Brainwash vs. Cultural Expectations
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I work in the birthday party business, so I see a lot of different types of people in my field. Some are average families scraping by, wanting something special for their baby's first birthday. Others are very wealthy people spending enormous amounts of money on birthday parties. I've had my mouth literally fall open upon seeing beautiful mansions right out of magazines. But I have never envied any of them, nor felt condemnation. It is what it is. Some people earn more money than others, and that's wonderful for them. I've never desired that lifestyle, so it's not something I'd envy. People are people, and they have the same problems and issues whether they are paupers or millionaires.
My posts on this thread were about things that *I* wouldn't spend money on.
My posts on this thread were about things that *I* wouldn't spend money on.
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Clothes and Appearance.
It was always suggested that my value lay in what i looked like and what i wore, so my nana was always buying me the most expensive clothes, the most expensive jewelry from the time i was a baby until she passed away. This woman worked herself to death just to buy stuff to make her look better. It was so crazy.
We had gone to Georgia one summer to visit some of my relatives and were in a massive flood there. I remember laying on the roof of the house we were staying in and watching as all our stuff floated around us. She was going into cardiac arrest because all of her clothes, jewelry, shoes and stuff were destroyed. Everything she had worked for was gone just like that. All of her ''value'' was floating around us in some nasty swamp water.
It's exhausting trying to keep up with everyone else. You gather all this ''stuff'' and it can all be gone in an instant. I don't mean look like a slob, there has to be a balance, but when your spending all your money and going broke to get the latest thing or what's in style you might wanna check yourself.
It was always suggested that my value lay in what i looked like and what i wore, so my nana was always buying me the most expensive clothes, the most expensive jewelry from the time i was a baby until she passed away. This woman worked herself to death just to buy stuff to make her look better. It was so crazy.
We had gone to Georgia one summer to visit some of my relatives and were in a massive flood there. I remember laying on the roof of the house we were staying in and watching as all our stuff floated around us. She was going into cardiac arrest because all of her clothes, jewelry, shoes and stuff were destroyed. Everything she had worked for was gone just like that. All of her ''value'' was floating around us in some nasty swamp water.
It's exhausting trying to keep up with everyone else. You gather all this ''stuff'' and it can all be gone in an instant. I don't mean look like a slob, there has to be a balance, but when your spending all your money and going broke to get the latest thing or what's in style you might wanna check yourself.
I don't really care what other people do with their money.
I dated someone who threw away my Abercrombie and Fitch stuff I wore in high school because it promoted pornography. Encouraged me to never buy products made with slave labor (Nike, Reebok etc.), never shop at Wal-mart for any reason, and all the while promoting free range fair trade stuff. Which I suppose is okay, but everything I purchased and everything I did was scrutinized for its ethical implications.
Another Relationship was kind of the opposite, things had to be Couture, Givenchy, Emilio Pucci, Tiffany's etc. Once again no Wal-mart, but for entirely different reasoning.
And another relationship was critical of dietary stuff. No HFCS, no preservatives, no hormones, no fried, and no processed bleached white flour. Wal-mart was okay, whatever was purchased was done so with utilitarian cost vs benefit analysis.
So I guess, what I'm getting at is for different people there is different reasoning behind whatever. I want to date someone who has the capacity and ability to decide for themselves when things are appropriate, instead of simply pursuing what they believe is traditional expectations.
Like having a mental mechanism that sees through the advertising, rather than being swayed by popular opinions, can choose for themselves based upon their own personal experience and expression.
I dated someone who threw away my Abercrombie and Fitch stuff I wore in high school because it promoted pornography. Encouraged me to never buy products made with slave labor (Nike, Reebok etc.), never shop at Wal-mart for any reason, and all the while promoting free range fair trade stuff. Which I suppose is okay, but everything I purchased and everything I did was scrutinized for its ethical implications.
