A cluttered life: Middle Class abundance

[vi edit]

As much as I would like and could afford a maid, we chose not to. My reason is simple - my kids shouldn't expect other people to clean up your shit. It's something we are constantly making them do - CLEAN UP. My 6 year old is now trained to take his dishes over to the sink and rinse out his plate and cup and load them into the dish washer. Same with my 10 year old. If one of them wets the bed, they strip their own sheets and put on the new ones. On the weekend my 10 year old rounds up and sorts laundry. When laundry is done they put away their own clothes. My wife and I both work busy lives and kids have actives at night, but we still make time to keep our house picked up and tidy. It's actually something that other people with kids comment on when they come over. Your house is so clean! How do you do it? Uhh I make my kids pick up, that's how. We don't do anything fun or electronic until chores are done and things are picked up.

 

[rh71]

The food part of the video highlights BJs / Costco shoppers. Every time we had walked in there, we walked out at least $150 lighter with only a few items. Smartened up. Good for large families, not for us. Once weekly trip to the supermarket spending $150 there instead is plenty of food.

 

[Kaido]

My wife and I both work busy lives and kids have actives at night, but we still make time to keep our house picked up and tidy. It's actually something that other people with kids comment on when they come over. Your house is so clean! How do you do it? Uhh I make my kids pick up, that's how. We don't do anything fun or electronic until chores are done and things are picked up.

Our family mantra is "work first, play later", i.e. do your chores & your homework and then you're free to do whatever. We don't do chores in the morning because we're on deadlines to get out the door, but we have a scheduled clean-up session after work & before bed. Outside of that, the two main habits are:

1. Pick up after yourself
2. One thing at a time

Those are hard for little kids, but it gets easier as they get older. That way you don't have Legos AND blocks AND action figures AND a puzzle AND Hot Wheels all going at the same time, creating Toy-nado, haha. But habits are hard, and we've gotten better results just following schedule checklists because then you just follow the step-by-step procedure at the designated time & you're "done". The kitchen has slightly modified rules:

1. Clean up as you go
2. Clean up after yourself
3. If you see a mess, clean it up (even if it's not yours)

Like if I'm cooking dinner, I'll rinse out the skillets & bowls & whatnot as I finish with them so that I don't have a huge pile to deal with at the end of a cooking session. Then, of course, clean up after yourself instead of letting it sit. We stole the last one from Disney, which is their secret to keeping their park clean - if any worker sees a mess, like a wrapper on the ground, it then becomes their job to pick it up, even if it's not a mess of their own doing.

The result is that you get to live in a nice, clean house all the time instead of fighting & stressing over a messy one, which is a pretty big deal if you've grown up living in the latter situation.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Yup, lifestyle creep is real! I've posted this elsewhere, but I have a buddy who makes over $100k a year (in a place where that means something) & has to mooch off us (our group of friends) to pay for his lunch when we go out (not that we go any place fancy...it's usually just like splitting a pizza or whatever) because he's broke all the time. Not divorced, no crazy medical debt or student loans or anything, just refuses to budget properly & feels a need to inflate his purchases to match his paycheck.

I think it mostly boils down to a personal willingness to work on things (or not). There's lots of useful systems & tricks out there, if you're willing to try.

Uhhh, I would disagree. I think that has to do with the fact that you're a piece of shit leech on society. The problem is (and with a TON of Americans in general) is that they feel no shame. If I have to beg and plead and ask people to help me out I would feel... SHAME. I shouldn't have to depend on other people - I am a grown adult and the last thing I want to do is be a burden on friends, family, OR society in general. I can stand on my own two feet and I can fucking work.

That right there isn't a matter of not budgeting. It's a matter of you being a piece of shit scum of a human.

 

[Kaido]

Uhhh, I would disagree.

Well, yes & no. It's not like he's asking for handouts for his house or car bills or anything. He just runs himself to zero on every single paycheck & puts himself into small crunches like not having a few extra bucks to chip in for pizza. He's not a jerk or anything, he just doesn't have a good system for dealing with his finances, which is a struggle for a lot of people. And while, from the outside, that seems kind of insane (to be making $100k and have to ask for a buck to get a candy bar from the vending machine), I understand the struggle because it's taken me a long time (well into adulthood, tbh) to figure out how to balance my budget, keep my house clean (consistently), etc., especially with having a family. If you're single & only have to worry about yourself, it's a million times easier to budget & stay organized because you can control 100% of your inputs & outputs. There's a good discussion thread on the financial aspect over here:

Can you cover an unexpected $400 expense?

