‘I earn six figures but I don’t feel rich’

[Iron Giant]

This is not about me but for those that should be able to read it's interesting https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/i-earn-six-figures-but-i-dont-feel-rich/ for those that can't what stood out for me was this below


"In 2000, making that much would put you in the top 1pc of earners; now the same amount would merely put you in the highest 5pc.

Back then, earning six figures meant leading an undeniably luxurious life; now it simply doesn’t stretch as far. Inflation has played a large part in this: a pay cheque of £100,000 at the turn of the millennium is now worth little over half as much – equal to £53,600 in September 2024, according to the Office for National Statistics.

No wonder it seems like no matter how much I earn these days I still feel skint at times with everything been so expensive these days.

 

[Iron Giant]

Now, to add to the above, what I'm seeing from this is because of inflation we are 47% worse off because of inflation no matter what we earn and I ain't on a salary of £100k

It's well known we are taking a serious hammering because of inflation and the cost of the living because the cost everything is going up so much!!

 

[THL4KEL]

Its all done by design....

 

[Iron Giant]

Its all done by design....

By this fella

Joking aside mate, how is it done by design?

I don't think it's done by design some people are screwed because they have no clue what to do with money, they work hard to be successful and then spend their money on things they don't need flash clothes, a car and a house to give the appearance that they are successful they do this because this is what we have been shown, taught or brainwashed to do and buying a lot of things on finance they are spending their money and making other people rich.

The above I got from watching an interview on, you guessed it YouTube! A fella called Jaspreet Singh who is a millionaire business owner and has worked his way from nothing, he was been interviewed by Steven Bartlett on "Dairy Of A Ceo" Jaspreet was talking a lot of basic common sense stuff,

it's on for a long time but it's worth a watch even if not all the way through, whilst there ain't much going on with this storm over the weekend

 

[THL4KEL]

Maybe you should read this -

http://reparti.free.fr/schwab2020.pdf

 

[Iron Giant]

Maybe you should read this -

http://reparti.free.fr/schwab2020.pdf

I can't view it my phone mate, I'll have a look at it later on my laptop

 

[Den]

By this fella View attachment 30969

Joking aside mate, how is it done by design?

I don't think it's done by design some people are screwed because they have no clue what to do with money, they work hard to be successful and then spend their money on things they don't need flash clothes, a car and a house to give the appearance that they are successful they do this because this is what we have been shown, taught or brainwashed to do and buying a lot of things on finance they are spending their money and making other people rich.

The above I got from watching an interview on, you guessed it YouTube! A fella called Jaspreet Singh who is a millionaire business owner and has worked his way from nothing, he was been interviewed by Steven Bartlett on "Dairy Of A Ceo" Jaspreet was talking a lot of basic common sense stuff,

it's on for a long time but it's worth a watch even if not all the way through, whilst there ain't much going on with this storm over the weekend

Starmer and the likes all after the same thing reject the WEF and WHO

 

[Johnboi]

Inflation is caused by governments printing money.....

Hopefully musk and his DOGE in America is a start of a return to small government and low taxes being popular across the western world.

 

[Gadgetfox]

Now, to add to the above, what I'm seeing from this is because of inflation we are 47% worse off because of inflation no matter what we earn and I ain't on a salary of £100k

It's well known we are taking a serious hammering because of inflation and the cost of the living because the cost everything is going up so much!!

Which is why we should all be forcing our prices up! If we don't, window cleaning will become one of the worse paid jobs...

 

[Iron Giant]

Starmer and the likes all after the same thing reject the WEF and WHO

Don't talk to me about Starmer, looking after the people so we'll lie to you and take you down by raiding via national insurance because we said we won't raise taxes they have screw-ed us

They are like headless chickens, the UK is apparently going to be net zero by 2035 I don't follow politics or certain things related to it but this Gov is a complete joke.

 

[Iron Giant]

Which is why we should all be forcing our prices up! If we don't, window cleaning will become one of the worse paid jobs...

