How Following Others Will Leave You Broke

http://calmscience.net/2015/12/09/conspicuous-consumption-and-lifestyle-inflation-how-following-others-will-leave-you-broke/

by dennisgorelik • 10 years ago

120 47 10 years ago

calmscience.net

option_greek• 10 years ago

An insightful read. May be the author should add facebook to the list of things to avoid.

Outdoorsman3• 10 years ago

I remember reading a quote years ago that went something like this:

If you give someone complete freedom to do what they wish 95 percent of the time they will end up attempting to copy the behavior of those around them. (can't remember who said it or where I read it)

I remember thinking that it sounded "spot on"...my opinion hasn't changed much...a couple of generations ago it was called "Keepin up with the Jones's"...keeping up with your neighbors...

Add access to the Internet... An unlimited number of "Jones's" to keep up with...who to emulate now?

Your comment seem relevant, my friend...

mercer2• 10 years ago

Your comments are quite striking in their (over)use of ellipses... I've been wondering if there's a particular reason you do this? At the very least they make your contributions distinct, I guess.

(honest question.)

ImTalking• 10 years ago

Same ideas as the The Millionaire Next Door.

bcoates• 10 years ago

This is some clever self-parody.

The outer wrapper: science-flavored with no actual science.

It warms you up with feel-good nonsense designed to flatter the listener for being a responsible rich person and/or smarter than all those foolish poseurs with their fancy cars and houses.

Then telling you to avoid overt advertising because (the article claims) it just flatters your ego to trick you into buying something, followed by ...

New Age hokum repackaged as Buddhism lecture you're going to nod politely at as you scroll through without reading.

... and the punchline is an affiliate ad to buy enlightenment for $12

p.s. Overt advertising is a way of buying a piece of culture, you don't literally need to believe it for it to work so don't be smug if you don't "fall" for it. Affiliate marketing like this is a direct assault on your brain. This is the evil advertising you should be ignoring, not the "expensive stuff is expensive" ads they use as examples.

gradstudent• 10 years ago

Yeah, I got the same impression. The article is vapid to begin and then it takes a turn for the worse with it's bullshit Buddhist propaganda.

markatkinson• 10 years ago

Ha, agreed. It is one of those articles where as you are reading red flags start shooting up with an ever increasing frequency till eventually you are 2/3rd's of the way through and feel like you've been hoodwinked.

I am not against meditation though...

tempodox2• 10 years ago

The blog title, “Calm Science” says it all.

Whenever I read a title that contains the word “science” (especially in funny combinations like this one), I get very, very suspicious.

lsc• 10 years ago

I'm pretty amused that you are downvoted here. I guess you phrased it too confrontationaly? or maybe something else. Hacker news is weird, sometimes.

But yeah, affiliate marketing is... well, it's important to be aware of who is paying the people who write what you are reading, and that is usually way less clear with affiliate marketing than with conventional advertising.

dwaltrip2• 10 years ago

Can you respond to any of the actual statements in the article? I grant you a lack of citations in the post, but my understanding is that much of the science stuff (meditation, will power, conforming to those around us, effects of advertising, etc) is fairly well established. His advice is not vague, and many people have found positive benefits with those or similar strategies. Sure, there is some irony in the affiliate link to a book (it is a legitimate meditation book that is considered useful), but it doesn't affect the veracity of his statements.

mercer2• 10 years ago

My alarm bells usually start ringing when I see too much bolded text, capitalized text, or too many short sentences.

That said, I have to admit I do agree enough with the gist of the article, and the tips at the end for Headspace and Mindfulness in Plain English are decent. Using Headspace and researching/practicing mindfulness have been very beneficial to me.

Which kind of makes me feel worse about this thing as a whole. It just feels wrong.

jacobolus• 10 years ago

I suspect there’s a marketing self-help book somewhere which recommends adding bold text a few times per paragraph to keep readers with short attention spans engaged.

jhanschoo• 10 years ago

For those expecting a pop news cover of a research article, it isnt. It's a blog post.

fffrad2• 10 years ago

Is it bad because it's a blog post?

fffrad2• 10 years ago

This was quite a good read.

Since this is HN, it may be a good idea to port this to the tech community:

Keeping up with the latest framework

I interviewed at a company that jumped on Silverlight on the very first day because they wanted to be "edgy". One of the interviewers was telling me how they used all resources to convert their enterprise CMS. But now most people left and they are having a hard time finding people who can convert it back.