The video in the OP uncovers the same thing, just with "stuff" instead of money: we live in a very affluent society & have a different set of problems to deal with than other people do (i.e. having lots of crap, dealing with clutter, not being able to park our cars in our garages) & people aren't always equipped with the seemingly simply procedures for dealing with it in an adult manner, and thus it becomes a haze that we live in, as we get busy with the other parts of our lives. It's easy to criticize other people's situations, but as a lot of people struggle with messy homes & personal finances, it's obvious that it's a fairly widespread problem that is in need of some better solutions that aren't readily apparent to the people who are in those situations.

 

[shortylickens]

Well, a lot of folks have given up on owning a home any time in their lives. I guess it makes sense to buy junk. Its not like multiple cars will make you feel better. But a house full of electronics and stuff will give you a temporary high.

 

[madoka]

Its not like multiple cars will make you feel better.

It kinda does. Or so I've heard.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

It kinda does. Or so I've heard.

Highest depreciation you can get of any asset is definitely what keeps me away from cars. The lack of Business 101 classes is part of the problem, no doubt.

 

[purbeast0]

Highest depreciation you can get of any asset is definitely what keeps me away from cars. The lack of Business 101 classes is part of the problem, no doubt.

I'm pretty sure he's referring to someone having the means to have multiple cars and not give a shit about them depreciating. It has nothing to do with business classes.

 

[highland145]

Well, a lot of folks have given up on owning a home any time in their lives. I guess it makes sense to buy junk. Its not like multiple cars will make you feel better. But a house full of electronics and stuff will give you a temporary high.

Buy/own or pay rent. Rent means that you'll always have a payment on top of buying your junk. Unless the basement is an option. YMMV, renting/buying is stupidly expensive in a lot of the country.

 

[luv2liv]

my kids have lots of toys. they get tired of toys easily too, usually within a month. i cant and wont buy new ones.
my solution is to stop buying new toys and swap with other kids' toys for 1 month. problem solved. :-D
meanwhile my toys are sold on ebay when new ones come in. no clutter.

 

[Linflas]

Well, a lot of folks have given up on owning a home any time in their lives. I guess it makes sense to buy junk. Its not like multiple cars will make you feel better. But a house full of electronics and stuff will give you a temporary high.

Really? I still remember passing signs advertising single family homes for sale in a new development in NOVA at the seeming unobtainable price of $73,000.00 at with mortgage interest rates of 18.5% and thinking the same thing. Seems pretty funny now 2 houses ago and a current mortgage at 3.7%. Current average house price in that same development in NOVA today are around $700,000.00 and no doubt there is some 20 something version of me running around thinking I'll never be able to own a home...

 

[monkeydelmagico]

my solution is to stop buying new toys and swap with other kids' toys for 1 month. problem solved. :-D

I found that works well too. Daycare centers often use this tactic as well. Rotate some toys away for a few months then re-introduce them.

As for adults the majority of stuffed to the gills households boil down to two factors: Materialism and clutter tolerance. Materialists will go into debt just to satisfy a craving for stuff. The act of seeking and/or purchasing is the high. This urge is somewhat distinctly different from clutter. Clutter speaks to an individuals perception of how useful or valuable an item is. For clutter bugs, this value isn't necessarily monetary. Their tolerance for tripping over their own detritus is less painful than getting rid of items they feel connected to.

I personally have never really accumulated a lot of stuff. I have been married to a hoarder. My son tolerates a level of clutter I find abhorrent. The best solution I have found in either scenario is to force a move. Move their room. Renovate the garage. Sell the house. Then they have to face the devil right in the face. Difficult to watch them struggle with decisions that would be easy for many of us.

 

[Ns1]

Our friends are spending $1200 for their daughter's 1st birthday party. Why? It will have zero impact on her life compared to a $200 party. (And they argue about money at times) I also know some grandparents that feel stuck in competition with the other set of grandparents. So the kids get showered with toys and the parents just let it go on and on

The party is not for the kid dude. The party is for the parents so they can see their friends who they have forsaken for the past year.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I have a bad habit of buying or keeping stuff "just in case I might need it one day". The most dangerous thing is sites that offer free shipping for orders over a certain amount, because I WILL buy enough to get free shipping. Though my 2nd bad thing is organization, I really need to figure out an organization system for stuff in general. Like little cubby boxes for electronic components for example. Or screws. When stuff is more organized you're actually more likely to use/find it, then it's less of a waste. Like I could even make an inventory system so I can search and then know what box it's in. It's a project I want to tackle one of these days. I have a huge crawlspace that could practically be converted into a small warehouse if I organized it right. It's not BAD to have too much stuff, as long as you're not buying it on credit, or with money that could serve a better purpose. Myself I'm kinda at a stage now where I slowed down a lot on buying stuff, because I do need to start saving more money. I'm 32 now and don't really have much saved as far as retirement goes. Though I have about 9 years left on my mortgage so once that's paid off I can start to save more seriously.

