rent and housing run by the bank
Mountains of people bad at math convincing bigger mountains of people even worse at math that they can’t afford anything of major value.
So in turn they go and spend what money they do have because why bother saving it if you’ll “never afford a x”
In reality most of the “you can’t afford this and that” shit is built on top of bad math and content creators that don’t understand how shit works.
And literally anyone with basic math skills can just go look for themselves and discover how bogus the claims are, or how much they misrepresent the state of things.
But nope, it’s easier to give up and just buy forty Stanley Cups instead!
Subscriptions everywhere. Video, credit, energy bills (subscription for repairs/maintenance), music, news sites, YouTubers, CARS, etc. I can’t fucking escape this hell!
Other than energy bills, you’ll just have to dodge the rest of the subscriptions as best you can.
I am doing my okayest.
I’ve done pretty well so far. Only subscription I have is for Spotify and 1Password.
Why 1password when you can use bitwarden, its free for most features, and 10 bucks a year for features I don’t need
I like the convenience of the 2 factor being included with the paid version, and password autofill with TOTP seems to work much more often than Bitwarden (S23 Ultra, latest version of Android) So with that being said, I really like Bitwarden, but prefer 1Password for the convenience.
2fa is included in bitwarden, just not in the free version
Is it a password manager? I’ve been wondering if there’s a good alternative to Keeper, which is what I use. I like that I can access my passwords on different devices, and it tells me if a password has been compromised or is weak. But, I’ve also been trying to save money. I think the one I’m using now is $30 a year so free or $10 a year for similar features would be an improvement.
Yes, bitwarden is a password manager, and A very good one at that
Energy bills aren’t really subscriptions like the others though. You pay for the energy you use.
Whereas with the others, you’re paying the same price every month regardless of how much you use.
The maintenance plan is in addition to the gas usage
Yours doesn’t come with a delivery fee that you’d have to pay every month regardless of any usage?
Phone upgrades even though there’s barely any change from the last model.
Smartphone sales are at their lowest since 2013. Everyone has figured this out now.
Since 2018, the trend seemed to be going toward removing features instead… sd card slot, headphone jack, physical buttons, intrusions of screen space…
Foldable are pretty neat, but still too expensive for most
Been eyeing that (still on a 6 year old phone), actual compactness is one of the few things I’d be willing to sacrifice most of the smartphone things I like for.
I have the fold and I wouldn’t call it compact, the flip style phones seem better for that aspect, I just enjoy the large screen when I use it for gaming or watching videos, it’s certainly more compact then if I had a tablet instead I suppose.
Might be better to wait and let it mature a bit if size is your main concern.
I was going to go with the Z Flip over the Fold, I’d want that half size phone.
The flip is pretty great, you can close the pockets on the front of your shirt now if you wear those type. First phone I’ve managed to not smash or send up a grain auger.
consumers have noticed, since sales of smartphones have plateaued
I think that’s the hidden cause of increasing phone pricing. I’m still using my note 9. The battery is starting to give so maybe this time next year I finally upgrade.
They remind me that it’s cold outside and that I have to work every day to live in a hundred year old house that was probably built in a few months.
I paid like $29 for Taco Bell the other day 😉
The $5 Value box became the $6 Value Box, then the $9, then the 10, 15, 20…
I’m still amazed anything on that menu costs more than fifty-nine cents 😅
You can ruin a bathroom for far cheaper.
LOL yeah, but they closed my local Arby’s 😌
Home Depot sells hot dogs.
Yeah, but when you try to order one the guy takes off in the other direction.
Inflation of good with no matching inflation of pay.
Buying giant SUVs no one needs with huge loans. Paying through the nose for corporate chain coffee.
I work with a guy who recently bought a 100k truck
We make a bit over 50k, this dude’s interest rate is 12% and he got an 8 year loan
He’s never going to pull himself out of that rut
The cost of a tank of gas? $3.25
The cost for yearly maintenance? $2,750
The cost of interest paid each month? $585
The joy of bringing a smile to children under the age of 10 pointing and saying “that’s a cool truck!”? $100k
It’s got a 50 gallon tank and runs on diesel
It cost over $200 to fill the tank
He commutes 40 miles per day in that monster
If were more reasonably priced, a 40mi commute sounds like a decent reason to get a vehicle you love.
A 40 mile commute is a reason to get a cheap, fuel-efficient vehicle. Save money on gas, insurance and maintenance.
Stop ruining my devil’s advocate with your logic and reasoning.
S/tank/gallon
You can’t see children under the age of 10 in that truck. I guarantee you the nose on that thing is at least 5 feet high. “Kinderplow”
And he’ll never use it as intended, will he? Most that thing will ever haul is a cooler full of Keystone or a few random pieces of wood.
He uses it as his daily commuter vehicle
40 miles per day at 15mpg
50 gallon diesel tank for hauling his ego around
This vehicle will bankrupt him for sure
8 years! That’s insane to me.
When I talked to him today I found out his payments were $1600 per month!
I don’t know how the hell he affords it
It’s literally more than my rent
Good god, that is absolutely hilarious.
That’s more than my mortgage. Crazy.
Cries in Vancouver. Entry level mortgages here wind up around $5700 which is somehow more expensive than my rent on a 2 bedroom 1990s era decor apartment sitting at a market average 3850/month.
We’re not super wealthy, and manage our expenses well but holy shit we’re never gonna get ahead in life if this is what’s in store.
