The "luxuries that I give up to save some money" thread. - Page 7

A good job, that way I don't have to give up on anything ;)

But seriously, a good education goes A LONG way.  There's a big difference between making 60k a year and 160k.  At those higher income brackets you can afford to spend 2k or so on headphones, plus another 30k on speakers AND still get a nice car to cruise around in.

Things I do to save money:

 - Buying new, expensive gear so in two or more years I'm not replacing a broken unit.

 - Buying better quality, healthier food so I can eat less of it. (this is healthier and cheaper.)

I've never drank or smoked so it's not something I can really give up. I also live with a roommate so no TV wasn't an option. I'm paying for something I don't use... Isn't that nice?

And I agree, a good-paying job makes this all relatively moot. The problem is, you really have to put in your dues to get that kind of job. I'd say I'm about two or three years away from that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DougofTheAbaci 
And I agree, a good-paying job makes this all relatively moot. The problem is, you really have to put in your dues to get that kind of job. I'd say I'm about two or three years away from that.

That's what I said two or three years ago....

Well, it depends on what you call good-paying, I guess.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DougofTheAbaci 

Well, it depends on what you call good-paying, I guess.

True. I'd call 70k+ good paying. Keep in mind that the vast majority of people I know make less than 30k a year.

Free time, I worked a lot to pay for my audio gear. Occasionally I have to relax in my favourite café or fetch myself a tasty cappuccino. 

That written I have to resume my studies again. I want to live a comfortable life if possible...

I didn't give up anything just yet for this hobby, but I am looking for a job just so i can get enough money for a decent amp and better headphones, so i guess I will be giving up time 

Problem is when you do not have to save up at all, the decision is still hard, but if the moeny is always there, it is simply dangerous.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maxvla 



You are seriously making me queasy. I had a 20 piece ONCE ever and almost immediately regretted it. I managed to hold it down, but things didn't go well in the bathroom the rest of the night. I had this while I was still eating normal fast food regularly, but that 20 piece was over the top nasty. Now that I'm on a super clean diet I have problems just having a dish of fried catfish or other high fat stuff since my body isn't used to it anymore. I probably couldn't hold down a 20 piece now, especially.

--

On another topic, I really wish I could get rid of my car. I only drive 1.5k miles a year daily driven and work and family is all less than 5 minute drive, but Oklahoma City is VERY MUCH not bike friendly. There are sidewalks on about 10-20% of roadways. There is no public transportation network other than buses that are mostly for going and coming from downtown (wrong direction). I could sell my car ($10k or so) and not pay $1400 in insurance per year...

I suppose I could walk, but the difference in time from biking and walking is pretty large...

Wow, only 1,500 miles. Its astonishing because i driver 40-50 miles a week.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deep Funk 
 I want to live a comfortable life if possible...

Don't we all.....

Depends. Did you rip them at a high quality? If so, then not really, no. Or, at least, I can say that I have never missed mine.

The only situation where I would find myself missing my movies is if my drives died and I lost everything. Then I'd miss not having physical copies. However, if you are smart about how you store your data the chances of that happening become increasingly remote.

For example, right now I have a Drobo with some 2TB HDDs. That gives me a certain level of data redundancy. This will eventually be replaced by an NAS running RAIDZ for increased data redundancy on the device. This will be augmented by a second NAS with an identical setup. Why? Because then I can mirror the two servers and have two separate yet identical copies of my data with each device having redundant copies.

At that point, it would take a house fire or some natural disaster to cause me to lose my data. And, let's be honest, I like my chances and if it did happen I'd have bigger things to worry about. Everything I couldn't afford to lose is backed up in the Cloud (hallowed be it's name).

Doug you are right on the money. This could probably be a great independent thread....

I'm using a readynas nv+ in raid x, back up all of it 1.9 tb to the cloud via crash plan and keep a physical duplicate offsite.

I'd love to do a mirror has because you get the benefits of real time backups but I've been put off by the price barrier.

How did you sell all your old cps and dvds? Seems very labor intensive...I was thinking of sells the large groups together on ebay, i.e. rolling stones, grateful dead collections and then bring the rest to a we buy cd store and get shafted for something like a dollar a cd?