This past week I saw some people who were using a boat for fishing it seems. The real strange thing was that the boat looked pretty worn out and it was apparently it had a hole in. As a result, water would creep into it occasionally in small increments. There were three people in it and they literally had one person scooping out the water to make sure that the boat did not sink.

I actually asked one of the person afterwards on why they didn’t buy another boat instead or at minimum pay to have the hole fixed. The person said that it wasn’t too big of a deal and that the cost of fixing it wasn’t worth it as the problem isn’t big enough yet to warrant the cost of repairing it. In a sense, the mentality was if they had to pay all this money fixing something that you may as well truly wear it out first to get the full value of the replacement.

That’s really hardcore for this situation I’d say. The main type of items that I personally would still use until it was no good anymore, so to speak, are electronic products like a television set. For example, if the TV is showing its age such as you see a little blur in the corner now I would still use it until it truly died.

I think as a kid clothes would normally be candidates for that mentality in an extreme way such as I didn’t necessarily need a new pair of socks right away just because of one small hole or other items like a shoe that has a small tear.

Pens are the best everyday examples I think where it is does make sense to try and use it till the end. In most cases, people never truly use all of the ink and end up using new ones all the time if they experience the slightest problem with it. In general, it can be a great mindset to have in various circumstances to save yourself money.

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A person I know was talking about wanting to buy a new phone as it was suggested that it would be better if she and her husband each had their own phone. She then threw out a comment on how she wanted a Blackberry Pearl as it looked nice and would be very convenient with all those features.

The husband immediately frowned upon that idea as he mentioned how she would have to enroll into a data plan which costs way more than just a regular phone plan and it’s not like she ran a business. In response, she then talked about how it was only a few dollars more per month and will make things such as text messaging friends a lot more convenient.

For those who don’t know, data phone plans in Canada are pretty horrendous in pricing compared to other countries. That conversation did make me wonder though as I have personally never seen a non business oriented person carry a blackberry type of device here when I think about it. Seems like an overkill to say simply text messaging friends doesn’t it?

Even for myself, I can’t imagine any real need for something like a Blackberry when it comes to personal use. I would have to kind of train myself to use it more such as being more care free when it comes to checking or sending e-mails when a computer is available. Although, I guess that is what cell phones have done to most of us too.

Now I’m just waiting for the day where people won’t even subscribe to a home Internet service as a data phone would be just as good similar to how some people are ditching their home phone lines. Till then though, these data phone plans are still pretty bad I’d say for people that would just use it occasionally and the savings from avoiding it is probably a better decision overall.

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Today I was talking to a person who mentioned that he wanted to buy some kind of weed puller for this one day that he was holding an event in his backyard. He mentioned that it cost about $30 or so which wasn’t too bad.

This got me thinking on how many times we tend to buy items where we only use it once and then throw it in say the closet to never be used again. For myself when it comes to these types of items, if I don’t intend to use it at least say once every two months I tend to explore other options such as borrowing a similar item from a friend or family member if available.

It’s just like when we were younger I suppose. What’s the point of say everyone buying the same toy/game when you could easily just lend your copy to the other if they plan to play it through once only? As long as you don’t abuse the trust/generosity, I’m sure most people are more than happy to help you save money in these ways. More than likely you would do the same too.

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I was talking to some people today that were talking about the thought of how much they would pay for a subscription service of some sort where someone else will do things such as cooking dinner and washing the dishes for them as sometimes you just don’t want to have to deal with things like that.

One person said $30/month plus the cost of food and I thought that was kind of a little too low. That sounded more like a fee for a diet program of some sort. I actually know one guy that just absolutely hates cooking and pays a lady to come in and cook dinner for about $20 each time to do it for him. Kind of high expense when you think about it too.

What I always think about when it comes to convenience is that while I’ll probably definitely save a lot of time in situations like these, I always debate whether or not it would benefit me skill wise in the long run. For example, would it enable me to do things faster afterwards? Is it a skill I could use to make money afterwards? There are always things like that which make me consider how much I would be really losing in the overall picture.

Of course, you can’t know everything so many times it makes sense to just pay for convenience.

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A person yesterday was telling me how he knows this guy who is in his 30’s and when it comes to money the only thing he wants to do is save it. He would refuse to spend it on anything that is not a necessity such as traveling for a vacation.

The gentleman was basically ridiculing him and how he doesn’t understand why a person like that would even bother making money if they don’t intend to use it. I can definitely understand not wanting to waste money on just anything, but just saving for the sake of saving money seems kind of counter productive both from a time and investment point of view.

To a certain extent being able to save a lot of money is a way to prove to yourself that you can manage money and follow through with goals. At the same time, I guess like most things you can’t keep conquering the same goals that you know you are good at or be afraid to lose a little. It’s like saying, you can’t grow much taller by standing on the same block. Stepping off that block might make you shorter for awhile, but once you find a taller block to stand on you’ll wonder why you did not do it sooner.

Another way to think about it is why should you do all the work while that lazy money sits in the bank account? You earned it, so find a way to make it work for you now.

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