We can push our prices, but I think currently we have to be cautious, many people don't value our services and will drop us in an instant if they feel pushed or we are taking the pee with our prices in their veiw.

This year within the space of 6 months I have lost over 50 jobs never in 24 years have I lost as many jobs within a year let alone 6 months, I'll hold my hands up and admit some of these losses are jobs I dropped myself but only around 10 jobs,

I have gained jobs but not as many as I usually would within a year, the silver lining is my turnover is up, I'm only working 4 days a week instead of working 4-5 days a week and they are building another housing estate in the town I work in

 

[P4dstar]

Maybe you should read this -

http://reparti.free.fr/schwab2020.pdf

The tide is turning, two years ago you’d have been considered absolutely bonkers for sharing this.

 

[Iron Giant]

I can't view it my phone mate, I'll have a look at it later on my laptop

I couldn't read all this mate, I didn't realise it was a full book, I read a summary online to get an understanding of the reset and read 20 or pages at the beginning and then the conclusion, I have a small amount of understanding of what goes on what stood out for me after reading was the last paragraph

"We are now at a crossroads. One path will take us to a better world: one that is more inclusive, equitable, and respectful of Mother Nature. The other will take us to a world that resembles the one we just left behind—but worse and constantly dogged by nasty surprises. We must, therefore, get it right. The looming challenges could be more consequential than we have chosen to imagine, but our capacity to reset could also be greater than we had previously dared to hope."

I'm sceptical about the possibility of a reset being successful and it having all the positive outcomes that should come with one as I think we are in too much of a storm in the UK and globally, financially and socially people are screwed we are going backwards in terms of financial security as well, more people are poor than ever before we have an overpopulated planet people are living in mass slums around the world eating from bins and scavenging through bins and landfill to survive,

We don't have that in the UK the slums, but crime and inequality are getting worse and it's plain for all to see, those who have nothing turn to crime to get a kick out of life and have something they can't afford crime is more rife than ever,

those of us who are in the middle let's say doing okay running a business we have it rammed down our throats the world is sh=it and the future is almost unattainable in terms of retiring being financially secure and the national debt black hole and the potential of world war 3 looming, and all the while it seems those of us who aren't higher up are the ones in the firing line who have to take all the hits,

If I went off on one apologies' you know I tend to, for me head down stay in my bubble and try my best to improve my situation and take care of my family

 

[Chris34]

I don't think it's done by design some people are screwed because they have no clue what to do with money, they work hard to be successful and then spend their money on things they don't need flash clothes, a car and a house to give the appearance that they are successful they do this because this is what we have been shown, taught or brainwashed to do and buying a lot of things on finance they are spending their money and making other people rich.

I don't buy into all this peer pressure buying stuff, never have done. For me it just feels like added stress to my life.

For example a friend of mine has been prodding me to upgrade my tv to a bigger screen for quite some time now. My tv is only a 24" LCD and I've had it over 10 years, but I only watch free to air tv, I've never had SKY and for me it's just something that I have on in the background while I'm on my pc on the internet reading about all sorts of stuff.

Anyway she was prodding me to get one in the black Friday deals, so I thought I might as well just get a bigger screen because it's not like I can't afford it. So I decided I'd go for a 32" , my friend was saying to get bigger but I don't like big screens for casual tv viewing, films maybe different but I rarely watch films.

So I went off and selected a handful of tv's that seemed really good deals, they were cheap, like around about £200. The pictures looked really good on all the tv's in the shop and the huge OLED tv's looked incredible. I then was clever though, before parting with my cash I wanted to be sure that they would be suitable for MY USE... so I asked the guy to put normal tv (free to air) on them... bloody hell what a difference... the pictures all looked terrible, like miles worse than the tv I've already got. Basically all the videos they're playing are in either HD or 4k so they look amazing on these higher definition tv's, but it's different with standard definition free to air stuff...

I was chatting to the guy and he was really genuine and helpful and he explained that all new tv's that are high definition or better (4k) will look bad with standard definition free to air tv played on them. This is because standard definition won't fit on the new screens, it's not detailed enough, so it's actually computer software that tries to guess how the picture should look and recreates it on the screen, so it's basically guessing how the picture should look and as a result it looks really bad, blurry, colours off and nothing you can do to change how that is.

