A "poor person hack"

My hack is 24 hours.

I can be an impulsive buyer. I get into a groove, decide I want something, and end up buying it.

I have found that if I can wait a 24 hour period before clicking that final "Buy" button, changes things a lot.

For example, I'll get real passionate about a piece of music, and want something related to it. But if I wait 24 hours, I find it's not essential.

So my hack is waiting. Decide what you want. Price out what you want and figure if you can afford it. Then wait 24 hours.
 

VaughanJB said:
My hack is 24 hours.

I can be an impulsive buyer. I get into a groove, decide I want something, and end up buying it.

I have found that if I can wait a 24 hour period before clicking that final "Buy" button, changes things a lot.

For example, I'll get real passionate about a piece of music, and want something related to it. But if I wait 24 hours, I find it's not essential.

So my hack is waiting. Decide what you want. Price out what you want and figure if you can afford it. Then wait 24 hours.
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I use that technique with posting angry replies online. Sometimes I mess up, though, and shoot off something snarky ASAP. I always regret it.
 
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KSav said:
I use that technique with posting angry replies online. Sometimes I mess up, though, and shoot off something snarky ASAP. I always regret it.
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Oh, we all write things that are either an emotional response at the time, or over the top. It's normal. On the other hand, one can see a trend in someones expressed comments that allow you to make up your mind. Simply put - there are people who perhaps have made an errant post, and then others that convince you someone is repugnant. There is a mix here.
 

retiredtraveler said:
I'm a big reader and foreign film (DVD) watcher too. We are fortunate because our local library is on a large 'network' and we can search and order books and DVD's from about a dozen different libraries and they will be delivered to our local library. Might have to wait up to a week to get your request, but worth it. No cost for that service.
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I believe most libraries now offer these services. Los Angeles County Library certainly does.

From its website:
"Our collection currently includes over 6,000,000 books, magazines, DVDs, audiobooks, downloadable eBooks and audiobooks, streaming video, and CDs. We provide materials of interest to people of differing ages, ethnic groups and lifestyles, both in English and other languages."
 
Something that's become a bit of a thing here (UK) and in Northern France is to use obsolete telephone boxes as book exchanges. When we visited and stayed with our daughter and her French husband in Brittany a couple of years ago, I was surprised to see an English K6 red telephone box on the side of the road. On closer inspection it had no phone in it any longer, but was filled with shelving that in turn was full of books.

Since then I've found that in the village of Shenley, just a couple of miles from where I live, there's a more modern phone booth also filled with books.

Also, our local Tescos supermarket now has a double shelving unit where people can leave books they no longer need, and people can buy them for peppercorn prices. The money from the sales goes to charity, so no-one's making money out of it, but it means you can get to read some of the more popular books for very little. I bought an old and rather battered edition of the Hobbit in paperback for £1, and it was an early edition, that didn't have the references to the Lord of the Rings that later editions have.

I gave it to my SIL last time they were here, as he's a fan of the books as well as me.
 
WheatenLover said:
I stay out of malls so I don't get tempted -- hence, very little clutter here. I don't watch TV, hence no commercials to make me want something.

I do not eat at restaurants that serve dishes I already know how to make. Except for Waffle House.

I have an adequate wardrobe. I have friends who own much larger wardrobes -- and have a 100 pairs of jeans, for example. That will never be me. I about had a heart attack this summer when I realized I had 2 pairs of white pants.

Back when grocery stores had buy one, get one free sales, especially on meat, that's when I'd buy meat. I'd buy only ingredients, 95% of the time.

When a farmer sold grass fed, grass finished beef for $2 a pound, I bought a beef half - I think that's what they called it. Even then, beef was a lot more expensive at the stores, plus it tasted like I remembered it did when I was a child. I started loving beef again. Grocery store beef tastes super inferior, including grass fed beef.
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The Waffle House exception is important!
 
Something that's become a bit of a thing here (UK) and in Northern France is to use obsolete telephone boxes as book exchanges. When we visited and stayed with our daughter and her French husband in Brittany a couple of years ago, I was surprised to see an English K6 red telephone box on the side of the road. On closer inspection it had no phone in it any longer, but was filled with shelving that in turn was full of books.
We have 'a bit of a thing" in the states' that is similar. "A Little Free Library is a neighborhood book exchange where everyone’s invited to take a book or leave a book. Anyone can start a Little Free Library book-sharing box, including you! Join a network more than 150,000 strong and take part in the world’s largest book-sharing movement today."
People build a little receptacle, often the size of a large bird house, and put it in their yard (close to the sidewalk) to access. Even more often, people build a receptacle that looks very much like their house (I wish I had the talent to make something like that).
 

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