Lately I’ve been getting a lot of value out of things that are free. I don’t know why but it motivates me more than something I paid for.

I just got an amazing automatic coffee/espresso maker for my birthday, and we are getting a ton of value out of it. I would have never spent $800 on it, but then neither did the giver (they used credit card reward points).

And overall, I like your idea about trying something out if you can before committing to buy or acquire something new. Thanks.

Compared to the amount of happiness my cars bring me, the money is a very small price to pay. (And I’m talking thousands spent here, too… All cash, no credit.)

It is with this mentality that I’m decluttering my home and screening new purchases.

1st category – I have trimmed my personal assets down to whose utility and value (e.g. essential furniture, childhood mementos etc…) exceeds what I paid for them and will always be worth more than what I could sell them for and the ongoing maintenance and management they require.

2nd category – I have recategorized (in my mind) a lot of my office “tools” as business assets and examined with a critical eye to their utility. (i.e. all the enabling assets that allow me to generate an income)

3rd category – Appreciating assets. This is the one I want to bulk up. Selling the unecessaries from the 1st category allows me to purchase from the 3rd category.

It’s so nice to have a clutter-free home! :)

Other recommendations:

- Get a scanner and make your home paperless. It’s amazing what a portable HD (and a backup in a safe deposit box at the bank) will hold!

- If “but what if I need it someday” is holding you back, sell it and put the proceeds in a “but what if” savings account. If you need something you sold, buy it second-hand with that money. Else, let that value appreciate for once + declutter your home.

- DRIPs are an easy way to invest without paying any fees or commissions (Google it…). It’s not for everyone but it’s my personal style given my tiny transaction amounts. If I sell something from Cat. #1 for 5$, it’s nice to send a cheque for just 5$ at the end of the month directly to the Bank of Montreal and get exactly 5$ worth of shares (no commission, no fees) that will compound over time.

Great post Trent!

It is with this mentality that I’m decluttering my home and screening new purchases.

1st category – I have trimmed down my personal assets whose utility and value (e.g. essential furniture, childhood mementos etc…) exceeds what I paid for them and will always be worth more than what I could sell them for and the ongoing maintenance and management they require.

2nd category – I have recategorized (in my mind) a lot of my office “tools” as business assets and examined with a critical their utility.

3rd category – Appreciating assets. This is the one I want to bulk up. Selling the unecessaries from the first category allows me to purchase from the 3rd category.

It’s so nice to have a clutter-free home! :)

Other recommendations:

- Get a scanner and make your home paperless. It’s amazing what a portable HD (and a backup in a safe deposit box at the bank) will hold!

- If “but what if I need it someday” is holding you back, sell it and put the proceeds in a “but what if” savings account. If you need something you sold, buy it second-hand with that money. Else, let that value appreciate for once + declutter your home.

- DRIPs are an easy way to invest without paying any fees or commissions (Google it…). It’s not for everyone but it’s my personal style given my tiny transaction amounts. If I sell something from Cat. #1 for 5$, it’s nice to send a cheque for just 5$ at the end of the month directly to the Bank of Montreal and get exactly 5$ worth of shares (no commission, no fees) that will compound over time.

Great post Trent!

I felt like I spent a lot buying my mountain bike 15 years ago for $800. I even feel like I spent a lot 2 years ago, $250 to redo the drive train and other general maintenance.

$1000 for 15 years @ well over 50 rides per year. I should have spent more on that bike.

Depending on your hobby, interest, passion, this can be controlled over time.

People who knit, quilt, sew, for example, or do crafts, often make a substantial upfront investment that decreases over time and may spike as they pick up items on sale or “invest” in “inventory.” But unless they really use their materials and resources to MAKE something, it’s all a waste. Which it often is because this takes time, as well as space. (Check a cluttered home and you’ll probably find someone who has had many “passions” and interests over the year, which they pursued, for a time, with total zeal, then dropped for one reason or another.)