Unless you've got sky or some other cable type service which streams high definition then all standard Freeview tv will look terrible on modern tv's.

So I ended up walking away leaving the tv's there and thinking there's no point in buying a tv that's going to look worse than my 10+ year old tv. The only way to make it look better would be to subscribe to SKY or Virgin Media or something like that and that would involve much more monthly costs all for the sake of just trying to get a good picture for free to air stuff on a large screen.

I've now come to the conclusion that there's no point in getting one, I'd be better off getting an older tv that's not HD or 4K or 720p... just a bigger screen that's standard definition.

This is the thing though, 99.9% of people fall into the trap of upgrading for better... but is it better? Does it actually give you more pleasure or does it bleed more money out of you for the same enjoyment?

I'll never be like the 99.9% of the people but I'll be the one with less stress and more money.

Don't get me wrong, buying things is nice... if you really want it / need it. However the majority of purchases that I've seen are just a complete waste of money, like people are trying to find a reason to spend more money... to me it's just more stress.

Like another example, air fryers. I've had several people mention them to me about how good they are and how I should get one. They say they're really quick and easy to use and all you have to do is clean the plastic draw thing... Well I looked into it a bit and thought what do I really cook? I only do salmon and just have veg and throw the odd pizza or burgers in the oven. All an air fryer would do is take up more space which I haven't really got in the kitchen AND it would give me more things to clean each night. I've got an oven and a hob, why would I need anything else just to cook food?

I could be wrong on the air fryers but it's another example of people buying more to solve problems that don't really exist. Like they've already got everything they need to cook a meal and it's not like they're going to be throwing their ovens away.

I don't get why people are like that but as a result it benefits all of us. If everyone was like me then the world wouldn't go round. No one would be buying new phones, cars, tv's, 15 pairs of shoes a year, new sofa's, getting rid of perfectly good furniture for newer furniture just because they 'fancy a change'. It's all totally unnecessary stuff... but I do recognise if people didn't do this then the world wouldn't look like how it is today. Or to put it another way, people being wasteful with their money creates a very easy stress free life for me

 

[Iron Giant]

I don't buy into all this peer pressure buying stuff, never have done. For me it just feels like added stress to my life.

For example a friend of mine has been prodding me to upgrade my tv to a bigger screen for quite some time now. My tv is only a 24" LCD and I've had it over 10 years, but I only watch free to air tv, I've never had SKY and for me it's just something that I have on in the background while I'm on my pc on the internet reading about all sorts of stuff.

Anyway she was prodding me to get one in the black Friday deals, so I thought I might as well just get a bigger screen because it's not like I can't afford it. So I decided I'd go for a 32" , my friend was saying to get bigger but I don't like big screens for casual tv viewing, films maybe different but I rarely watch films.

So I went off and selected a handful of tv's that seemed really good deals, they were cheap, like around about £200. The pictures looked really good on all the tv's in the shop and the huge OLED tv's looked incredible. I then was clever though, before parting with my cash I wanted to be sure that they would be suitable for MY USE... so I asked the guy to put normal tv (free to air) on them... bloody hell what a difference... the pictures all looked terrible, like miles worse than the tv I've already got. Basically all the videos they're playing are in either HD or 4k so they look amazing on these higher definition tv's, but it's different with standard definition free to air stuff...

I was chatting to the guy and he was really genuine and helpful and he explained that all new tv's that are high definition or better (4k) will look bad with standard definition free to air tv played on them. This is because standard definition won't fit on the new screens, it's not detailed enough, so it's actually computer software that tries to guess how the picture should look and recreates it on the screen, so it's basically guessing how the picture should look and as a result it looks really bad, blurry, colours off and nothing you can do to change how that is.

Unless you've got sky or some other cable type service which streams high definition then all standard Freeview tv will look terrible on modern tv's.