The best thing is Amazon and Ebay orders though, because some can take like 6 months to come in. Every now and then I get packages in the mail for stuff I don't even remember ordering. It's like Christmas. To be fair a lot of those impromptu purchases tend to be really cheap stuff like under $100.

 

[Zeze]

I mean most of us regularly buy new smartphone every 2-4 years. That's insane, and I'm guilty of it.

 

[Muse]

I've always liked the idea of being able to load my stuff into say one car or a small van and just move. Excepting furniture of course.

The line in 'Fight Club' about things you own end up owning you is something that has struck a chord with me ever since I first watched the film; I think it's absolutely true - the less crap you have, the more flexible you can be.

In college, I could get all my stuff in my compact car, everything! I should watch Fight Club again, I heard that the commentary track is very exceptional, haven't watched it with that on.

Stuff! Yeah, I have a lot of stuff I should get rid of. I want to figure out how to do that, how to adjust my attitudes.

I don't accumulate the kinds of things a lot of Americans do. My attitude has always been that functionality is a fundamental aspect of anything I keep. I have to realize when something's functionality potential is more than offset by the trouble of keeping it!

I get on streaks where I buy stuff online, have something coming in the mail (95% of the things I buy online are delivered by USPS). But it's been over a month since I have had anything in my delivery queue (or delivered). I think of it when I get home and look at my front porch, but I can't think of anything I want to shop for. I think of this quotation and feel perfectly justified:

He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have. - Socrates

 

[Red Squirrel]

I mean most of us regularly buy new smartphone every 2-4 years. That's insane, and I'm guilty of it.

What I don't get is people who upgrade every single year. I find I'm actually good for at least 4 years with a phone. I find they're more or less the same really, like I don't get enough benefit upgrading to justify it. yeah maybe better camera and stuff but in general I keep my phones until I really feel the performance is poor. I'd even consider changing the battery before upgrading, if battery life is the only thing I feel is getting bad.

I've gotten the same way with computers too. As much as it's fun building a new box I find it's a lot of money and I don't have a need to upgrade as much now days.

I like to kind of look back at when I was a kid though. I remember always dreaming of having my own server room and servers and stuff, and bam, I have it now. In fact it's a bit more than I ever expected to have. I have 2 full height server racks lol. Mind yo one is practically empty, but still. It will probably mostly be used for power equipment once I upgrade my power stuff. Rackmount rectifiers etc.

 

[zinfamous]

Highest depreciation you can get of any asset is definitely what keeps me away from cars. The lack of Business 101 classes is part of the problem, no doubt.

It depends, but overall you are right. If you mean asset like "a tool car," a daily driver, sensible sedan, truck, van, etc etc, then yeah, garbage investment. it isn't even an investment. It's a tool.

But if you are a collector, and the asset is then considered "art," then they can appreciate wildly. But then this is another level of collecting where the minimum bar of entry is rather serious money. The outlier of course is the 250 GTO, which most recently sold for ~$50 million? Nick Mason (Pink Floyd), purchased his some time in the early 80s for about 30k, I think. But I think there are less than 40 of those in existence? So that's part of it. Even for modern supercars, there are a couple of gems that actually do appreciate in value. I'm not sure if madoka's 650S is going to appreciate all that much--it is the "value" Mclaren, after all, but the P1 is probably the one to look at for investing because of its unique design and placement wrg to pushing new technology, history of design going forward and all that....but it's a $1 million+ car now. Even so, that late 90s super, fastest-car-ever at the time, the LM, is now valued at $1.5million or so? Those were sold at $600k when new.

This is very much a hyper-niche market in the auto industry, but collecting and trading cars for profit is certainly a thing. Then there are the auto restorers that buy collectible beaters, restore them, and can make a respectable profit in the end.

 

[Muse]

NSFW language warning! George Carlin knew all this back in the 80's.

OK, it's true of a lot of people but not everyone is like that, especially younger people.

