Buy the newest nicest car lowest mileage or brand new car you can afford to pay for outright with monies left over to fuel & maintain & insure your new automobile.
Live in the lowest crime nicest zip code with the freshest electronics, dope gear, hot hardware, smooth fashion, zip code envy baby & you know how to do it.
Children in China are becoming obese from eating like Americans now, fast foods. They have traffic jams that last 2-5 hours as many Chinese people buy their first car in cities with more than 90 million people & not enough roadways with enough capacity for tens of millions of privately owned automobiles to operate commuting or running errands to the store or similar like brining the kids to school or picking them up.
Elder poverty an epidemic in South
Move to the gentrified area where other high income people live, the DINKS and higher income families with nannies, butlers, maids, house cleaners, people that do the yard work, while the income earner who is pulling down the high income also gone 70+ hours per week at work, obsessed with not failing to provide for their family, its mom with a stay at home dad or estranged x-husband in some cases.
The average American child see's more than 5000 advertisements daily as soon as they are able to look at the TV screen where companies now market directly to children. Worse, tablets like iPads and mom & dad's old smartphone that little baby so & so toddler now uses as a MID or mobile internet device of their homes WIFI high speed internet access via Comcast Xfinity or similar.
You can wear information jewelry now with 5G NR radios built in, like the Apple Watch Ultra w/ SIM and its own data plan, no need for one of those bulky old school smartphones, you can wear the internet as a wrist watch like Dick Tracy, making phone calls, navigation, apps, texting, browsing, imaging and more and if Apple's closed eco-system not your flavor, Samsung will gladly sell you the latest Gear Watch or you could take a deep dive into Smart Jewelry with the latest model of Oura Smart Ring's. |
The information furniture means your washer and dryer have a smartphone app control interface, your connected fridge, microwave and dishwasher also have high speed internet wifi connections. These connected smartphone devices included smart lightbulbs that you can control with voice using Echo Dot on Amazon Alexa or Google Nest via your Android Phone or Android Wear smart watch. Your front door can get a Drop Cam or Nest Cam or Ring Camera, because porch pirates steel people Amazon packages while they are gone away at work, busy working away their finite time alive for money to buy more things they don't actually understand or really want. A lot of people are on an income treadmill of never ending chronic cortisol sleeplessness anxiety fear and stress watching negative biased news coverage of the world falling apart, as they are guild of raising money & things as false idols exhalted above God, above morality, human decency, obsessed with the next thing, on endless life of excess consumption. There must be a better way.
Minimalism. Have you ever heard of Harding Buried Alive? Do you know about borders who accumulate millions of kilograms of possessions in their homes, usually homes they have owned since way back when homes used to be affordable! Yes I am talking about boomers who purchased homes for less cost than what I paid for my used Nissan LEAF. Yes, these Americans had a very unfair advantage, but today most of them are also getting screwed since they are on fixed incomes from 15 years ago & can't increase their income while everything in life has become radically more expensive. I am talking about basic foods that are 40% more costly now than just 3 years ago. Some foods experience price inflation of thousands of percent. Locally gasoline costs more than $5/ gallon, which actually a good deal given the chemical energy contained around 33-36kWh in every US gallon.
Thats actually really cheap, because if you factored in the public health damage & environmental damage from the emissions created by burning each US gallon, that gallon would cost more than $15. I can visualize a day when unleaded regular 87 R+M/2 gasoline sells for $40 USD per US gallon. The crazy high cost per gallon in part because the fiat currency US dollar will be further devalued with more quantum easing where the Federal Reserve injects more money into circulation in futile attempt to stabilize the economy. In an era where globalization is breaking down national borders, what does it even mean in terms of local economies if rampant insourcing & outsourcing are normal parts of the business cycles on Wall Street?
Does sitting in traffic congestion stress you out? Do you like wasting hours commuting too & from work everyday, or does that feel like your life is being sucked away by forces you can't see, by things you have no control over, but the irony is that you do have control to spent less. Frugality is wise for people with modest incomes.
Spending less means you have more money on the same income. Being cheap a way of attaining freedom because you are not being forced to buy anything other than food & housing. Most things that people buy are things they want because they saw and ad that told them that adding that thing to their life will make them have a happier life, but this is rarely the case. Most of the time that people buy something needlessly they later experience buyers remorse, long after it's not longer practical or possible to return the idem and hard or confusing to sell it used to someone else.
If gender equity is fair, many women have become workaholics now and experience the inflammation inducing stresses that used to only affect dads or fathers or men back when single income households were more common just after the end of WWII when the GI's came home & bought single family homes with a one car garage in America.