Another Relationship was kind of the opposite, things had to be Couture, Givenchy, Emilio Pucci, Tiffany's etc. Once again no Wal-mart, but for entirely different reasoning.
And another relationship was critical of dietary stuff. No HFCS, no preservatives, no hormones, no fried, and no processed bleached white flour. Wal-mart was okay, whatever was purchased was done so with utilitarian cost vs benefit analysis.
So I guess, what I'm getting at is for different people there is different reasoning behind whatever. I want to date someone who has the capacity and ability to decide for themselves when things are appropriate, instead of simply pursuing what they believe is traditional expectations.
Like having a mental mechanism that sees through the advertising, rather than being swayed by popular opinions, can choose for themselves based upon their own personal experience and expression.
i'm always amazed how much people will spend for premade/convenience food. i'm not talking about a restaurant. i'm talking about this enormous trend of buying your meals at the grocery store in a ready-made fashion so that you can simply heat/eat.
i can actually understand how busy people might buy something that is rather complicated to make, or if it's cost is relatively similar to it's unprocessed origins. but things like premade macaroni and cheese, hard boiled eggs, mashed potatoes, cooked bacon? little packages of sliced apples? how about the the whole sub-industry that revolves around putting food into smaller bags at an exorbiant markup? i don't get it. for the most part, it just feels like a promotion of laziness at the expense of what i consider to be such a lovely part of the human experience.
i also have rather strong feelings about all things associated with purchases of love and sentimental expression, and i hate big weddings, personally. i think a wedding should be a small, personal, private affair, as opposed to some of the crazy events that i've either attended or been involved in.
also, i far treasure a setimental or meaningful gift or piece of jewelry over anything that comes off of a jewelry store case. i honestly don't care if it's material value is practically nil if it's meaningful to me, and/or the giver. a sentimental piece of jewelry is priceless. i would prefer some nondescript "beautiful to me" engagement ring over what is traditionally expected.
like it's been alluded to, i am also one who has all the extremes in her closet. expensive, investment pieces, all the way to cheap t shirts and yoga pants. labels mean nothing to me if their quality is garbage (which happens more than you'd think), and for me, i usually pay more attention to what i can (easily) tailor (since i'm usually too tall for average, too short for talls) and the like...
i actually hate labels, all labels, in general. they're marketing. usually the first thing i do when i get a vehicle is pull off all the brand/model labels and stickers. and i do it whenever i can, elsewhere. i hate those emblems on purses, labels on jeans/clothes.
it annoys me. probably because i'm in marketing. : )
i can actually understand how busy people might buy something that is rather complicated to make, or if it's cost is relatively similar to it's unprocessed origins. but things like premade macaroni and cheese, hard boiled eggs, mashed potatoes, cooked bacon? little packages of sliced apples? how about the the whole sub-industry that revolves around putting food into smaller bags at an exorbiant markup? i don't get it. for the most part, it just feels like a promotion of laziness at the expense of what i consider to be such a lovely part of the human experience.
i also have rather strong feelings about all things associated with purchases of love and sentimental expression, and i hate big weddings, personally. i think a wedding should be a small, personal, private affair, as opposed to some of the crazy events that i've either attended or been involved in.
also, i far treasure a setimental or meaningful gift or piece of jewelry over anything that comes off of a jewelry store case. i honestly don't care if it's material value is practically nil if it's meaningful to me, and/or the giver. a sentimental piece of jewelry is priceless. i would prefer some nondescript "beautiful to me" engagement ring over what is traditionally expected.
like it's been alluded to, i am also one who has all the extremes in her closet. expensive, investment pieces, all the way to cheap t shirts and yoga pants. labels mean nothing to me if their quality is garbage (which happens more than you'd think), and for me, i usually pay more attention to what i can (easily) tailor (since i'm usually too tall for average, too short for talls) and the like...
i actually hate labels, all labels, in general. they're marketing. usually the first thing i do when i get a vehicle is pull off all the brand/model labels and stickers. and i do it whenever i can, elsewhere. i hate those emblems on purses, labels on jeans/clothes.
it annoys me. probably because i'm in marketing. : )
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Well, in general a good rule of thumb is prepared food is double what it costs to make it yourself, and it may or may not be of the same quality. If it's a fancier establishment, then 3-5x as much.