So I ended up walking away leaving the tv's there and thinking there's no point in buying a tv that's going to look worse than my 10+ year old tv. The only way to make it look better would be to subscribe to SKY or Virgin Media or something like that and that would involve much more monthly costs all for the sake of just trying to get a good picture for free to air stuff on a large screen.

I've now come to the conclusion that there's no point in getting one, I'd be better off getting an older tv that's not HD or 4K or 720p... just a bigger screen that's standard definition.

This is the thing though, 99.9% of people fall into the trap of upgrading for better... but is it better? Does it actually give you more pleasure or does it bleed more money out of you for the same enjoyment?

I'll never be like the 99.9% of the people but I'll be the one with less stress and more money.

Don't get me wrong, buying things is nice... if you really want it / need it. However the majority of purchases that I've seen are just a complete waste of money, like people are trying to find a reason to spend more money... to me it's just more stress.

Like another example, air fryers. I've had several people mention them to me about how good they are and how I should get one. They say they're really quick and easy to use and all you have to do is clean the plastic draw thing... Well I looked into it a bit and thought what do I really cook? I only do salmon and just have veg and throw the odd pizza or burgers in the oven. All an air fryer would do is take up more space which I haven't really got in the kitchen AND it would give me more things to clean each night. I've got an oven and a hob, why would I need anything else just to cook food?

I could be wrong on the air fryers but it's another example of people buying more to solve problems that don't really exist. Like they've already got everything they need to cook a meal and it's not like they're going to be throwing their ovens away.

I don't get why people are like that but as a result it benefits all of us. If everyone was like me then the world wouldn't go round. No one would be buying new phones, cars, tv's, 15 pairs of shoes a year, new sofa's, getting rid of perfectly good furniture for newer furniture just because they 'fancy a change'. It's all totally unnecessary stuff... but I do recognise if people didn't do this then the world wouldn't look like how it is today. Or to put it another way, people being wasteful with their money creates a very easy stress free life for me

You write longer replies than @spruce

I think it's not peer pressure. People see other people with nice things and want the same or at least new purchases that make them look and feel better, peoples houses are filled with material stuff they don't really need or use, I've got a garage full of stuff

I'll hold my hands up and confess I used to be a bit like that but have changed my ways in recent years. My wife has never been one for spending or showing off. That probably comes from growing up during the miner's strike and having nothing and seeing that quite a lot.

On TVs, I finally had to give up our 18-year-old plus TV because it stopped responding to the remote. I figured it would cost more to repair the TV than it was worth, so I had to bite the bullet and buy a new one, we downsized as we had a big TV in our living room but it just never looked right in our 1930's semi, I now get watch our 15-year-old 55" tv in our bedroom

Air fryers are good we have one with 2-3 shelves but they have got quite expensive now we bought ours around 6 years ago, they are more energy efficient which would be ideal for a skin flint like you , my wife only uses the main oven maybe twice a month through the cooler months the rest of the year it never gets used as we use the air fryer, it heats up instantly and stuff can be cooked probably before the main oven could pre-heat

 

[Crystalalan]

I don't buy into all this peer pressure buying stuff, never have done. For me it just feels like added stress to my life.

For example a friend of mine has been prodding me to upgrade my tv to a bigger screen for quite some time now. My tv is only a 24" LCD and I've had it over 10 years, but I only watch free to air tv, I've never had SKY and for me it's just something that I have on in the background while I'm on my pc on the internet reading about all sorts of stuff.

Anyway she was prodding me to get one in the black Friday deals, so I thought I might as well just get a bigger screen because it's not like I can't afford it. So I decided I'd go for a 32" , my friend was saying to get bigger but I don't like big screens for casual tv viewing, films maybe different but I rarely watch films.

So I went off and selected a handful of tv's that seemed really good deals, they were cheap, like around about £200. The pictures looked really good on all the tv's in the shop and the huge OLED tv's looked incredible. I then was clever though, before parting with my cash I wanted to be sure that they would be suitable for MY USE... so I asked the guy to put normal tv (free to air) on them... bloody hell what a difference... the pictures all looked terrible, like miles worse than the tv I've already got. Basically all the videos they're playing are in either HD or 4k so they look amazing on these higher definition tv's, but it's different with standard definition free to air stuff...