 

[Muse]

Though my 2nd bad thing is organization, I really need to figure out an organization system for stuff in general. Like little cubby boxes for electronic components for example. Or screws. When stuff is more organized you're actually more likely to use/find it, then it's less of a waste.

I have organizing principles and I can usually find something when I need to, but it often takes me a lot more time than it should, which just proves that I'm not organized enough. I'm working on it, I have a lot of things to do!!!

For quite some time some years ago I was thinking to myself, "how can I get organized?" I sought answers and one day I encountered (probably online) a guy whose whole thing was helping people get organized. He had genuine energy, was fresh, and I checked it out. I was some ways into his presentation and he drops a line that hit it and then he just continued with his presentation as if he hadn't even said it... but it stuck in my head and it took less than 5 seconds! He said "categorize it, if you can categorize it, you can organize it."

 

[Muse]

Every now and then I get packages in the mail for stuff I don't even remember ordering. It's like Christmas. To be fair a lot of those impromptu purchases tend to be really cheap stuff like under $100.

I always know when something's coming, even when I have 1/2 dozen things in delivery. This is by virtue of my data. Anything I ordered is in a record in a data table and if it isn't delivered yet, I see that by virtue of a big X in it's description. As soon as I flag that record as delivered, that X disappears. If I didn't do that I'd be nervous that I lost sight of something and maybe it never will be delivered or I forgot about my intentions. I feel better about it all that way. Like I say, it's been over a month since I ordered anything or anything got delivered. I've kind of weaned myself of buying things, which I think is a positive development.

 

[DietDrThunder]

It depends, but overall you are right. If you mean asset like "a tool car," a daily driver, sensible sedan, truck, van, etc etc, then yeah, garbage investment. it isn't even an investment. It's a tool.

But if you are a collector, and the asset is then considered "art," then they can appreciate wildly. But then this is another level of collecting where the minimum bar of entry is rather serious money. The outlier of course is the 250 GTO, which most recently sold for ~$50 million? Nick Mason (Pink Floyd), purchased his some time in the early 80s for about 30k, I think. But I think there are less than 40 of those in existence? So that's part of it. Even for modern supercars, there are a couple of gems that actually do appreciate in value. I'm not sure if madoka's 650S is going to appreciate all that much--it is the "value" Mclaren, after all, but the P1 is probably the one to look at for investing because of its unique design and placement wrg to pushing new technology, history of design going forward and all that....but it's a $1 million+ car now. Even so, that late 90s super, fastest-car-ever at the time, the LM, is now valued at $1.5million or so? Those were sold at $600k when new.

This is very much a hyper-niche market in the auto industry, but collecting and trading cars for profit is certainly a thing. Then there are the auto restorers that buy collectible beaters, restore them, and can make a respectable profit in the end.

I agree with your analysis, but, it totally depends on the class of automobile. Most prices are flat in all categories, with some only increasing 6% in value over a 5 year period. Here is a link to Hagerty's Car Price Index and you can determine for yourself if a classic car is a good investment.

As far as restoring classic cars, unless it is your business and you are doing the restoration for someone else, you are going to lose money. I heard this quote from Jay Leno and it seems to nail restoration costs on the head, "If you restore a car, and are making money, then you're doing it wrong."

 

[Exterous]

The party is not for the kid dude. The party is for the parents so they can see their friends who they have forsaken for the past year.

Sure but maybe if you're fighting in front of other people about money don't spend $1200 on a birthday party

 

[Muse]

What I don't get is people who upgrade every single year. I find I'm actually good for at least 4 years with a phone. I find they're more or less the same really, like I don't get enough benefit upgrading to justify it. yeah maybe better camera and stuff but in general I keep my phones until I really feel the performance is poor. I'd even consider changing the battery before upgrading, if battery life is the only thing I feel is getting bad.

I've never bought a phone unless I absolutely had to.

My first was a flip-phone (given me by my employer, IIRC) and I kept it well past when just about everybody no longer used them. Needed a GPS for car navigation, bought one from Costco but found out in these forums that a cheap smartphone would do that and much more, so bought a $60 Windows phone, returned the unopened GPS to Costco. Upgraded the $60 Windows phone with a $30 Windows phone when the USB jack stopped working on the first Windows phone, a show stopper. When that phone's headphone jack stopped working (I need that!) I bought a ~$100 Windows Alcatel 1000 phone, my present one. That's probably my last Windows phone, I figure, but have no reason to want another phone other than the shitty AT&T coverage here... they tell me they're working on it. Meantime, I'm not fretting, I don't depend on messaging on my cell phone.