Watch this YouTube Video https://youtu.be/J8DGjUv-Vjc
Their first car made them really happy, but then the second car or SUV brings on stress & costs they don't like. A third car just makes it worse. They more they own, the more complicated, more stressful, where is the G&T, I think I am going to split my differential & lose my mind- I can't sleep, I can't even figure out what in the hell I am doing level psychosis sets in because no matter how much they buy, they are never content or happy. It's a shallow materialistic hedonistic treadmill which dopamine hits from shopping additiction as bad as a heroin addiction and just as costly to health & wellness & toxic to family relationships.
This was me, obsessed with money & stuff & making more money so I could own more stuff, before I became a school bus driver who is now on summer break moving from a 1200 square foot apartment to a 240 square foot unit on the side of a barn on a homestead 7.6 mi further away from where I work in downtown Bellevue, Wa, USA, and similarly further away from where Meg works as a nanny for a lovely kind spirited & very friendly gynecologist surgeon named Dr. O, where Meg' helps doctor O with Dr O's two younger boys who she shares custody with her x-husband part of the time.
Look at me now. We are paying $600/ mo for a storage unit. We have an apartment filled with stuff that we never purchased that belonged to my mother that we have to deal with before moving out in 20 days. We have 3 cars, a motorcycle, motor scooter, electric kick scooter, Segway Mini Pro self balancing scooter, two analog bicycles and an E-bike, and a Geico account to insure all these vehicles. I have a spotless clean driving record and a Class B CDL with passenger, open class motorcycle, and school bus endorsements. I can pass a drug test randomly because I don't take anything other than NMN, Metformin & Vitamins anymore, other than an occasional beer with dinner sporadically.
Our overpriced apartment costs us $3508 per month right now, I have to pay for July then we are leaving as the lease is coming to an end, since they would raise the price to $4000/mo if I signed another 15 months lease agreement. That is actually more than I make as income as a School Bus Driver, when I average my income over the whole year, month to month. When we combine Meg's part time income, we are at under $70k annually, but that's not enough to spent $4000/mo on housing. Thankfully we own all the vehicles outright and have no debt. The trick, DNB or Do Not Buy, as in Do Not Spend Money on Anything. I already own so much stuff that I can't even keep track of it all.
For a while I thought something was wrong with my mind, that I should be able to track thousands of objects that we own. I thought that it made sense to have all of these things. I really believed that it was me, some deficit in my thinking or brain problems that were making it hard to keep track of it all. \
Then last summer I became a God fearing doer of the Holy Word & read the Bible (New Testament, 2X) to understand God's will & integrate it into my life so that I can become an imitator of the Lord by loving other people, by even loving myself more, so that I can be benevolent, generous, kind, polite, so I can genuinely treat other people with real dignity & sincere respect.
But I tell you, seriously, all the stuff is a mental burden. I am actually watching a YouTube video about Minimalism to help free my mind of the materialistic chasing the jones ideologies I unwittingly internalized from media & watching people around me do the same. I am surrounded by bad examples of how to have a happy life, when many of these same people are taking anti-depressant and anxiety medications because they feel miserable despite wanting for nothing. Well not exactly wanting for nothing.
They have a iPhone X, but that iPhone 15 looks so much better, with 12 improved cameras, brighter high constant more colorful screen, faster SOC, better 5G mobile high speed internet performance, such that that perfectly functional iPhone X with its weaker battery that runs out faster now then when it was newer, starts to look dated and less appealing. On the hedonistic upgrade everything treadmill of depriving you of all your money, they go buy the latest greatest $1000 iPhone but find that it does not actually make them happier. Some of these people have a metanoia thinking about how they just shelled out a bunch of money on something they didn't even really want. What was motivating them to spend all their income upgrading everything needlessly? Does having a lot of nice things around the house constitute a happy life? Can money alone make a happy life? No!
There it is, the Fast Fashion unhappiness, since they always want the newest trendiest things, to keep up with what is in fashion, 52 seasons a year such that used clothes are virtually worthless, or worth less than even cheap foods. There are metal used clothing bins in parking lots all around to collect these good clothes that are barely used or in good shape.
Many modern economies function on consumption, such that if people stop needlessly buying things, the economy slows down, profits dry up, the markets collapse, the news media goes into a frenzy of negative stories about economic downturns, rising unemployment, so the government responds by sending out money to everyone during COVID19 lockdowns & closures. People are hesitant to spend the money noticing that it's losing value, that food costs more, fuel costs more, rent prices and home prices are way higher than before.
