Oddbean

That's great. 🤙 I'm currenty surviving and stacking by selling stuff I have accumulated over the decades. I spent so much of my life converting spare cash into stuff, it's been hard to get my head around converting it into corn. But you are so right. Every time I let go of something, it's liberating.

I was listening to the #WealthTwins podcast the other day and 2 things they said stood out to me. "At some point the things you own start owning you." and "It's not about the money you make, it's about the money you keep." Being #frugal is to be free. I have never been more relaxed than as a frugal Bitcoiner living sustainably and not caring about expensive things. To me, having expensive things means to be worried about them breaking. If I break a $200 phone I'm a lot less worried than if I break a $1200 phone. Case in point, I was strongly considering upgrading my 3 year old 65" TV that cost me $500, to a last year LG C3 OLED 77" for $1600. But I realized that I would be much more stressed about it breaking, not to mention it's much more fragile too, and thus would be less able to just enjoy it. I upgrade when the things I'm upgrading to are not stressful to own due to their cost. I'm also less worried about theft. Life is much more relaxed this way, and I prefer it over getting to use the latest and greatest.

I love your comment, "Being frugal is to be free." I've felt that my whole life. Know how and being willing to "downside" if needed is a super power. Another thing I've learned in the past 5 years is that, "Knowing how to make money through self-employment is to be free." Combining the skills of "Frugal" + "Making Your Own Money" is a very resilient and calming way of life. One risk is to not be so frugal that your life becomes more stressful. A recent learning example for me was keeping my old work computer for far too long. It was slow and extremely stressful to use. Upgrading to a new and relatively expensive one has saved me countless hours of work and stress. Lesson learned: don't overpay for a tool. Buy the right tool for your needs, but also know when to replace it. Following your content here on NOSTR!

I have a nuanced view on this. I own a quite expensive custom keyboard i built myself. I use it every day for work and it gives me joy everytime i type on it. I would say it is like for a mechanic: yes you could work on a car with lower quality tools, but higher quality tools make life easier and your work more enjoyable. Not talking about pure nice to have luxury things of course.