I was chatting to the guy and he was really genuine and helpful and he explained that all new tv's that are high definition or better (4k) will look bad with standard definition free to air tv played on them. This is because standard definition won't fit on the new screens, it's not detailed enough, so it's actually computer software that tries to guess how the picture should look and recreates it on the screen, so it's basically guessing how the picture should look and as a result it looks really bad, blurry, colours off and nothing you can do to change how that is.

Unless you've got sky or some other cable type service which streams high definition then all standard Freeview tv will look terrible on modern tv's.

So I ended up walking away leaving the tv's there and thinking there's no point in buying a tv that's going to look worse than my 10+ year old tv. The only way to make it look better would be to subscribe to SKY or Virgin Media or something like that and that would involve much more monthly costs all for the sake of just trying to get a good picture for free to air stuff on a large screen.

I've now come to the conclusion that there's no point in getting one, I'd be better off getting an older tv that's not HD or 4K or 720p... just a bigger screen that's standard definition.

This is the thing though, 99.9% of people fall into the trap of upgrading for better... but is it better? Does it actually give you more pleasure or does it bleed more money out of you for the same enjoyment?

I'll never be like the 99.9% of the people but I'll be the one with less stress and more money.

Don't get me wrong, buying things is nice... if you really want it / need it. However the majority of purchases that I've seen are just a complete waste of money, like people are trying to find a reason to spend more money... to me it's just more stress.

Like another example, air fryers. I've had several people mention them to me about how good they are and how I should get one. They say they're really quick and easy to use and all you have to do is clean the plastic draw thing... Well I looked into it a bit and thought what do I really cook? I only do salmon and just have veg and throw the odd pizza or burgers in the oven. All an air fryer would do is take up more space which I haven't really got in the kitchen AND it would give me more things to clean each night. I've got an oven and a hob, why would I need anything else just to cook food?

I could be wrong on the air fryers but it's another example of people buying more to solve problems that don't really exist. Like they've already got everything they need to cook a meal and it's not like they're going to be throwing their ovens away.

I don't get why people are like that but as a result it benefits all of us. If everyone was like me then the world wouldn't go round. No one would be buying new phones, cars, tv's, 15 pairs of shoes a year, new sofa's, getting rid of perfectly good furniture for newer furniture just because they 'fancy a change'. It's all totally unnecessary stuff... but I do recognise if people didn't do this then the world wouldn't look like how it is today. Or to put it another way, people being wasteful with their money creates a very easy stress free life for me

I agree with you there on a few things. I buy secondhand if I can. You can pick up some really good bargains! When I bought my flat 18 years ago, I furnished it with a secondhand bed, sofa, tv cabinet, fridge freezer and washing machine. I had a tv which I inherited from when my Gran had passed away and I nether yearned for new stuff. I was as happy as a pig in ****. I think some of this is to do with my upbringing. We were quite poor growing up so didn`t have expensive things or lavish stuff but my parents gave us a very happy childhood. We always went camping in the summer and had great days out.

I think its probably a good thing we are wired this way, Everything is so disposable these days. Its really bad for the planet.
However I do get the whole airfryer thing as they are supposed to be cheaper to run and healthier. Anyway apologies if I am steering this away from the original topic.

 

[ched999uk]

I don't buy into all this peer pressure buying stuff, never have done. For me it just feels like added stress to my life.

For example a friend of mine has been prodding me to upgrade my tv to a bigger screen for quite some time now. My tv is only a 24" LCD and I've had it over 10 years, but I only watch free to air tv, I've never had SKY and for me it's just something that I have on in the background while I'm on my pc on the internet reading about all sorts of stuff.

Anyway she was prodding me to get one in the black Friday deals, so I thought I might as well just get a bigger screen because it's not like I can't afford it. So I decided I'd go for a 32" , my friend was saying to get bigger but I don't like big screens for casual tv viewing, films maybe different but I rarely watch films.