Outdoorsman3• 10 years ago

From my perspective it's the very nature of our industry...

jasonszhao• 10 years ago

Social status and programming tools are really comparable. Programming tools evolve so fast and they do help you, as more things are abstracted. However, there is still a necessity to to things the traditional way sometimes.

patcheudor• 10 years ago

I get it, but it's a very one sided view that doesn't account for the value of a capital asset. Despite the greatest real-estate crash in the history of the US in which only one of my bordering neighbors didn't go into foreclosure, my $500K home, just eight years after I bought it has appreciated a bit more than 5% a year and before the crash was going up between 10-15% a year. Considering my loan has been at 2.65% (I got lucky with a non-subprime ARM which adjusted down) and property taxes are at 0.7% it's been a much better investment than a less expensive home. Yeah, it worked out for me, but it turns out it worked for all of my neighbors who also weathered the storm as well as a lot of other people through history.

mixmastamyk• 10 years ago

Yes, probably good debt: real-estate, bad debt: automobiles.

macNchz• 10 years ago

Stay Away from High-Income Neighborhoods

I don't generally struggle too much with the pull towards 'lifestyle inflation', but I have to say that after living in a dumpy neighborhood for several years, moving to a nicer area this year is something I've appreciated every single day.

There are trees and parks, lots of businesses and services right nearby, I save nearly an hour of each day with a shorter commute, it's quiet and clean and I feel safe walking around at night. Dollar for dollar the value has been very high for me, and I'm so thankful to have the means to choose where I want to live.

hackaflocka2• 10 years ago

Agreed -- also, one always finds modest homes and cars in high-end neighborhoods, so people are able to not succumb to peer pressure.

subatomic• 10 years ago

Just doesn't compute. We live in what the author would call a high income neighbourhood but that's because we wanted to live walking/bike distance to everything, which turns out to be a pretty frugal way to live. We have an old beater for a car and have never had any intention of trying to keep up with the rest of the street/neighbourhood. We see a lot of fancy around the place but meh.

giancarlostoro• 10 years ago

I think that's part of the key, if you're going to try to outshine your neighbors you're only wasting money for a momentary victory. I had an uncle who told me he was glad he moved from the neighborhood he was in for that very reason.

dagw• 10 years ago

Exactly. High income neighborhoods aren't just randomly scattered around. While I have no interest in living in a high income neighborhood per se, I want to bike to work, be away from major highways, have green spaces around my house, feel reasonably safe and be reasonably close to an at least a half way decent school and all places that fulfill those criteria are almost by definition high income neighborhoods.

xyzzy42• 10 years ago

Ok, what are you supposed to spend your money on then? I wonder if the author realizes you can't take your money with you when you die. Is the point of money to just accumulate it and then pass off the balance to someone else?

Even if you have rock solid financial security, it'll one day be shattered when your health inevitably becomes poor and you die. Your net worth will become zero no matter what you do.

voltagex_• 10 years ago

Time. I'm lucky I get to trade some money for time. Instead of spending the weekend cleaning my house I can pay someone fortnightly to do it for me. I can pay for a meal to be delivered to me if I don't want to cook for myself. I can pay for my groceries to be delivered to save me having to wait in line at the store.

Joof3• 10 years ago

One said time, which I agree with, but I'll add stability and power. Having enough money to live for 10+ years unemployed is nice when suddenly your current job is driving you nuts. Or you want to hop into a new field. Or start a sustainable privately-owned company that doesn't need / couldn't benefit from VC-style growth.

Having more stuff doesn't make one happier by default. Stability is more important. The tradeoff is status among certain groups of people; and if you care, then keep doing what you're doing I guess.

csydas• 10 years ago

I think the point was more "don't spend because it's implied you need to spend" and instead just take time to think a bit about what you actually want/need. If you don't succumb to frivolous spending, that's great!

A lot of people have issues with frivolous spending though, and those who should be very well off based on their salary end up living paycheck to paycheck while accumulating things that just end up in storage or in a pile. Eating out all the time, buying stuff just because it's on sale, getting the newest and latest/greatest just because, it happens all the time and so much effort gets put into collecting and curating a mass of "stuff" that doesn't really ever prove valuable to the buyer. The author talks about the "keeping up with the Joneses" phenomenon, but it doesn't even have to be that expensive. Just look at how popular the "____"-crate market was for awhile. (still is?)

