Stop Spending So Much! Idiot (Part 2)

in life •  8 years ago 

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Steaming Services

What are you subscribed to? Hulu? Netflix? Amazon Prime?

  • All of the above? *
    It's too easy to subscribe to all of them at once; There are so many out there. Crunchy roll, Curiosity Stream.
    Those are just from the top of my head.
    They add up big time!
    Do you need to watch that much TV? Not only does TV Do NOTHING for you, But it can add to your electric bill AND your monthly bills.
    If you want to watch the exclusive shows on all of them, Why not try rotating. Have Netflix this month, Hulu next month Etc. Or cancel all of them and wait for all your favorite shows to pile up before subscribing again. I originally had this plan, three months later and I still have no desire to have any "streaming" Accounts. If you must have one, You can even share with friends and family to cut costs.
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Clothes

Clothes are way expensive! If you buy a 20.00 T-Shirt, If you wore it 30 times before getting rid of it.
You would have to pay 0.66 per wear.
To pay for the shirt.
I feel like many of us buy, Buy buy. And the clothes rot in our closets. Before buying something calculate how many times you'd have to wear it to get your money's worth. Decide how much it costs to wear on a daily basis. To see if it's worth it.
I have this little black dress that I love in my closet. But I'm disappointed. I don't wear it much. I paid 60.00 for it, three years ago.
I've worn it maybe five times. I've been paying about 12.00 to wear it.

As much as I love that dress... It doesn't' sound worth it.
At that price, I could rent a dress Or borrow one from someone else.

Many clothes won't even last 30-40 times, So that is why you can also save money by aiming for quality goods.
That way you could resell them when you are done, For less than you paid. Or if it doesn't bother you, you can buy your clothes used from the second-hand store, or go to Thred up.
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More Math on it

If you own one week's worth of clothes, WHich by the way is rare. Most people have 3-4 weeks worth of clothes, possibly more.
If you wore all of your week's clothes, each week for a whole year. That would be about 52 years on your clothes.
That would take A YEAR! To get to.
If It's a 20.00 Tee that would be 0.38 cents per wear.
So your outfit would probably cost a few dollars per day.
That adds up.
The "wears" add up slowly. When you're at the store, Ask yourself. Will I wear this shirt every week for at least a year?
When you think like this, You start to become mindful of how you are spending.
Many people are obsessed with the daily coffees many people drink from Starbucks. But clothes are more expensive than coffee! Who cares if you spend 5.00 on coffee If you replace your shirts and shoes so often.
You may be easily be spending 10.00 a day just on clothes.

Conclusion

Saving money can have a big impact on peoples lives. It's not impossible to pay for a vacation, A House Or cars with CASH.
Just recently my boyfriend bought himself a nice "Lightly used" Honda.
He paid for it IN CASH.
The dealer was shocked when he was trying to hook my boyfriend up with financing, ANd my boyfriend refused And paid for the car outright. It's funny how these days everyone assumes you'll just do payments.
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I just booked us a vacation. WE PAID IN CASH. I also bought my new desktop in cash.
I'm not bragging; You just need to be aware that it's POSSIBLE! So many people think they have to have a car payment. Heck when we went to book the vacation, we were offered to finance. To pay 30 per month for the next few years. I couldn't believe it!

By using these tips you can save lots of money and worry less about all these silly little bills on everything.

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You had me at "Streaming Services"!

Personally, my stint with Netflix especially made me quickly realize the poorly optimized bandwidth usage and payments for streaming services. It's not so much the price for me that is troublesome, its the poor optimization of bandwidth, and in a sense seems as if you are overpaying for the extreme cost of bandwidth that you're using over time.

