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.

So this week I am going to help with some people in moving and one thing that they have appeared to do is buy new equipment for their new home. Originally with the sale of their old home they agreed to sell all of the old appliances along with the place as well. The last person I talked to mentioned that he prefers it if people take things like the large appliances whenever they sell a home as the hassle and cost of having to transport them to the new place makes it feel as if it is better to simply buy new stuff.

On top of that, just the notion that they are moving into a new place made it semi justifiable to buy new stuff for it as well. So when they said things like they were thinking of buying a new television simply because they were moving that made me think of how much money they were wasting mainly to just have new stuff.

I think for myself, if the item requires some kind of massive deconstruction in order to transport or say the item is about $100 to buy a more modern day version then I would be inclined to do the same. For example, I couldn’t justify buying a new computer just because I am going to a new place as it is an item that is easy to disconnect and setup. Example, if I had a bulky desk and I was able to acquire a new one for cheap I would be inclined to let someone take the old one off my hands instead of dealing with having to transport it.

Today one of my family members whizzed by a site attraction here called Science World with my nephew as it was a sunny day and all. They were going to go in just to find out that even for little kids the cost would be about $12 to get in and they didn’t think it was worth it for such a short stay. Then a topic was brought up on how buying single passes to places like the aquarium was just as expensive.

My brother was then saying how when he brought his son to the place a ticket was about $20 for the child. But then he noticed that the annual pass was about $100. Even though he only intended to go there for that one day he figured that the $100 pass seemed like a way better value and therefore he bought that just incase they return in the future. He figured his son would ask to go back anyways and that one day they could always just plan to go all of a sudden.

I was just thinking how that can be a great way to save money where one would try to find passes that allow to you attend places continuously as opposed to buying single tickets. Example, I guess this can hold true for things like movie rentals where getting annual plans can be better than just renting things individual. You have to make sure that there is a reasonable or likely chance that you will use the value of the pass as well. Otherwise it will end up like those unused fitness centre passes that so many people have.

I was reading a story today on how this one family saved well over $2000 a year when they simply stopped purchasing bottled and filtered water. I was thinking how they must have purchased a lot before as I would think a more common expense amount is around $500 to $1000. This is probably way too hard for a lot of people to do just based on the thought that many people have where if you drink tap water that it must mean it is contaminated.

When I think for myself, when I was a kid I never used any bottled water and everything was fine. If there ever was fear that the water was in any way bad the simple solution was to just boil it. I never purchase bottled water in stores as it just seems so expensive when you think about it. You can literally just make your own bottled water for virtually nothing even if it is tap water. Yet many won’t which is surprising to me.

For example, you see people flocking to the stores to buy bottled water that are on sale when really it will probably only take you a few minutes to do yourself. It’s just a matter of making it a habit too I guess if you want to start using the tap water instead to save money you just got to stick with it for at least a few months. If money is the main motivator too then I’m sure seeing how much you save a month will be a good enough reason to keep doing it.

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.