So I went off and selected a handful of tv's that seemed really good deals, they were cheap, like around about £200. The pictures looked really good on all the tv's in the shop and the huge OLED tv's looked incredible. I then was clever though, before parting with my cash I wanted to be sure that they would be suitable for MY USE... so I asked the guy to put normal tv (free to air) on them... bloody hell what a difference... the pictures all looked terrible, like miles worse than the tv I've already got. Basically all the videos they're playing are in either HD or 4k so they look amazing on these higher definition tv's, but it's different with standard definition free to air stuff...

I was chatting to the guy and he was really genuine and helpful and he explained that all new tv's that are high definition or better (4k) will look bad with standard definition free to air tv played on them. This is because standard definition won't fit on the new screens, it's not detailed enough, so it's actually computer software that tries to guess how the picture should look and recreates it on the screen, so it's basically guessing how the picture should look and as a result it looks really bad, blurry, colours off and nothing you can do to change how that is.

Unless you've got sky or some other cable type service which streams high definition then all standard Freeview tv will look terrible on modern tv's.

So I ended up walking away leaving the tv's there and thinking there's no point in buying a tv that's going to look worse than my 10+ year old tv. The only way to make it look better would be to subscribe to SKY or Virgin Media or something like that and that would involve much more monthly costs all for the sake of just trying to get a good picture for free to air stuff on a large screen.

I've now come to the conclusion that there's no point in getting one, I'd be better off getting an older tv that's not HD or 4K or 720p... just a bigger screen that's standard definition.

This is the thing though, 99.9% of people fall into the trap of upgrading for better... but is it better? Does it actually give you more pleasure or does it bleed more money out of you for the same enjoyment?

I'll never be like the 99.9% of the people but I'll be the one with less stress and more money.

Don't get me wrong, buying things is nice... if you really want it / need it. However the majority of purchases that I've seen are just a complete waste of money, like people are trying to find a reason to spend more money... to me it's just more stress.

Like another example, air fryers. I've had several people mention them to me about how good they are and how I should get one. They say they're really quick and easy to use and all you have to do is clean the plastic draw thing... Well I looked into it a bit and thought what do I really cook? I only do salmon and just have veg and throw the odd pizza or burgers in the oven. All an air fryer would do is take up more space which I haven't really got in the kitchen AND it would give me more things to clean each night. I've got an oven and a hob, why would I need anything else just to cook food?

I could be wrong on the air fryers but it's another example of people buying more to solve problems that don't really exist. Like they've already got everything they need to cook a meal and it's not like they're going to be throwing their ovens away.

I don't get why people are like that but as a result it benefits all of us. If everyone was like me then the world wouldn't go round. No one would be buying new phones, cars, tv's, 15 pairs of shoes a year, new sofa's, getting rid of perfectly good furniture for newer furniture just because they 'fancy a change'. It's all totally unnecessary stuff... but I do recognise if people didn't do this then the world wouldn't look like how it is today. Or to put it another way, people being wasteful with their money creates a very easy stress free life for me

About the TV, Freeview should have about 7 HD channels that do look good on big tv's but the bigger the tv the bigger ach pixel is, so from close up it will look worse picture, 4k can look stunning even on big tv's but that's about 4 times the pixels of HD and, broadcast wise, only available in pay systems. That said there is quite a bit of 4K stuff on iPlayer and other Free streaming platforms including Youtube. There are 'idea' viewing distances for tv's for HD (1080) that is approximately 1.5 to 2.5 the diagonal screen size. So your 24" tv that would be 36" to 60". For a 32" that would be 48" to 80". On a 4K tv with a 4K image the ideal viewing distance is between 1 and 1.5 screen size.
As Standard Def signal does have to be interpolated to fit a HD or 4K screen but at the correct distance the image shouldn't be terrible, yes it wont be as good as HD but it should be perfect colour, contrast and brightness wise.