You see, I've been a Netflix user since the debut of its streaming services, and to be fair they have improved drastically over time--as seen on a multitude of case studies which you can also read. However, the one issue that I hope they are heeding towards and working to improve is their heavy bandwidth usage to stream shows. A myriad have recorded the amount of bandwidth their Netflix streaming uses up per hour, and on average it was 1GB/Hr--which if you don't know is a TREMENDOUS amount of what we know as "data" that is being used, aka bandwidth.
I actually went ahead and put this to the test, when my roommate was running up our bandwidth up the damn roof, blaming me for my time spent on the internet. I was growing sick and tired, deciding to prove her wrong, so I went ahead and actually recorded the usage of her netflix streaming (which was dang near 20 hours per day = 20GB per day on average) out of the 150GB per month plan we had at the time. Without using any streaming services myself, I saw instantly after about 10 days that our internet speeds plummeted into the abyss. After I revealed to her what I found and recorded, we never had the argument again :).
Anyway, I know I lost track, though I wanted to share a quick story about my personal distaste to certain streaming services, and it just to me bolsters the issue of saving when it pertains to streaming services especially.

Thank you again @kaylinart for a great post, always content I'm able to elaborate on and have a discussion ^_^.

As for streaming services, you should only need one service, not several different.
As for clothes, the biggest problem is buying TRENDY Clothing, that will be outdated next week. Buy occasionally and only if it will not be outdated until at least next year, preferably it can be worn for many years.

Good Posts.

Exactly! Thats why I go with T shirts and basketball shorts LOL They work all the time.

Yup! Levi's 501 jeans / T-shirts or Casual shirts . . . all day / just about every day. . . .

even better buy used tshirts

I guess everyone has preferences as to what they would want to spend their money on. For me personally, I would rather have awesome experiences than money, which includes traveling, concerts, etc. I personally am not a materialistic person, so I don't buy stuff with my money, but my brother is the complete opposite of me, always spending his paycheck on new shoes and new clothing. It is pretty fascinating to me. Right now I am in an investment phase of my life, where I am just going to pour my money into that and pretty much nothing else.

Eventhough I'm complete slave of consumerism I only spend money on netflix from the list above :D

Hahhaha Really? Only Netflix? thats not bad at all. And heck, if you blog on STeemit you can make it all back LOL

@kaylinart, i think you make a great point about depreciation of clothes or price/times worn. I apply this to electronic purchases like a laptop. total price/average years of use i get for the laptop.

ohh! Good one I didn't think of that. It can apply to pretty much anything. And with something as expensive as computers that can really make a big difference.

I'm definitely guilty of the Netflix/Hula/Prime thing and I only watch one show myself. My wife and kids do use it but that's a good idea by rotating them. It doesn't take long before there is nothing new on Netflix to watch anyway.

Exactly!! Heheh you could make changes and then your family will appreciate whatever subscription you are on for a moment.

True. lol

:)

Love this post! I really thought it was going to be something cheesy. 100% upvote to you and kudos.

I've bought everything I've ever owned in cash (or trade).
2 houses (once still owned), probably 15 cars over the years (three still owned and never buy brand new). Lots of low end and high end clothing so I'm prepared for any outing. Also several computers (3 currently).

I was raised to believe that if you cannot afford it, don't buy it. If you have to get a loan, you can't afford it. Also, if you don't need it, don't buy it.

I keep my high end clothes and accessories in great shape to preserve them for longer use and my low end clothes I wear nearly until they fall off lol. Also, as you've pointed out I only own one week of everyday clothing.

I love the math on what you spend for each wear. This is a calculation I had not considered. On my low end clothes I believe the math has come out to $.25 per daily outfit per wear. High end would be considerably higher as I pick and choose when to wear them.

Buying this way can let you afford to buy great quality for most things because you understand you will not have to buy it again.

This type of saving has allowed me to travel the entire country and several countries outside the US also.

Love what you are doing and promoting here. Great job!

I am guilty of multiple TV streamers but in my defence, Netflix has some content my wife loves, Amazon prime is free with membership (and we use a lot of the postage) and NowTV (UK Sky provider) is free with my phone contract. I agree we should all try and get back to how we were 20 years ago when the only debts people had were a mortgage but it isn't going to happen. We live in a society and economy built on debt. Its the only way the economy grows and its how money is created, so if we all stopped borrowing, the economy would shrink! Screwed up isn't it!!