The real point of the article might be simply that one should not just spend money on something to “test” something. If you already go to the gym regularly, you probably will use gym equipment at home. If not, you won’t. Don’t kid yourself.

if you can’t afford to play golf regularly, probably makes no sense to buy expensive clubs, etc.

You have to be brutally honest. Why not borrow or rent a musical instrument you want to try? (Which is how we used to do it when I was growing up and each week one of the siblings wanted to try something new. The parents would have been broke if they even remotely bought all the stuff, at discount prices, for the kids)

It’s easier to curtail big spending but it also applies to “little” purchases. you can easily spend $5 or $10 here and there on nothing. With no way to ever get the investment back.

We simply do not need to OWN stuff. The only people I know who really have a collection of DVDs are 1/film buffs; 2/ in the business and 3/do lots of entertaining and have lots of house guests who love their “library”

The rest of us, depending on family size, can easily do Netflix, borrow among friends or watch them online.

Thanks.

I now (almost) never buy books or movies I don’t already know I will want to use over and over—I test them by renting or borrowing from the library first.

Once I thought I might really want to have a bread maker, but I wasn’t sure at all, so I borrowed one from friends during a week when they wouldn’t be using it. I tried it once, hated cleaning it, and never got around to using it again that week. That made things very clear to me and saved me a lot of money and cabinet space. I wish I could be that smart all the time!

Trying things on in the store can help somewhat with clothing, but I also ask myself when I would ever wear something. Usually the answer is I wouldn’t. But once I found a dress that fit me perfectly and was flattering but was too fancy for every day wear. Then I realized: winter weddings! I gleefully bought it and have not forgotten about it when winter weddings or other dressy winter occasions come up.

Often I talk myself out of things by realizing I would never use them or that I would never want to clean them or that they would probably break easily.

But I wish there were better ways to figure out ahead of time if you are really going to enjoy something. Any way to actually try it out ahead of time can help – renting, borrowing, trying the cheap ones first (though, as others have said, the experience may be so different that you get a wrong impression). Hearing about new things from your friends can help, but it’s so easy for them to make things sound more fun than they actually turn out to be for me. Reading reviews could help (although they were so all over the map with silicone muffin tins, I finally just bought one to try for myself. I liked it and got more.) Any other ideas?

I agree with your comment. You aren’t the only one.

We found ebay to be a good solution for that. Gently used toys can be sold for stunningly close to the price brand new. There’ll be someone living in the Outback of Australia with no Toys R Us within 200 miles who’d be glad to take them off your hands.

And of course an advantage to the buyer is that you’ve already assembled the gadget and they won’t have to deal with that mini nightmare.

I’d mentioned the debate I was having with myself about this to another friend who was leaving town for the summer. She came up with a great solution – she lent me her snazzy treadmill while she’s away. So, I’ve been able to give it a trial run this summer to see how much I’d use it. The result – I find myself using it a couple times a week (instead of the daily use I’d hoped). Given the price of the machines – it seems I might be better off paying $25/mo at the local gym. For a $1000 treadmill, I’ll get over 3 years of use at the gym at about the same frequency as the couple of times a week I use the treadmill at home. This has convinced me that a trial run of an expensive item is important if you’re unsure how much you’d use it. I was lucky that a free option was offered to me – but if a free option isn’t available, perhaps renting something like this for a month or two would also make sense to help make up my mind.

I didn’t mean to be tacky and appologize if I was. I was just curious if others felt the same way as I do. I mentioned GRS because I know a lot of the readers here are there too. I’m glad to know people are getting something out of this, maybe it is just time for me to move on.

You might not get a lot of the blog, but perhaps others do. Not everyone is at your particular financial level…some are just beginning to take the steps to gaining control of their finances. So a post like this one would be relevant and helpful to them. I found today’s post enjoyable too. It’s always nice to be reminded of the basics from time to time.