As for flashy stuff I agree. We buy stuff that we want, irrespective of what others thing we should have.

Air Fryers are more energy efficient in that they reduce cooking time.

 

[Chris34]

You write longer replies than @spruce

I think it's not peer pressure. People see other people with nice things and want the same or at least new purchases that make them look and feel better, peoples houses are filled with material stuff they don't really need or use, I've got a garage full of stuff

I'll hold my hands up and confess I used to be a bit like that but have changed my ways in recent years. My wife has never been one for spending or showing off. That probably comes from growing up during the miner's strike and having nothing and seeing that quite a lot.

On TVs, I finally had to give up our 18-year-old plus TV because it stopped responding to the remote. I figured it would cost more to repair the TV than it was worth, so I had to bite the bullet and buy a new one, we downsized as we had a big TV in our living room but it just never looked right in our 1930's semi, I now get watch our 15-year-old 55" tv in our bedroom

Air fryers are good we have one with 2-3 shelves but they have got quite expensive now we bought ours around 6 years ago, they are more energy efficient which would be ideal for a skin flint like you , my wife only uses the main oven maybe twice a month through the cooler months the rest of the year it never gets used as we use the air fryer, it heats up instantly and stuff can be cooked probably before the main oven could pre-heat

Yeah I just started typing and before I knew it is was starting to resemble the start of a book but I thought well I've come this far so I may as well just carry on

Jury's out on air fryers atm for me but the cost saving was the one part that had me thinking about them... but I'm in no rush...

I think I'm probably similar to your wife in the fact that for years I've limped by and learned to go without, to the extent that I skipped having lunch to save money and now even though I've got money I can no longer can eat lunch as it feels too early, so I just have one meal a day and it saves a lot of money. So you sort of develop a habit of not having what you don't need.

Don't get me wrong though, I've got everything I need. Most people buy the 'visual' things but skip on things that they actually need because they basically have spent their money or don't want to spend their money on things they actually need. Take for instance a printer. I bought a higher spec printer that I can refill the ink so I can refill the cartridge without having to buy new cartridges every few months. Well I still have friends who don't have a printer and are always asking other people to use theirs. Same with power tools. I've got a wired drill, a cordless drill, a good selection of mechanical tools, saws, off cuts of wood, brackets, rawl plugs, nuts and bolts, screws, nails... it all adds up... again I know lots of people who have none of this stuff and are asking for it when they need it.

This Christmas I've been noticing people having at least two big decorated Christmas tree's in their houses... it's another example of buying more than you need and adding more stress to your life. Like is that additional Christmas tree going to add to your life or create more work for your life?

 

[Chris34]

I agree with you there on a few things. I buy secondhand if I can. You can pick up some really good bargains! When I bought my flat 18 years ago, I furnished it with a secondhand bed, sofa, tv cabinet, fridge freezer and washing machine. I had a tv which I inherited from when my Gran had passed away and I nether yearned for new stuff. I was as happy as a pig in ****. I think some of this is to do with my upbringing. We were quite poor growing up so didn`t have expensive things or lavish stuff but my parents gave us a very happy childhood. We always went camping in the summer and had great days out.

I think its probably a good thing we are wired this way, Everything is so disposable these days. Its really bad for the planet.
However I do get the whole airfryer thing as they are supposed to be cheaper to run and healthier. Anyway apologies if I am steering this away from the original topic.

I could copy and paste that as an example of my life

My washer dryer machine I bought second hand couple of years ago, think it was £100 but like new only used a handful of times, guy selling it had lost his accommodation and was living with his mum and the machine was being stored in his car so he needed to get rid of it. It was worth about £350 and was, and still is perfect.

TV unit I got from a charity shop, again like new, you could get it in IKEA for £70, I bought it for £15.

32" LCD tv that I don't use as I don't like it... well that was given to me from my Grandma when my Grandad passed away, it was his bedroom tv that she didn't watch.

My king size bed and mattress I bought from the previous tenant 7 years ago now, it again was like new and got it for £100.

