AL6400 Blog » General Thoughts and Fun Topics

What Other People Think

Alan Yu — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 07:14:39 +0000

So today I was helping with some house painting and there was this little smear on the ceiling which looked like it was used to cover something up. The paint was the same the color as the ceiling which made it blend to a certain extent, but you still notice it. Since it was pretty high up and all, the homeowners contemplated about hiring a person to paint the ceiling and the estimate was about $600.

My first reaction was that the smear is not too big a of a deal I thought and for $600 it didn’t seem worth it. After talking about this the homeowners mentioned that they were originally okay with it but felt that guests would notice it and therefore it would look bad. This then lead into a conversation on how it should be what they think and not others. Eventually, they decided that it was better to save the $600.

I suppose it’s always nice to try make your property top notch if it means improving your in some way lifestyle. But spending loads of money mainly to try and win over acceptance/approval from someone else’s taste and perception in cases like this are just a money sink I’d say.

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Cross Space Junk

Alan Yu — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 07:15:13 +0000

So I will be doing some clearing of the cross space soon and the first thing that I was thinking about is how much old junk there probably is in there. Everything from old magazines to luggage that I never used for a long time. While people say one man’s junk is another man’s treasure it is kind of tempting to simply just give the stuff away to people just to speed up the cleaning process. This is opposed to doing things like setting up a garage sale.

Although, it can be easy to sell stuff to say collectors for things like magazines. Heck, you have people who are willing to pay large amounts of money for old newpapers. In some ways it can be a good opportunity to practice your sales and marketing techniques. For example, if you planned to sell everything online then you can fiddle around with photos to try and make the items look as appealing as possible just like a regular business.

I think the best time to just tell people to come and take it for free type of scenario is if you were going to literally dispose the item. Cause in those cases it would probably cost you more to try and dispose of the stuff yourself. I’m over exaggerating, but it would be like paying the cost of disposing a couch as opposed to having someone take it for free. Having so much extra space can sure be a negative many times as it is like a magnet for us to simply fill it up because we can.

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Owning Too Many Items That Do The Same Thing

Alan Yu — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 07:38:55 +0000

I noticed something funny today as a person I was meeting up with ha a bunch of stuff on his desk. Most noticeably he had an electric pencil sharpener as well as a small manual one. I then asked what was the point in spending money in buying both of them since it seems like a waste. The simple answer was that sometimes he is too lazy to sharpen things manually and so that is when he uses the electronic one.

I guess when you think about it we do this a lot for many things. For example, I know for things like computer software many people spend so much money buying so many different products that do the same thing. It’s just that one offers everything versus say one that is more point and click. Just makes you wonder how much money you could save and not to mention the clutter if you simply just discipline yourself to use one item for specific tasks if it can accomplish what you need. Options are great to have of course, but sometimes just sticking with the one item that works can be better.

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Having to Purchase More Than You Need

Alan Yu — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 07:11:26 +0000

I had a semi debacle today while going to the store as I was asked to go purchase a small jar of mayonnaise to be used to create some potato salad. I figured that you could find a small one for a cheap price as there would be no point in buying a big jar since there would be no real use for it afterwards. To my surprise it seemed like you had to buy medium sized ones and they all ranged from $5 to $8 each. I was so hesitant to buy it as it seemed like a waste of money.

Unless a person say planned their meals around using that entire jar in a timely manner it just didn’t seem like a smart purchase overall. I guess that is just what happens when things come up on the fly and you try to make purchases in the last minute as well. I did ended up purchasing it though as I figured that we could always just give it to say other family members who are more inclined to use the item. That’s one way of dealing with having to buy an excess amount of a certain item.

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Sitting Next To A Block of Ice

Alan Yu — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 07:41:58 +0000

This is something that I have only seen on tv shows. But today I was talking to a guy who saves money from having to buy items like an air conditioner for the summer by literally placing a large block of ice near him which chills the room down. I just had a hard time believing that this would be effective as I would think the ice would melt quickly in such a hot temperature.

The other method I have seen a lot is how some people simply place some ice next to the fan which in hence turns it into an air conditioner of sort. That sounds a bit more realistic as I would think that would help to cool the room faster and all. This is one of those things too that sounds so silly that people probably wouldn’t do it for image and perception sake.

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