All of life's basics becoming progressively less affordable, its makes the average working person who is virtually poor because the middle class was hollowed out by merger and acquisition super monopolies like Amazon, that concentrate much of societies wealth into the hands of a few super rich very wealthy billionaires who exert their personal will as political power by bribery and corruption such that America has degenerated into a Plutocracy overrun with Crony Capitalism. Billionaires are the royalty of market economies based on excess needly consumption of goods.
Many of the goods are so cheap because we are exploiting workers in developing countries in sweat shops with unfair labor practices that are mean spirited or cruel. Many critical minerals like cobalt are even mined by child and slave labor today in 2023.
I am typing this blog, editing my YouTube videos, and browsing the web on a $2K MacBook Pro with an M2 Apple Silicon SOC with more than 20 billion transistors, very long battery life per charge, very fast 6G wifi, that can edit video in iMovie with very little energy & excellent performance. I have an iPhone 14 and Series 8 Apple Watch.
Yet, despite all of this I still suffer with bouts of suicidal depression, anxiety, stress, anger, bitterness, frustration, with a fear of failing that drives me to wake up early, to exercise more, to eat less so I can stay fit and keep my blood glucose levels lower, so I can lower my A1C along with NMN that costs a lot & Metformin HCL that is virtually free by comparison.
I drink coffee made from freshly ground beans that are expresso fine from a Eureka Mignon Notte grinder that cost $340 from Seattle Coffee Gear, though my expresso machine a cheaper $80 GIVI GEGCE403U / I put 2-4 fl. oz. of organic half&half into my espresso pulls, usually made of 16-18 grams of super fine grind made with dark roasted espresso beans. I like it nice & bitter. Those link are not affiliate links, if you click on them to order the same, its own you, I make nothing except a tiny income like a person working part time in a poor developing country, from the Ad's on my blog. I write these posting to help other people think about making wise life choices by learning from my failures, at least in part.
1.7 trillion gallons of gasoline used annually, originally a waste product from early oil refining back when kerosine was the dominate fuel selling well worldwide. Today e-waste streams are the result of mindless constant electronics upgrading in wealthy developed countries. I do something even more insane, I keep all my old electronics, even though I rarely use them. Some of them are there when I use them to remind me of simpler happier times when I owned way less & lived way more every day. Now I am unhappy, and get joy from being a School Bus Driver and from not spending money. I actually get a kick every day I am able to not spend money on anything.
I wish everyone could become rich & famous so they can realize it's not the answer. We need to be able to cover our lives basics, to provide housing & food. You have control over having less and spending less, even if you can't make less. You can enjoy freedom with less. Are you working to pay for things that are not making you happy? There is more than life than bills and money & work. You win by how many zeros are on your paycheck, but that never actually works.
Winning comes down to being respected for making more of my life with a 6 figure salary and nice stuff. Having made it, the hollow victory after the etherial moment of joy passes, as we realize we are trapped in our high income jobs, without a life of purpose & meaning, no adventure, just security, a gilded cage. Do you live a 24K gold caged life without real freedom? Does that $11k Rolex make you a better person? Even poor people lust after money & wealth, many saying things like "Wouldn't it be nice to win the lottery, hundreds of millions" but in realty many lottery winners end up depressed and demoralized, realizing the hollow victory, the emptiness and loneliness of an economic island where they have radically more than most other people, knowing in their hearts that this is morally and ethically wrong.
Is it an American dream when a tiny minority of transgender people start calling everyone who is not about that movement a racist bigot, even when a God fearing doer of the word like me loves on people that are gay, lesbian, transgender or gender fluid. I do not judge other people but find it offense that I am being called a bigot just for being a heterosexual made caucasian, when those are genetic attributes I did not choose. I was born a he, a man, with a penis & balls, XY genetically, and that was determined before the age of reason, before I was even born as a baby, my gender was already decided by genetic factors outside of my personal free will or control. I did not choose my eye color, hair color, facial geometry, skeletal size, body dimensions, skin color or other genetic attributes, those were determined the combination of gametes from by XY father man & XX mother woman. All people without exclusion are born out of the inside of a woman's reproductive system that was impregnated by a man's sperm directly or indirectly. In this way everyone comes from a woman. Did gender inequity ever actually make sense when considering that everyone comes from inside a woman? Why were women treated unfairly until just recently? Do people ever stop & think about what they are doing? I think less often because there is no logical explanation for why I took all of human history until just recently to given women equal rights as men. That means that our cultural institutions contain illogical historical bias. This means that people have been confused all throughout history.