Neither the author nor myself is advocating that everyone must live a spartan lifestyle, but simply to review what it is you do put time, energy, and money into.

purplelobster• 10 years ago

Financial independence and for some: early retirement. You die when you die, but you can spend decades of your life free if you earn a decent salary and control your spending. Time is the most scarce resource we have. Money does equal time, so when you spend your money, you spend your life.

hackaflocka2• 10 years ago

The point of acquiring money is to be able to help those who need it.

xyzzy42• 10 years ago

Isn't that what the government is for?

XeO3• 10 years ago

We are hard-wired to follow crowds. That’s what ensured our survival in the past. We have mirror neurons in our brain. The sole purpose of these neurons is to mimic other people’s behavior (and choices). Your willpower does not stand a chance against thousands of years of evolution.

This is not entirely correct. I mean it`d be difficult but not impossible.

dwaltrip2• 10 years ago

He was generalizing. In general, people feel strong compulsions to assimilate with those around them and most of the time will do so to at least a certain degree.

Proper qualifying every statement would turn the simplest of blog posts into a massive manuscript! Hence we must be a little charitable when reading.

Joof3• 10 years ago

Its very much an extrapolation of mirror neurons.

Animats• 10 years ago

For a better take on this, read Stanley's "The Millionare Next Door". That book is based on actual research and interviews with large numbers of people. There are many people who have money, but don't show it.

_navaneethan• 10 years ago

A Dialogue from fight club movie: ==================================

Tyler Durden: Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

cwilkes• 10 years ago

I like the example Rolex ad "Checking his watch costs Bill Gates $300 a second. What is your time worth?"

To me the answer is "why are people checking their watches? They are losing money." Probably not the conclusion a watch company wants to draw.

Joof3• 10 years ago

Doesn't it do the exact opposite of this? Bill Gates is continuously accumulating money from various sources.

hias• 10 years ago

Duh, you should live how you want to, not how others want you to live.

Also you should not date/marry a girl which only likes you if you drive a specific car A, live in neighboorhood B, earn C and maintain society status Z.

You should work on your social skills if you can only get your neighbours to like you if you drive the same car as them or earn more/thesame than them. If they really dislike you because you are poorer than them or drive an older yet safe car they aren't worth the effort.

sgt101• 10 years ago

Some things that you buy have massive utility. A nice house can improve family dynamics, a big garden can make your kids healthy, a nice suit (and watch) can get you a better job.

Some things are silly, but alot depends on who you are and what your plan is.

beachstartup• 10 years ago

i would spend my bottom dollar living in the best neighborhood i can afford.

i seriously doubt this guy has ever left the US.

yason• 10 years ago

You should never model your life based on others' expectations.

You should certainly model it based on your own wants and preferences, but after giving it some thought first because what you think you want and why isn't necessarily what you really want and why.

For example, what does wealth mean? For someone, it can be that you can buy a BMW. However, if you want to buy a BMW you're never just buying a BMW: you're buying something else that actually satisfies you. The BMW is just a symbolic token for what you really want. If you know what that is then you also know whether buying that BMW is the right choice. It might be the perfect symbol for freedom or whatever in your life. Then go buy it. But you might be longing for something else and buying the car wouldn't eventually make you happier. Then you would be looking for something else again but as long as you don't know what you really want, you'll be shooting in the dark.

For me, wealth is independence. The more independent I am the wealthier I am. In corollary, people with FU money are the richest people on the Earth on that scale. Myself, I'd happily live cheaply if that meant I could basically choose what to do instead of having to work to keep up with my spending. Once in a while I count how much would I need to own to produce capital income that would give me a basic standard of living and the money for some hobbies I'm interested in without constantly having to think much about money.

Maybe status is worth something for someone. Maybe if you show status (buy that BMW) and hang around with people wealthier than you, some of it actually sticks and you gain even higher income and status because of your connections, eventually. Or maybe, by looking for other people's acceptance by the token of status, you're just trying to find a way to convince yourself that you're perfectly okay yourself and accepted just as you are. Then it might be less painful to deal with that first instead of hunting status for half of your life.

tempodox2• 10 years ago

Listen to what I say to you, you really shouldn't listen to what others say, do you hear me?

MrPatan• 10 years ago

HN lately: http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view/585083/airplane-fight-o.gif

How Following Others Will Leave You Broke

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