Computer related:
- Don’t be your family computer savy guy, you just found yourself a bunch payless jobs…
- Long desks are cool and all, but the amount the space they occupy is not worth it.
- Block work related phone calls at weekends, being disturbed at your leisure for things that could be resolved on Mondays will sour your day.
Buying stuff:
- There is expensive because of brand and expensive because of material quality, do your research.
- Buck buying is underrated, save yourself a few bucks, pile that toilet paper until the ceiling is you must.
- Second hand/broken often means never cleaned, lubricated or with easy fixable problem.
Inventory is waste.
Explain.
For me, inventory is a way to save money, save time, and it gives you a buffer when shortages happen.
This is at the expense of space, so if you have free (wasted) space, you might as well take advantage of it.
It’s an idea from Lean management. Everything you need to keep, prevents you from keeping something else; requires you to remember where it is, where you could be remembering something else; takes longer to move when you have to move it; takes longer to organise than having less would. It poses fire hazards that having nothing wouldn’t pose. Blocks light that having nothing wouldn’t block. Keeping stuff is inherently wasteful.
None of this is to say that keeping stuff is bad. It may be very useful to keep it. But you should always recognise that doing so incurs a cost that you need to trade off against its usefulness.
While we’re on it, inventory is one of the eight kinds of waste identified in Lean. They are:
- Transportation
- Inventory
- Motion
- Waiting
- Overproduction
- Overprocessing
- Defects
- Skills (misuse of)
Remember TIM WOODS.
All of this is meant for running a factory, but I’ve found a lot of them useful in other bits of life, especially the idea that Inventory is a form of waste.
I guess the context in which this is applied to makes the difference.
In my home, I’m fine with keeping inventory when it makes sense.
Non perishable food, for example, has it’s own happy place in a corner of my home that wouldn’t otherwise be utilized. Stocking up on this inventory has demonstrably saved a lot of money vs. buying when needed.
During covid, my stockpiling years before allowed me to essentially not run out of anything or pay a premium on things that were either not available or overpriced during the first year of the pandemic.
Keeping a stockpile also means that I’m not wasting time, gas, energy, or money running out multiple times a week to pick up necessities. I just take from my inventory, which would be at a lower price than the current price, and I move on with my day.
If I had to only buy certain things when needed, I estimate that I’d likely be overspending by at least 30% + whatever time and transportation costs to make those errand runs.
Not just stores, but inventory of goods in general. The thought is that resources spent on inventory are resources which could have otherwise been spent elsewhere. This line of thinking and fixation on Just-In-Time goods deliveries was one of the most important factors in the supply chain fuckery around covid, which only began to stabilize last year.
excess inventory is waste. Always have a buffer to handle shenanigans and/or be able to source the next thing,and avoid being up shit creek the next time the TP truck is a week late.
I really disagree with your secondhand comment. Buy more secondhand, less new! Cheaper, better for the environment, and you can find some cool things you wouldn’t otherwise. I get nearly all my small kitchen appliances from thrift stores. Most people get them as like a wedding gift or something and then never use them, so they are practically new. All my clothes except underwear and socks are thrifted, most of my furniture, my dishes, most electronics… I love thrift stores.
In no particular order:
Advice is usually worth (at most) what you pay for it.
The harshest lessons are about trusting the wrong person.
No one will have more words for you, than a lazy person who wants you to do something for them.
Judge weak people by their natures, and strong ones by their goals.
If possible, don’t be poor. If you are though, be wary of following advice on this topic from people who have never been poor for an extended period.
If something breaks and there is no warranty and cost of repairs are to much. Repair it yourself. You don’t know how? What you gonna do break it again?
Very good advice. There is probably someone on YouTube that had the same problem and filmed their repair. Ive repaired an AC unit and a garbage disposal this way.
Unless it’s something dangerous and you don’t know what you’re doing. Don’t want to get a garage door spring to the face
Learn how to change your own brakes and filters, and save hundreds of dollars.
Just to add to this, a lot of basic vehicle maintenance/repairs may seem daunting but are really pretty easy once you know what you’re doing.
For anyone who has a 10+yr old vehicle and needs a repair manual for it, (2013 or older) https://charm.li/ has probably got a digital copy for you.
To add to your addition, Chris’s Fix on Youtube has videos for a lot of the common things you’ll need to do on a car & he also mainly only uses hand tools to try and keep his content approachable for the average person.
YouTube in general is a fantastic resource for stuff like this.
Too add to the comment: the biggest issues I’ve experienced usually isn’t replacing the actually piece I need to replace, but accessing the piece i need to replace and learning how to do certain things.
To change my water pump, I had to creatively figure out a way to hold a rotating piece, while also loosening a bolt on it. After taking 30ish minutes looking for ways to do so, I can now do it in like 5 minutes.
I also had to learn that lowering my engine makes the above easier which required a specific set of tools to make the job possible/faster.
Just did mine this week. Really helps to have a ‘Caliper Piston Cube Wind Tool’ or something similar when you have to rewind the piston back in.
You should be able to use a c-clamp to push back the piston. The only specialized tool I bought related to changing brakes was the tools for installing and uninstalling the drum brakes. Even those aren’t necessary but they do help and I’ve done my brakes enough where the extra cost is worth the time and frustration I save personally.
Just be careful, some calipers are screws. You’ll break your c-clamp before they move when two flat heads will turn them easily.
