The Money Mustache Community
Around the Internet => Antimustachian Wall of Shame and Comedy => Topic started by: JAYSLOL on April 19, 2015, 09:11:33 PM
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I found MMM 5 months ago and read through almost all 400ish blog posts over a 4-week vacation. I've also enjoyed reading much of the forum posts, but never bothered to become a member until i came across this article today and had to register to post it because of how deserving this "finance article" is to be in the Antimustachian topic section.
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/signs-you-re-too-cheap-194415354.html
They got a few things right, eating fast food is being cheap, and so is avoiding proper healthcare to save money. What they got dead wrong is the idea that doing your own housekeeping, laundry or home/car maintenance is being cheap. Going on to say that you need to invest in activities that make you happy, but that somehow activities that make you "happy" are wasting money being pampered at the spa and relaxing, rather than challenging yourself and learning to do the aforementioned "signs of being cheap" like fixing your own stuff. I'm always way happier after i've learned to fix something on my own car than i am after paying someone to do it, and spending the time and even more money "relaxing".
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I think I detect a whiff of class bias in the article.
Supposedly, doing stuff you like to make you happy is OK if they're things rich people are supposed to enjoy (such as spa treatments that can easily go up to $100 a pop). But if someone spends less than $10 on a fast food meal that contains a few treat items they enjoy but don't usually get to indulge in, that's being "cheap"? Restaurant meals have the same outrageous calorie and salt content as fast food, and they're far more expensive on a per-serving basis.
In reality, both activities are indulgent, and can be considered wasteful. But, if anything, I think the spa treatment has got to be more wasteful than the fast food meal. Three hours after eating the meal, you're still full. Three hours after the spa treatment, you're tense and annoyed again.
A better title for the article might be: "5 signs you're incompetent".
- The first one, about health care, shows the author trying to act like a doctor or pharmacist, and failing
- The second point illustrates a person who is incapable of spending ten to fifteen minutes tidying up, or who lacks the wit to know how to put laundry in the washer while doing something else
- The third point indicates that the author does not know what an "investment" is. An "investment" is something that will eventually pay you some kind of return on your money. Spa pampering simply doesn't do that. The author is supposed to be a finance author of some kind; how could such a person not know what an "investment" is?
- The fourth point shows that the author is not capable of cooking, and is under the mistaken notion that "decent" restaurant meals aren't just as loaded with salt, starch, and calories as the McDeathwish dollar meal
- The last point shows that the author is not capable of even the most basic home upgrades, and is too inept to make use of YouTube or Home Depot free seminars
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A better title for the article might be: "5 signs you're incompetent".
+1!
Or "5 signs you shouldn't be posting a mainstream finance article"
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Wasn't there another thread on this same article? I'm confused.
EDIT: never mind, it was in "Overheard on Facebook".
Yeah, this is madness. The spa treatment one is hilariously awful - you can't put a price tag on relaxation? I can get so relaxed I literally pass out, just by taking a hot shower and doing 30 minutes of yoga with a YouTube instructor. It's free.
Wasting time saving money is funny - if you're truly incompetent, you can do more harm than good, but that's a reason to learn more skills, not to stop trying. Even Mustachians have been known to outsource - if and when it enables them to actually earn more money - but the idea of just giving up on knowing anything outside your one single core competency is absurd. I have a full-time job and 3 side gigs and I'm still learning new construction skills, and I cook for my wife and myself almost every day. We clean our own house, cut our own grass, and rake our own pine needles. Fuck the whiners.
I won't even touch the food one. Just... no.
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So if I make my own bread instead of buying it, I am cheap. The only way this can be enjoyable is if I spend several thousand dollars to attend an Artisan Bread Spa Weekend.
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Wow, the comments to this article are actually kind of fun to read. Most are calling the author out. Some of my favorites:
LEARN to fix that faucet. get off you pampered patuti and do a load of laundry. neither of them are that difficult.
This is the sort of article a spoiled, little rich girl would write. A housekeeper? Are you kidding me?
The ones I largely don't agree with on the list are regarding saving and fixing stuff yourself. Because to me it reads "be lazy/irresponsible and ignorant".
Five signs you are too stupid to give advice:
This author can afford a housekeeper writing drivel like this?
And, my personal favorite...
Written like any person who will never retire.
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Wow, the comments to this article are actually kind of fun to read. Most are calling the author out. Some of my favorites:
LEARN to fix that faucet. get off you pampered patuti and do a load of laundry. neither of them are that difficult.
This is the sort of article a spoiled, little rich girl would write. A housekeeper? Are you kidding me?
The ones I largely don't agree with on the list are regarding saving and fixing stuff yourself. Because to me it reads "be lazy/irresponsible and ignorant".
Five signs you are too stupid to give advice:
This author can afford a housekeeper writing drivel like this?
And, my personal favorite...
Written like any person who will never retire.
Those are some epic comments by Yahoo "News" article standards. Hopefully the author got a bit of a wakeup call back to reality.
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I agree about the skimping on your health comment, but beyond that I can't buy much of this.
Sometimes it makes sense to pay someone to do chores for you. For example, when we moved into our current house, the yard had been neglected for about a decade: Bushes as tall as the house, etc. It took a crew of landscapers two days to tear out and clean up -- I'd still be working on it, if I'd done it myself. Of course, I couldn't do it myself because I don't own a bush hog and the other tools they used. However, once that was done, I spent a couple half-days replanting new items. I think I chose correctly which chores to "hire out" and which to do myself.
To use their examples, whether you should fix that leaky faucet or not really depends upon the difficulty of the specific repair and your own skill set.
As for not investing in activities that make you happy, if I understand the author correctly, two possibilities exist: Spend on activities (and she mentions the spa) OR sit home in misery. So tonight our plans are a dinner at home, some TV, then reading -- I'm doomed to misery because none of those are "cost" activities?
Quality also is something that should be measured on a sliding scale. Sometimes you need to buy the best (i.e., everyday work shoes); other times the cheaper options are fine (i.e., church shoes you know will be worn only occasionally, and mostly while you're sitting down). I have good quality dishes to put on my table /through the dishwasher every night, but if we go camping I'm buying cheap quality paper plates. I wouldn't buy a cheap roof to protect my house, but I won't spend on the expensive toilet paper. The list could go on; sometimes quality matters, other times it doesn't.
Finally, buying fixer-uppers can be a mistake -- if you never do the work and the item just sits and sits; however, if you enjoy fixing things and actually finish the project, it's a great choice. In fact, that could be an activity that brings enjoyment to your life.
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The fact is that when people fall for click-bait like this, it makes Yahoo money and asks the article writer to create more drivel.
Main Stream Media (MSM) is now a Mostly Shit Medium.