Sofa bought it from my neighbour from my previous place for £30, again like new and still is because I never sit on it, it's just there for show really

It's amazing really, you can actually get everything you need for very little money, if you're desperate then I'm almost certain you could get everything you need for free if you're not too fussy.

 

[Chris34]

About the TV, Freeview should have about 7 HD channels that do look good on big tv's but the bigger the tv the bigger ach pixel is, so from close up it will look worse picture, 4k can look stunning even on big tv's but that's about 4 times the pixels of HD and, broadcast wise, only available in pay systems. That said there is quite a bit of 4K stuff on iPlayer and other Free streaming platforms including Youtube. There are 'idea' viewing distances for tv's for HD (1080) that is approximately 1.5 to 2.5 the diagonal screen size. So your 24" tv that would be 36" to 60". For a 32" that would be 48" to 80". On a 4K tv with a 4K image the ideal viewing distance is between 1 and 1.5 screen size.
As Standard Def signal does have to be interpolated to fit a HD or 4K screen but at the correct distance the image shouldn't be terrible, yes it wont be as good as HD but it should be perfect colour, contrast and brightness wise.

As for flashy stuff I agree. We buy stuff that we want, irrespective of what others thing we should have.

Air Fryers are more energy efficient in that they reduce cooking time.

Yeah that's exactly correct. The problem for me is that I don't want paid services, free to air is all I actually need. The online HD content and 4k content would mean higher data usage which again would mean I would then need to get broadband which increases my costs just to watch tv.

I currently don't have broadband, I have no phone line so zero costs that way... I have giffgaff on my smartphone and pay £20 per month for unlimited calls, unlimited texts and 100GB of data per month. The service allows you to tether other devices to it so I tether my pc to it and that gives me all the internet I could ever need. I watch the iPlayer and a few of the others late at night sometimes on my pc just before I go to bed and this is all fine... however if I was going to be 100% using the internet all the time for a tv and it was HD or 4K then that 100GB data I expect would run out very quickly...

It's all about knowing what you need and want. I'm super simple and well happy being that way

 

[Iron Giant]

Yeah I just started typing and before I knew it is was starting to resemble the start of a book but I thought well I've come this far so I may as well just carry on

Jury's out on air fryers atm for me but the cost saving was the one part that had me thinking about them... but I'm in no rush...

I think I'm probably similar to your wife in the fact that for years I've limped by and learned to go without, to the extent that I skipped having lunch to save money and now even though I've got money I can no longer can eat lunch as it feels too early, so I just have one meal a day and it saves a lot of money. So you sort of develop a habit of not having what you don't need.

Don't get me wrong though, I've got everything I need. Most people buy the 'visual' things but skip on things that they actually need because they basically have spent their money or don't want to spend their money on things they actually need. Take for instance a printer. I bought a higher spec printer that I can refill the ink so I can refill the cartridge without having to buy new cartridges every few months. Well I still have friends who don't have a printer and are always asking other people to use theirs. Same with power tools. I've got a wired drill, a cordless drill, a good selection of mechanical tools, saws, off cuts of wood, brackets, rawl plugs, nuts and bolts, screws, nails... it all adds up... again I know lots of people who have none of this stuff and are asking for it when they need it.

This Christmas I've been noticing people having at least two big decorated Christmas tree's in their houses... it's another example of buying more than you need and adding more stress to your life. Like is that additional Christmas tree going to add to your life or create more work for your life?

We've never gone without what we need but made mistakes early on like most people have buying things we haven't always needed I think at tines we can all be guilty of that,

Also these days with the Internet you have the option to do more research and look around for better deals, 4 years ago next week we were due to move house and only realised about 2 weeks before the sofa we had wouldn't fit in our new house,

My wife found a lass selling a 3 seater and a 2 seater sofa 6 months old she had split with her boyfriend we bought them for £350 they were still on the Barker and Stonehouse website for a combined price of £1,500 she shops around a lot for anything we or she needs.

One Xmas tree is enough after half a bottle of port and over an hour doing one tree I'm ready for a lay down