Money Saving Tips - Discuss how you save money and spend less

Soggy paper straw said:
Tip: this is not true. Don't be an idiot, don't follow this philosophy
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The instant I read the word 'manifest' I know something is complete bullshit. Attitude and general positivity are important in undertaking any project, but what's most important are your actions and plans. Sitting around trying to will something into existence is the modern version of the pastor praying to God to burn down the local pub. And positive thoughts without taking all elements into consideration are sometimes outright disastrous. I've seen multiple people- including myself- take the 'positive thoughts, willpower and hard work!' approach only to have the whole thing destroyed by the fact that thinking positively doesn't mean shit if the base is unstable. I've come to truly despise idealists over the course of my life. They are incredibly destructive to any project or undertaking.
 
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Soggy paper straw said:
Hobbies are not a "right". If you cannot afford one hobby, well, too bad. Find hobbies you enjoy that you can afford. If you find a way to do an otherwise expensive hobby in a way that's sustainable for your finances, then it means you can afford that hobby.
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Bingo. I know too many people in my late 20's age bracket trying to sustain a world touring and expensive cars habit off the back of a wageslave salary, and then wondering why life is so expensive. You're not entitled to travel to Europe or roadtrip in a classic muscle car just because you think you deserve it.

The cheapest and most versatile hobby is reading. Every Genre has literally thousands if not tens of thousands of people writing excellent content completely free on the internet, as webpages or epubs or any mix between. Even if your picky about quality and genre, that's years of content, well enough time to shore up your finances for other hobbies. And if thats still not enough for you, just steal them, epub piracy is super easy.
 
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Kuritan Deplorable said:
Bingo. I know too many people in my late 20's age bracket trying to sustain a world touring and expensive cars habit off the back of a wageslave salary, and then wondering why life is so expensive. You're not entitled to travel to Europe or roadtrip in a classic muscle car just because you think you deserve it.
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Also - you should not try to sustain the lifestyle that your parents had if you are not earning as much! I see too many people keeping to the same shopping and travelling habits, while receiving a fraction of the salary their parents did... and wondering why life is so expensive

Kuritan Deplorable said:
The cheapest and most versatile hobby is reading. Every Genre has literally thousands if not tens of thousands of people writing excellent content completely free on the internet, as webpages or epubs or any mix between. Even if your picky about quality and genre, that's years of content, well enough time to shore up your finances for other hobbies. And if thats still not enough for you, just steal them, epub piracy is super easy.
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LIBRARIES!!
 
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Your money = income - expenses
It seems very obvious, but unless you sit down and really think things through, you might miss some things that seem unintuitive.
e.g.
  • If I made $15,000/year at a job, but was working a position that included a place to live with utilities, then I only need to pay for food and could pocket the rest. That puts me ahead of someone who makes twice as much but has to pay $2000/month in rent.
  • If I make $40,000/year and my wife makes $40,000/year, but childcare is $40,000/year, then it makes more sense for one of us to quit our job and take care of the kids instead of paying an entire income towards someone else doing that job.
 
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Is this the right place to look for some computer advice?

My Microsoft 365 rental lapsed, and fuck if I'm paying for it again. I can't afford that shit. I've looked into getting an Office grey license and I've found one site that's had consistent reviews for quite a few months. They are asking $50, which I tried to work myself up to pay, but I just couldn't bring myself to give some dodgy site my card details. So that's that. I'm not prepared to download a pirate copy; my computer may be cheap but I still don't have the cash to get it repaired if malware or Microsoft bricks it.

My next move is free Office clones. There are a number around but I'm very unsure. I've got documents going back to 2000; I need to both read and preserve them. I basically need a word processing program and a simple spreadsheet. They need to come with an Australian English setting. Can any of you cheapskates recommend something appropriate?
 
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glass_houses said:
Is this the right place to look for some computer advice?

My Microsoft 365 rental lapsed, and fuck if I'm paying for it again. I can't afford that shit. I've looked into getting an Office grey license and I've found one site that's had consistent reviews for quite a few months. They are asking $50, which I tried to work myself up to pay, but I just couldn't bring myself to give some dodgy site my card details. So that's that. I'm not prepared to download a pirate copy; my computer may be cheap but I still don't have the cash to get it repaired if malware or Microsoft bricks it.