No more coffee 😄

You quit coffee?

I am scaling down

really nice one

My personal budget belt is fairly tight, but you have motivated me to review it. Thanks!

Interesting way to calculate the worth of a piece of clothing.
I makes sense though!
Cool post @kaylinart , I liked it a lot :)

OH ya! Sometimes people give me a hard time that I have paid lots of $ for a few of my lululemon shorts.
But I wear them almost every day. So, I think they got there moneys worth. heh

Paying for my Whole Vacation in Cash...
It really can be done :)
Giving up streaming services has helped!

So true!!

I have too many clothes in my closet and i love binge watching shows :O I really should take your advice and try harder saving money! :D Great Post!

Right? maybe you can trade your clothes with friends or family your size, So you get to "shop" without spending money.

I've never thought about that! That is actually a awesome idee! I will tell my family about it! Thanks :)

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Thank You - @blueorgy

Thank you :)

Don't spend less make more $$$$$ lol Live to work ... Not work to live .... oops might have got that backwards lol ...... Avoid debt a all cost if you can ..... That is one thing I have learned over the years.... Learn a few other things .. but I have forgotten most of them lol

Great post! Nice tips!

When do you publish your next post on preferring TV and beer and chips and lying on a couch to physical exercise?

Fortunately I'm not slave of consumerism, but unfortunately my wife is :(

Great post! Upvoted

It all depends of state of mind. Society nowadays is bombarding you with adds and trying to convince you that you are as good as things you own or buy. When people realise that things don't make them happy or valuable it will change, hopefully. I'm similar to you, don't like credit cards or buying - renting things which I don't need, at the end all that non wasted money adds up so now I can afford what ever I choose. Good post!

I feel so lucky having a job that pays in cash. I deal with banks once a month just to put enough money for my rent and bills.

Great tips!!

So true excellent post @kaylinart!

Yes, cut out the TV, use simple used clothes, buy used cars with cash. Yes the debt free life.

@kaylinart, this comment is in regards to clothing.

I have a large family (7 people total), so $20 tshirts are not an option. We have been going to thrift stores and consignment stores a lot lately. We have found good deals and fairly nice clothes.

And the best part - low prices. You are correct. Too many people rely on credit. Credit is not necessarily bad, but it can be used inappropriately.

LOL, i guess people in the first world is used to spend so much money and buy everything in payments... But for us in the 3rd world is so common to pay everything with "cash"... We cant afford streaming services and such, only youtube as long its free hehe... But i guess you are right, people should learn how to save money, we where forced to learn...

thanks for the information

Nice post

this is really good, i read the first part and was impressed and looked forward for this. thanks for the post @kaylinart. this is really nice.

I got a bellyRub and this post has received a 1.43 % upvote from @bellyrub thanks to: @zeartul.

Wanted to comment last night, but sadly couldn't and then fell asleep. I use netflix to steam and amazon for there unlimited photo storage. Streaming on Amazon is just a plus. The streaming services I sign up for occasionally are hulu and sling. I've also cut my cable so rely mainly on netflix. Overall I probably save about 50% since I cut cable. Would be more if it wasn't bundled with my internet.

LOL, I think at least ten people use my Netflix account... Every now and then I'm one of them...

great blog. a big thing that keeps people paying into liabilities for ever is paying only the minimum on a credit card, it'll take forever to pay off and the institution makes so much. keeps you broke longer.

In short: it's good to switch from being a consumer to being a creator. Everybody can wear t-shirts, but less are the ones designing them,

By the way, there's a style of clothing, I forgot the name, but you are buying 100 jeans, 100 t-shirts and 100 pairs of shoes all from the same kind - what happens is that you forget about wondering what you should wear every other day, because now you just need to wake up and put on your favorite outfit.

By the way, just take a look at the Steaming Services since there should be an r after the t.