No TV. The Nielsen poller who called the other day was dismayed to hear this. I don't even stream TV shows. And my car is 18 years old. People say, "When are you going to get a new car?" I say, "Maybe when this one hits around 200,000 miles. Of course it's only got 50,000 miles on it right now. So that would be 54 years from now."
I think you are a little bit too optimistic on this one :D But at least you have a goal for saving ;)
I wear Prada and other high-end brands, which I get from my wife's consignment store, that throws status-conscious people off when they see me get off my old bike :D
Haha. I can see their faces. Its a bit like the one people make when I tell them that last year a board member of my party opened the 2nd day of assembly in his bath robe (he slept in the hotel where the assembly was). It shows how much people judge others based on their clothes.
- Hook up my prius to the streetcar cables
That picture is great. Is the police calling "we have a electricity thief"?
Still running the original video card from 2008, which plays my most recent game (Skyrim) on medium settings just fine.
Ever considered an APU? If AMD should ever manage to put the A8-7600 on the market, it should play Skyrim on highest (or at least high) settings in the 45W setup. I'm considering getting it and make a no-moving-parts tower. Complete passive cooling for a game computer... I have really good ears so even slow fans tend to disturb me when writing texts. This is a dream ^^
"Are you sure you don't want to borrow my snowblower?". Yep, quite sure. No desire to trade an hour of exercise away and get stuck behind a noisy, smelly pollution factory instead... :-)
Oh yes. Especially the cutter or leaves blower. I will never understand why people buy an expensive LOUD device to save about 2 hours a year. I could probably understand a snow blower in regions where you have fresh snow for several month, especially if you are older, but all other things...
I wouldn't be surprised if one day in the far off future a bacterium evolves the can break down plastic and live of the hydrocarbon chains.
No need to be surprised, since they exist already. Oil eating you have heard of? plastic eating is not far away from that. Plastic is just very hard oil
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110328/full/news.2011.191.htmlA) Lots of people look bewildered when I say "this is my budget for that". I dont really have one, just a "I should not pay more then X per month on this category", which can easily be upped for good reasons, but just having a max spending goal other then your paycheck is a alien concept for many.
B) Ah, and I have 2 prepaid cards in my "dumb" mobile, they both came with "15€ in the first 3 month each, then 10€ free" for a 10€ shipping fee. (one card for private, one for party related things). People never believe I got more then half a year out of both on the 10€. The first one lasted more then a year before the auto-payment at 2€ left kicked in. When they ask "how do you do that" I just answer "only use the phone when you need".
And others still try to sell me plans for "save money! Only 20€ a month, free calls inland". Sometime I have this big urge to go into a phone shop, let them talk half an hour about their fantastic phones and then ask "so... last month I paid 26 cents for phone service, what money saving plans have you for this?" Up to today I could resist this urges, but every advertisement about "save money now" makes it harder...
C) I wear my clothing until it gets holes. On average I would guess its 7-8 years old. My winter shoes (only for snow higher then a few cm, one pair, not much snow here ;)) are 12 years old and nearly look like new. I think I used them 4 days this mild winter. I know people who have at least one new pair every year. Even if they use them more often... I just cant understand it.
D) Hypermiling. Not really, but I try to enter a town with not much more then the allowed 50km/h and mostly drive after a truck on the highway. The distances I normally drive on highway are 12km and 14km (one city in the north one south), so there is no real time saving even with speeding, and it is a lot more relaxing this way. Once I even managed to get the fuel efficiency the manufacturer promised! I'm in the upper single % for my car related to gas usage.
I always want to bang my head if I get overtaken at traffic lights by guys who have to accelerate on the left or right turning lane when that opens up just to have to brake hard and stand longer on the red light then me. Wasting fuel just to get more annoyed by more waiting???
E) Haircuts only done by mum, since birth :D I was actually a bit surprised as a child when I learned that there are people who go to stores only to get their hair cut.
F) No smoking (of whatever type). I once did the math for a tobacco fetishist. Ended up with a big house on his 60th birthday (without interest). The difference between a 14-year-old that is broken with 65, and his twin beeing a millionaire, could really just be that pack of cigarettes a day. Incredible expensive way to ruin your health.
G) getting fruits and nuts in nature. To be frank, its mostly my mother doing it, I am not a fruits person ^^ but the people after the war have planted LOTS of trees with fruits which just get wasted. Nuts for 5€/kg? I got 3kg for free in an hour, including cycling to the tree.
H) cotton bags. I had to transport the nuts, right ;) A few cotton bags will last you a decade. Just wash them sometimes. You can fold one and it easily fits in a pocket. I even have an "inherited" one that was once some kind of synthetic fibre clothing. As far as I could certify, its older then me, cloth-time not considered (I think 34 years as bag). It looks awful, but is very light and I use it just to see how long it survives. I fear I may break down first :D
