problem here. If you're comfortable in traveling in bus that's is absolutely fine. Unless and until you're making it a point to travel only by bus even if you have to wait for say 1hr or so it would indicate that there is some reflection needed other than that I think this is totally cool and normal behaviour.

 

[jclarke]

@nyamburam I don’t think I’d wait at an hour.

It’s just that bus would be my first preference and I’m comfortable in it.

Thanks for your comment.