Holy geez, I knew that medical costs were out of control, but that’s a stupid amount of money to treat fragile masculinity!
They’re being sold to in terms of dollars per month, which makes a very oversized purchase sound reasonable if no one spells out the end results. We tend to value having the thing now more than being totally broke later.
Also, peoples means keep staying the same or shrinking while everyday purchases get more expensive.
It’s all falling apart. No future. No safety. No hope. Buy until you die.
"Choose a life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television. Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers… " Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting
BNPL (“buy now, pay later”) is definitely amongst the worst problems
“CREDIT”
Dishwasher pods are convenient and cost 5x as much as the powder.
Laundry detergent pods are another one
And fabric softener ruins your clothes over time
Get that hypoallergenic laundry soap with no additives, it’s usually better for your clothes as they keep the extras to a minimum
I just buy the giant free and clear liquid detergent from Costco. I’ve got a thing of scent beads, too, but I only use that on my towels and sheets because I like them to smell nice.
It’s important to note that when you buy liquid detergent (or liquid anything in most cases) you’re paying for both product and water. In most cases buying powder instead can lead to a lower ‘cost per load’. At Costco I have to admit the difference is only ~$0.01-$0.02 per load, so it equates to $8 over a few months anyway.
That small value delta could ostensibly be argued as convenience fee but I still order powder on principal.
They really ain’t even that much more convenient, and a box of powder lasts forever
And the pods notoriously have way too much soap in them which often leaves a film on the dishes
In case someone hasn’t seen it and might, I’ll mention that Technology Connections has a few great videos on dishwashers and detergent on (your friendly ethical alternative to) Youtube.
A thread on rising credit card debt in the US, combined with news of sustained spending levels and a rosy outlook on the economy at the surface got me thinking about this.
Recent trends that I thought of:
- Those “Pay over X months” schemes for smaller purchases than before.
- Tip amounts appearing in more places than they need to be, and increasing.
- Inflation of the prices of basic necessities and everything else
- Everything becoming a monthly subscription
- Deregulation of online gambling and related ads
I’m hoping for more recent trends and things I might not have considered like social media, but I also welcome personal experiences, expanding on any of the above and historical examples.
Those “Pay over X months” schemes for smaller purchases than before.
Some people don’t realize each one of those is a new line of credit…
You can fuck your credit up for a very long time messing around with those on stupid shit.
The scarier thing is that they are designed to be less than six months to avoid federal loan regulations and are reported to credit agencies as some new kind of installment loan (I forget the exact term/acronym). Many lenders are refusing to lend to anyone who has even taken one out in the past 2-3 years since they are seen as such a high risk indicator.
It’s not just one, it’s that credit checks are big factor in credit scores.
Normally you get an infinite amount in a 2 week period as one check for when you’re shopping around
If someone does one of these every other month, that’s 6 credit checks in a year. Even if you pay them all back asap, it fucks your credit up.
And it’ll show as an open line of credit on your report forever. Which is normally a good thing, but it brings your average credit per account down which hurts you further.
People do t know all that, and their fucking up their credit without knowing it. Then if they have to do a big loan for home/car/whatever, they get a worse rate
The subscriptions are out of control now. Sometimes we have to throw a tablet or phone at the kids, and of course they want the play the parts of the game they can’t click on because it’s locked. I have no problem shelling out something reasonable like $2-7 to just unlock all the crap and be done with it, but now most of these developers are asking for $10 a MONTH just to have access to all of the game assets. And they’re not live service games, have online, or even in-game currency; they just single player offline basic games like driving Thomas the tank engine around a map. Like, get fucked dudes.
Mobile games are so twisted and it’s plain to see.
You reminded me of this video, 20 minutes of the basis of how to psychologically manipulate people into spending money for your game. 3:45 is the “Hook, Habit Hobby” part which is worth a watch too. It’s from 7 years ago and elements of it may be beginning to crawl everywhere.
I’ll definitely give this a watch later, thanks!
There are ads that portray people in humiliating situations, like not being able to afford their groceries while holding up the line at the checkout, so they download an app that gives them “free cash.” This is portrayed as a perfectly normal, reasonable thing to do in this situation.
NGL I’ve bought a lot of people their groceries over the years
I’ve been that person and the child of that person who couldn’t afford groceries, so I do what I can to help others
Wow, that’s dehumanizing…
I’ve been behind people who used price match for every item in their cart. I try to smile politely and not look annoyed, people do what they need to to get by.
Yeah I’ve been the person who couldn’t pay too, and had to take items out
It feels like everyone is ignoring your reference to apps like “Dave” that bombard me with ads to essentially payday lend me money if I have direct deposit.
Oh, do they think I’m saying that people are bad for not being able to pay? Damn, that’s the opposite of what I’m saying. These apps are predatory.
Just a persistent culture of materialism. That things will bring you happiness in some deeply rooted way that can’t be matched. Add in an unhealthy dose of capitalistic mentality and there’s also the push that if something costs more, it must be better.
So you get trapped in a cycle of buying things that have no real purpose, or can be better served by something cheaper, and feeling unfulfilled. So you look for something new to fill that emptiness that persists throughout the cycle.
I will never be happy until I have my own private train, I guess ;)
Just pretend you own the metro but let everyone else use it out of the goodness of your heart.
Damn communist freeloaders
Aw, I like that idea!
