Comments on: Just say “NO” to crap!

By: Alli

Alli — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:30:31 +0000

25 years and counting: a rosewood comb, tweezer, and magnifying mirror. Oh, and hair cutting scissors. I might have found the best finger nail clippers to add to my kit. Flat toe nail clippers make it complete. Good for 25 more.

By: catzilla

catzilla — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 02:17:07 +0000

Well, I’ll start living like this.
The phone I wanted to shell out $400 for?
Screw that.

By: marci

marci — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 14:38:27 +0000

Had an interesting conversation with my boyfriend’s grandson, 12, as we all sat around the campfire last night….

He wished he could be growing up ‘back then’ in Grandpa’s growing up time, when times were different and kids could have fun without getting into trouble, and the drugs were not all around, and the peer pressure was not as bad – and this is all in a very rural very small town.

I said but you’d miss your gameboys, and tv channels (we only had one channel), and your DS, and cell phones, and computers, etc…. and HE SAID, but if I hadn’t grown up with them all I would never be missing them and I could be having good clean fun on my bike, fishing and boating in a paddle canoe on the river, and just doing ‘neat’ things like you and grandpa do …. things that don’t even cost money

It was soooo interesting to see how our frugal no money spent lifestyle has worn off on the boy! He lived with us all summer and moved back to the ‘big city’ when school started…so I think he is missing all our summer activities that he complained were “boring” at the time! And I KNOW he misses our garden!

Funny how that happens!

By: Sarah

Sarah — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 23:43:56 +0000

I was just talking with my husband and my mom over the last few days about how much things have changed since say, 100 yrs ago. Look at the disposable nature of our society — even jobs don’t last like they used to. And the pharmaceutical industry, and the current health care situation — ugh, so many things taken over by the trend of disposability. In the 60s they had paper dresses and such. My mom was saying that around the 50s/60s it was such a new trend to have cheaper stuff, and tv dinners, and then credit cards so you could buy stuff that doesn’t even last until it’s paid off. From asking different people it looks like drugs really hit it big during/after WWII with penicillan, then decades later with birth control, prozac . . . all can be life-savers when needed, but we’ve gotten to the point that all the artificial stuff we surrounded ourselves with more and more in the last 50-60 yrs is making us sicker and sicker. We go to one extreme, then the other extreme as a backlash. I just hope that this trend, as a pendulum swinging from one extreme to the other finally comes to rest in the area of moderation–we will, too. There are few things that, even in moderation, can’t be tolerated or lived with successfully. For example, though I suspect there exists those for whom this is not true, but most people would have trouble doing a moderate about of cocaine. Actually, they’ve shown with food addiction (and I suspect this may be the case with impulse buying and other challenges facing so many people today) — in some people, carb loading (binging eating kind, not the pre marathon kind..) causes the release of a substance very similar in structure, and even more similar in effect, to morphine. They reported that some people even experience withdrawal type symptoms when they stop binging. And that for these people, eating actually stops pain (emotional or physical). They said it felt the same as if rec’ing a shot of morphine in an IV — that powerful. (search Dr. Amen clinic for more about that finding). That’s not too far fetched for me to believe. My head hurts when I think of all the ways we are undermining ourselves and each other-some by big companies after much research and others by ideals adopted and acted upon by large groups of people whether they see the bigger picture or not. Look at fast food combo’s — they present you with sugar, caffeine, salt and fat (of course, you can lower the amt’s or just drink water, etc–or avoid altogether ideally)–those are all substances known to cause cravings for more of the same or cross cravings. I heard recently that the single most detrimental substance causing health to go down and costs to go up is salt. There is so much salt added to prepared foods that people don’t even realize how much they are taking in. Cutting salt from most foods and minimizing when called for reveals a whole new world of taste and processed food becomes almost unbearable b/c they use so much. There was a time when using a lot of salt was called for–before refrigeration–to keep meats and such from going bad as quickly, but we don’t have that issue now. I also think we’re on the beginning cusp of seeing all the ill results of this behavior over the last half century. I am so excited about the possibilities of what we could do with the technology and other advances we’re making at an always faster rate-the more technology we have, the faster we have more technology. I don’t think that the disposable aspect is inherent in this trend — it’s just what makes a profit faster. Oh I could go on and on.. (I think I already did! hahaha) I still believe that we are more good that greedy, more aspiring than lazy, we are just in a time where we each have to reach that point w/o it being ingrained in our social fabric currently. In that sense, it’s more meaningful when it does happen and I guess I think as it happens to more and more of us there will eventually be a widefelt shift in our natures. Now, whether we reach that point by self discovery or we push our environment to the point that the shift is forced upon us, I don’t know. And there always has been and maybe always will be flawed people in the position to make flawed decisions/actions that in a flawed climate cause astronomical rates of flawedness (like the whole banking and housing industry–an industry that started with some greed and then more, and at some point the people now involved had never experienced a way to operate other than greed and unfortunately were never motivated to discover or change that in themselves until the whole industry imploded). I just see that potential energy building up in so many areas and hope they don’t all fall at the same time. If they do, I still have faith in mankind. That despite ourselves we’ll come around. It’ll be a show anyway. These are years that will become paragraphs, maybe even whole chapters in the history lessons 50-100 or more years from now.

By: Luis Sierra

Luis Sierra — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 01:32:07 +0000

I’ve been trying to say this to my wife. It’s causing huge problems for me because of this whole economy ordeal. I lost my job, she maintained hers. So she just keeps buying crap like it’s going out of style and any and all money that I earn from my part-time job is spent on bills and necessities.

Just in the last week she has purchased five DVD’s! A few more knick-knacky items, and other useless stuff.

By: MoneyEnergy

MoneyEnergy — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 00:39:58 +0000

I agree, great post. I like that quote: “stop chasing the crap dragon!” I’m somewhat guilty in this area since as a graduate student I buy a lot of books for research, most of which I keep, but I see those as professional expenses. Other than that I buy the basic furnishing I need for my apartment, but I’m not very attached to them. I wish I could say that all I really need are two suitcases and I’m ready to move my life somewhere else – but I’m not there yet.

Here’s what I wrote about my own goals in that regard. I call it maximising cashflow consciousness and creating life leverage:

http://tinyurl.com/ddgmp3

By: FrugalNYC

FrugalNYC — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 16:25:03 +0000

I totally agree. We are surrounded by so much “crap” all the time. Most things people own are nothing but unused junk. Just think about the stuff you own and how much you actually use most of them. Think 80/20 rule. Its probably good to purge and unclutter. Better for the mind.

Thanks for a great article.

By: Jules

Jules — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 09:08:08 +0000

Awesome article – insightful, funny, and spot on. Happy 2009.

By: Fabulously Broke

Fabulously Broke — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 15:12:02 +0000

It's my thing for this year. Less Crap. More money saved. Fabulously Broke in the City Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver...

By: YOU’VE GOT MAIL!!! | Indecisive Me

YOU’VE GOT MAIL!!! | Indecisive Me — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 23:12:28 +0000

[...] I don’t know about you but I don’t think that I’d be willing to have this thing around to tell the rest of the world when I get a new email. Haha. Unless you are really on the lookout for your email and think of it as something that you would need to be constantly informed of, I would not suggest getting it. It might also just add up to the clutter of your work desk and what squawkfox would classify as crap. [...]