But yeah... it might be of value to people to slow down and make their own food, and establish their own portions.
Simply put, I'm a tightwad. If it works, it doesn't need replacing. I have a four year old flip phone (it still works fine) and until recently I had a 20 year old truck with over 400,000 miles on it (now I'm driving a 10 year old truck with 200,000 on it). I'm one of those people that doesn't make a lot and I make every penny stretch as far as I can. Before making any major purchase I typically consult Consumer Reports so that I'm sure to get the best bang for my buck. I couldn't care less what other people think about my old stuff or my non-big brand name stuff. Interestingly enough, often some of the non-big brand items give comparable (if not better) quality at a fraction of the cost primarily because they aren't trying to recoup the cost of high dollar advertising.
OH YES, books! It kills me to buy a new book, especially a hardcover. I can't stand buying books at a bookstore for the sticker price. If I have to buy a new book, I get it from Amazon for half the sticker price. I resent buying Kindle books, because it's basically... nothing. I mean, you can't loan it out (more than once, for a two week period anyway), you can't sell it when you get tired of it, you can't put a beautiful inscription in it and give it as a gift. Blah for ebooks.
i still have memories of carrying a (very) heavy backpack filled with books. : ) my mind goes numb thinking of the literal weight all those books would weigh if i was actually packing them around. plus, it makes it easy if you like to read more than one book at a time.
love.love.love my kindle. : )
S
My friends know me as a tight wad, but I do splurge on occasion. Then there are the other times where I refuse to pay monthly subscriptions for things and people ask me why that is, and I explain that 5 bucks a month is actually quite a lot of money if you do it for years on end.
I've been known to pick some of my hi fi equipment out of the trash, and build the rest I can't get my hands on... but that's been years ago. I haven't had to build anything I've done so well trash picking. I'm running out of needs for these speakers and literally have two pairs of really (really) nice speakers which haven't even been repaired yet.
I've salvaged better speakers out of the trash than most people ever buy new. I've literally picked 2000 dollar pairs of speakers out of the trash before. Some tweaks to the crossovers and a refoam and good as new.
As for not buying brand name stuff, that's true with almost anything. In fact for the most part I'd argue that with durable goods the trend is to always find an up and coming manufacturer and stick with them until they start going nuts with the price, at which point they may have also cut back on the quality (to pay for the marketing budget).
I have a buddy who insists on buying 100 dollar monster cables from best buy because he can't plan ahead. I buy 5 dollar HDMI cables from Monoprice and keep spares around. Good stuff with ferrite chokes on it, not garbage. That makes me the cheap one I suppose.
I've been known to pick some of my hi fi equipment out of the trash, and build the rest I can't get my hands on... but that's been years ago. I haven't had to build anything I've done so well trash picking. I'm running out of needs for these speakers and literally have two pairs of really (really) nice speakers which haven't even been repaired yet.
I've salvaged better speakers out of the trash than most people ever buy new. I've literally picked 2000 dollar pairs of speakers out of the trash before. Some tweaks to the crossovers and a refoam and good as new.
As for not buying brand name stuff, that's true with almost anything. In fact for the most part I'd argue that with durable goods the trend is to always find an up and coming manufacturer and stick with them until they start going nuts with the price, at which point they may have also cut back on the quality (to pay for the marketing budget).
I have a buddy who insists on buying 100 dollar monster cables from best buy because he can't plan ahead. I buy 5 dollar HDMI cables from Monoprice and keep spares around. Good stuff with ferrite chokes on it, not garbage. That makes me the cheap one I suppose.