Are you frugal in everyday life: perspective?

Hard to complain about being too hard up to pay tradies once you’ve hired a sports car for a couple of days!

 

I'm still trying to work out how to answer the phone..btw with the car hire did you have any problems changing the gears..

 

Quoting James90

My opinion is probably more unpopular than popular But I am totally against call out fees. Think they're ludicrous. $120 to to tighten a tap head is not on for me

True, but a rip off is a rip off to me even if I'm driving a super car![/QUOTE]

 

I've had similar thoughts. I think the only way to answer that question is to know what your end goal is and by when.

If you don't, how can you tell if that $4 coffee is on or off track.

Right now I have a cook and cleaner. $100/wk.
Now I could do 4 hours of work to save that, however $100 to make sure I have a week of clean meals and a clean house...

When I was on $60k/yr. That was unfathomable. Now that I make surplus at around $100/hr, doing something I don't enjoy that can be done for $25/hr THAT is unfathomable. Now I have 4 extra hours a week, or 2 waking weeks a year, to either spend time with family, develop my business, or binge eat icecream and cry from sheer depression.

Not to say I don't try to be frugal in other areas (eg. I have a gorgeous 20sqm bedroom in Surry Hills at $130/wk), as stated many times before though, if you've been working on the certain skill-sets, it's easier to make $100 than save $100. There's a limit on how much you can save till it impacts on quality of life, the flip side is, there's also no limit on what you can spend.

 

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The issue with no call out fee is, someone stops what they're doing, drives 15-45 min, has a look at the job, figures out the issue, says to the owner "oh it's not a big job just gotta tighten them up and it'll be fine for quite a while to come".
Owner replies with "oh no stress I can do that myself"

Plumber has wasted over an hour of his time and used his knowledge for nothing in return.

I understand your point but I'd rather pay a call out than have someone come and make it out worse than what it is just to get a job out of it.

 

Before paying for any big purchases I think of how long I'd have to work to make that amount of money and then whether the cost outweighs the benefits or vice versa.

 

Ditto.
(unwritten rule of PC: every thread can be turned into a car thread )

 

Because if you didn't save anything you'd be in the red for the amount that bit of bad luck hit you up for. You are still ahead by what you managed to save, so you are better off.

Also, as others have said, personal and business (investment) expenses should be partitioned from each other.

 

When you get a new phone, you might kick yourself as to why you didn't do it earlier.

 

Can I ask how you come to the conclusion they are overpriced? Do they give a breakdown of there business expenses with each invoice?[/QUOTE]
I love this. People forget we have to pay our own super, we don’t pocket the ten % GST,

 

Not for me. I recently begrudgingly upgraded from a Galaxy S5 to an S7 that my son had left over from his upgrade to an S9. It took days to set the new phone up how I like and while it is a bit snappier than the old one at doing things, there was nothing really wrong with the "old" S5's performance. IMO, the first few versions of touch screen phones were revolutionary, but the latest ones are just gimmicky.

 

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Thats part of the price you pay when you buy a property a long way from where you live.

We had one many years ago, a short drive from where we live and it was pretty easy to get access to fix things , most were quite straightforward issues, others involved tradies being called.
For small jobs you pay a premium , because many guys just will not do the small jobs that waste a couple of hours of their time for little reward, especially if travelling is required, and then dealing with people that want to haggle over a few dollars.

 

Why? Isnt a phone something we communicate with. It doesn't have to be a book or a tv as well

I have an S5 and do not use many of its features.

 

I had my previous phone since 2014, so when I got my new one recently, I realised how slow it was.
Yes, phones don’t have to be used:
* as maps or as a navigation device
* as a camera
* as an internet device
* for watching videos
* for Airbnb property management
* for looking up the best transport connections
* for online banking
* for reading and responding to emails
* for reading the news
* to message your friends or family
etc,

but when you travel on public transport to go to work, a phone is so handy to keep you occupied or for productivity. I only realised how bad my old phone was when I finally upgraded.

 

Um, you have a point there, Buddy

 

Why? My phone does everything I want it to do exactly the way I want it to do it. One of my parents got a galaxy s8 I think. I don't love it. It annoys me

 

Mine does all that fine and it is useful to do on the train. It's not slow either.

 

My wife and I are relatively frugal or "thrifty" when it comes to spending. Live in SW Sydney (reduced living costs) but wife earns a decent CBD manager level salary. We own two relatively affordable/low running costs cars purchased secondhand/demo: Honda Jazz/Nissan Pulsar.

Don't mind shopping on ozbargain, gumtree. We go on holidays depending on if there's a special deal, hah.

Generally upgrade our iPhones at least 2 generations down the track or where necessary. i.e. I replaced the battery in my 6s Plus to extend it's useful life.

Did a mini Euro (Paris, London, Rome) trip last year because we managed to grab cheap flight tickets due to a pricing error. Approx. $1500 return for two people. Did an Asia cruise (would not do again from China though =P) earlier this year (Beijing, Okinawa, HK) because we figured for a family of 4 that it was best bang for buck for the kids to travel/see different cultures especially at the discounted price they were selling it for. etc.

So frugal in the sense where we are aware of what is realistically required to enjoy a simple life but thrifty in the sense where we try to maximise our enjoyment/$ for when we do want to spend.

 

A timely article on the issues frugal individuals have to deal with.

How to beat save shaming and make sure you get ahead

I've personally had these shaming lines directed at me more times than I can remember. The problem is though... I never cared!