If there’s a topic that immediately catches the ears of everyone in the room, it’s saving money. Especially at a time when store clerks have to swap price tags faster than a speed dater swaps seats, everyone’s looking for a financial edge. Ten wise men have some advice you’re going to want to hear.
1. Horses
Not that you were thinking about purchasing a thoroughbred, but even billionaires moan about the money pit that horses tend to be. Unless you win the equine lottery and somehow end up with the next Seabiscuit or Secretariat, your horse will be little more than a beautiful, expensive companion.
2. College
If you were going to college for the Animal House experience, it’s tough to blame you (though there are few universities left where you’ll find such unbridled debauchery). If you’re going to college and majoring in anything other than STEM because you think it’s a good investment, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
3. Annual Smartphones
One resourceful, thrifty wiseman has discovered that it takes about four years for a phone’s battery to degrade to the point where it’s inadequate for a one-day hike. Then, and only then, is it acceptable to upgrade the phone.
The sleek new design is no better than your current phone’s design. The upgraded camera is rarely as good as advertised. The cost of upgrading your phone every year is unacceptable.
4. Sports Memorabilia
It’s not as if the New York Yankees logo is printed on the cotton T-shirt in gold leaf. So why, pray tell, does a $10 cotton shirt suddenly leap to a $40 price point with the addition of a screen-printed “NY” logo?
Because teams and license holders know that sports fans are suckers who aren’t above wasting money in the right conditions. Those conditions are: 1) being in the team store (virtual or brick-and-mortar) and 2) having consumed no fewer than four overpriced adult beverages. I speak from experience.
5. Food Delivery
There are endless rationalizations for DoorDash, Postmates, Uber Eats, and other food-delivery services. You’re tired after a long day of work. You have more important things to do than go pick up food. You enjoy supporting gig workers.
Let’s be honest. You’re lazy, I’m lazy, and everyone else who uses food delivery services is (the vast majority of the time) blowing their hard-earned money in the name of laziness.
6. Trendy Clothes
Do you know what never goes out of style? A solid-colored T-shirt and a nice pair of blue jeans. Chuck Taylors and khaki shorts. A nice polo shirt. Button-downs.
Do you know what goes out of style almost immediately after you buy it? The trendy outfit of the month, whether it be Gucci, Prada, or Balenciaga. Trends don’t last, but denim does.
7. Funerals
Granny deserves a dignified send-off. Nobody is arguing otherwise. But $20,000 for someone who isn’t there to see the ceremonies? There’s a word in the criminal code for that, and it’s “racketeering.”
8. Barber-Provided Beard Trims
Unless you’re Edward Scissorhands, getting a haircut is always worth the money. Your beard, though? You can see it, you can reach it, and you can adequately trim it. Even a ten-dollar beard trim is, objectively, not a good use of money.
Given ten years in strong market conditions, that ten-dollar trim could net you nearly 12% a year if you invested it in the S&P 500, meaning that unnecessary facial hair sculpting is more costly than most realize.
9. Fireworks
Men who nominated fireworks as a highly volatile waste of money lamented the “hundreds of dollars gone in an instant.” Honorable mentions to candles, incense, the devil’s lettuce, and anything else that requires you to watch your paycheck go up in smoke.
10. Diamonds
Men know the history of the De Beers family. They know that diamonds are forever, but so is the bill for the $5,000 the average groom pays for their bride’s rock.
Diamonds may be a rip-off, but they’ve become a necessary step towards matrimony for most. If you’re wise, you won’t ever complain about the price tag (at least not within earshot of the missus).
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