My next move is free Office clones. There are a number around but I'm very unsure. I've got documents going back to 2000; I need to both read and preserve them. I basically need a word processing program and a simple spreadsheet. They need to come with an Australian English setting. Can any of you cheapskates recommend something appropriate?
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OpenOffice can process and safe documents in compatible resolution for Microsoft office to open it
 
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NoReturn said:
Your money = income - expenses
It seems very obvious, but unless you sit down and really think things through, you might miss some things that seem unintuitive.
e.g.
  • If I made $15,000/year at a job, but was working a position that included a place to live with utilities, then I only need to pay for food and could pocket the rest. That puts me ahead of someone who makes twice as much but has to pay $2000/month in rent.
  • If I make $40,000/year and my wife makes $40,000/year, but childcare is $40,000/year, then it makes more sense for one of us to quit our job and take care of the kids instead of paying an entire income towards someone else doing that job.
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this is so damn important to realize; and I realized it very early on - a friend was in the military and he could spend his entire salary on stupid shit or whatever he wanted to because the gov't payed for everything to keep him alive, whereas I had pennies to spend after all expenses
 
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glass_houses said:
Is this the right place to look for some computer advice?

My Microsoft 365 rental lapsed, and fuck if I'm paying for it again. I can't afford that shit. I've looked into getting an Office grey license and I've found one site that's had consistent reviews for quite a few months. They are asking $50, which I tried to work myself up to pay, but I just couldn't bring myself to give some dodgy site my card details. So that's that. I'm not prepared to download a pirate copy; my computer may be cheap but I still don't have the cash to get it repaired if malware or Microsoft bricks it.

My next move is free Office clones. There are a number around but I'm very unsure. I've got documents going back to 2000; I need to both read and preserve them. I basically need a word processing program and a simple spreadsheet. They need to come with an Australian English setting. Can any of you cheapskates recommend something appropriate?
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Get a cracked copy of Office 2013 or 2016 with KMSpico, they function the exact same way, and even though the former loses support this year it's still Office, you can edit documents with it, that's all you need. If you don't want M$ anymore, LibreOffice works very well even with proprietary formats.
 
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Discuss how you save money and spend less
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simple, I just follow my own philosophy: "what is the best thing one can buy that can bring the greatest amount of happiness with the cheapest price one can afford".
 
nekrataal said:
I use coupons, I don’t care what the people behind me in line think. I don’t do the whole extreme couponing thing, but I always try to use the ones that come in the mail or on packaging.
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I'm always impressed by how much I see women (it's always women, usually Mexicans) save doing this shit. They'll come up buying $40 worth of detergent or more, and get it knocked down to $15. It's best if a store has a digital thing and you use physical coupons with it, and if they allow you to double up on coupons. Most of those women use the bughive CCP app TikTok for this shit to find deals though.
 
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NoReturn said:
There's couponing tiktok?
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Yep, I haven't explored it much, but just type in things like "Dollar General/Family Dollar coupons". Every Saturday Dollar General has a $5 off of a $25 purchase day, and women on there will have TikToks showing how to use the DG app to add shit up, then knock it way down, while still getting the $5 off. Family Dollar has similar, I think. You can probably find other stores too.
As a warning, this shit doesn't always 100% work. I get Mexican ladies who fuck up sometimes and get irritated their shit came up to 15 bucks instead of ten, or they'll see something about "a self-checkout glitch causes this to come off" or "this works on the old system" so we wagies have to patiently explain why it failed. There's tricks to it, you have to clip the ones just right, use the scents they tell you to use with the laundry stuff, not mix and match, etc. There's a couple of women who come in and do it flawlessly every time. They also notify you to half off, 75% off, 90% off and pennied out sales. Pennied out is our shit we really need to get rid of, way out of season, or its getting removed entirely, so they'll come and rack up. Facebook has guides for this shit too.
One time we had a system glitch that got out on TikTok where you could get a certain size and type of dish soap for free. We got so irritated, we took the shit off the shelf so customers wouldn't bother us. Plus, corporate gets butthurt over glitches like that.
 
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Savings Snowball. Completing my no-spend year is a challenge, particularly after I became debt free. So I'm gonna try a reverse Snowball, and focus on one savings goal at a time - starting with the smallest. Example

  1. Christmas expenses
  2. 3 months worth of food
  3. Emergency fund.
  4. 3 months living expenses.
  5. XYZ
It seems to be motivating.
 
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