How to live like a king for very little

[alturic]

The rest of his points are ether wrong or subjective. And being happy is not all about having money, but enjoying what you can get with it.

I never got the "money can't buy happiness" argument. What if money is the only thing holding you back from true happiness? In other words, there's tons of people I know who are "happy" but don't have the money I have to be TRULY happy.

Yea, the majority of people would be truly happy if they didn't have to worry about money ever.

[Cattleya]

I didn't know kings drive in old Japanese cars, abstain from having kids and get their clothes from thrift stores.

[Deleted]

Today I learned that Monarchs are actually poor as fuck and never get to do anything fun, Queen Lizzie has been lying to me!

[Gheld]

Yeah, by all means, try different stuff out and see what works. Just speaking from personal experience, when I had a stock saddle I'd get some numbness on anything over 20 or so miles. No issues now. The pictured saddle isn't my bike, but it's the same saddle - Specialized Romin Evo.

- - - Updated - - -


Sure, but it's not generalizable advice. It borders on childish for him to not realize that other people enjoy different things. I wouldn't start an advice column by saying, "make sure you keep a good stock of high end bourbons, because there's nothing better than a good bourbon on a cold night". It's something I like, but other people don't, and that's cool.

There's like 5 of those points that are worth generalizing and a whole host of things that just make him seem short sighted.

For sure, there's no such thing as a universal correct answer for bicycle configuration/rider position/etc.

And I suppose your right that one should pick the lifestyle that makes them happiest. Some people are perfectly happy worshiping materialism. However if the column was renamed "How to cut unnecessary fluff out of your life to afford as many luxuries in your areas of choosing on a limited budget" it would probably be pretty decent advice.

[Spectral]

I didn't know kings drive in old Japanese cars, abstain from having kids and get their clothes from thrift stores.

Don't forget that they don't eat fancy meals because fancy meals are for rich assholes.

17. Don’t go on fancy dates if you’re not fancy. Most people kind of despise the rich anyway.

[Gheld]

^ There's no such thing as a fancy meal at a restaurant. It's all a side show designed to fool your cognitive biases.

[Spectral]

For sure, there's no such thing as a universal correct answer for bicycle configuration/rider position/etc.

And I suppose your right that one should pick the lifestyle that makes them happiest. Some people are perfectly happy worshiping materialism. However if the column was renamed "How to cut unnecessary fluff out of your life to afford as many luxuries in your areas of choosing on a limited budget" it would probably be pretty decent advice.

Which items do you think are good advice? Even setting aside the ones that are purely subjective personal preference, a lot of it's just bad economic advice. The "cash only" advice is pants-on-head retarded. Learning to fix things is a good hobby if it's something you enjoy, but wildly unnecessary and a big waste of time for most people - if you have a solid income, it's better to just buy things that don't break all the time in the first place.

The only ones that are remotely worthwhile are things that are giant "no shit" items.

[Slant]

Some of these make absolutely no sense. "Remember what happened to America"? wtf happened to America? It grew the largest economy in the history of our species? It continued to be considered an effectively zero-risk investment worldwide? It paid its debts in full and on time for over 200 years? It takes a very specific form of stupid to be smart enough to realize you shouldn't buy things you can't afford, but also stupid enough not to understand how credit works and how to leverage it to your advantage.

America almost went bust when the reinsurance market imploded. A market that heavily speculated on people buying houses on loans. That's what he meant. Private families indebting themselves way over their head, because banks didn't care about their credibility. In fact, there are reported cases where people with bad credit had to be convinced to take up yet more loans.

Understanding how credit works is fine, but when your bank urges you to do it in spite of common sense? People were stupid enough to trust their banks, they lost it. Then the banks lost it. Then the reinsurances lost it. Then global economy crashed.

[Kalis]

King of the Gypsies?

[Spectral]

^ There's no such thing as a fancy meal at a restaurant. It's all a side show designed to fool your cognitive biases.

I don't know what your point is. Everyone knows that expensive meals are about hedonic appeal and are gone quickly. If someone enjoys them, they will enjoy them even if someone feels the need to pedantically point out that pork is still just pork.

I guess someone can choose to live a purely ascetic lifestyle on the basis that material goods don't matter, and more power to them, but this isn't useful, generalizable life advice.

More to the point, it's literally the opposite of living like a king. I guess the real secret this guy has found is being a pauper while believing himself to be a king.

[Gheld]

Which items do you think are good advice? Even setting aside the ones that are purely subjective personal preference, a lot of it's just bad economic advice. The "cash only" advice is pants-on-head retarded. Learning to fix things is a good hobby if it's something you enjoy, but wildly unnecessary and a big waste of time for most people - if you have a solid income, it's better to just buy things that don't break all the time in the first place.

The only ones that are remotely worthwhile are things that are giant "no shit" items.

Sadly people seem to fall hard on the ""no shit"items" until their favorite internet pop star posts about it on Facebook.

[Video Games]

All I do is work and play games plus get food stamps and I'm still poor, so "like a king" isn't achievable for most people.

[Queen of Hamsters]

The criteria for "living like a king", varies greatly between individuals.

To some, living like a king ain't possible without the fancy, the consumption, the luxury. To others, "living like a king" means being healthy, eating wholesome tasty foods cooked at home and having their family and interests around them.'

For me, living 100% like a king would mean being rid of my anxiety disorder. The ONLY black cloud on my horizon, but it's a big one.

[Ghostpanther]

I never got the "money can't buy happiness" argument. What if money is the only thing holding you back from true happiness? In other words, there's tons of people I know who are "happy" but don't have the money I have to be TRULY happy.

Yea, the majority of people would be truly happy if they didn't have to worry about money ever.

Having enough money to live comfortable is important. And coming from a very poor poverty life style when I was young, I certainly agree with that. But if you strive to have more money and are not happy in general because you do not have enough riches, you have failed to understand that money does not in itself bring happiness, your attitude does.

There are plenty of people who live modestly in terms of wealth, but are very happy because they understand where lasting happiness comes from. Yet there have been super rich people like Howard Hughes who do not appear to be happy based on his paranoid life style. Maybe that is not the best explanation, but I agree with it in general.

[oplawlz]

Yeah, by all means, try different stuff out and see what works. Just speaking from personal experience, when I had a stock saddle I'd get some numbness on anything over 20 or so miles. No issues now. The pictured saddle isn't my bike, but it's the same saddle - Specialized Romin Evo.

- - - Updated - - -


Sure, but it's not generalizable advice. It borders on childish for him to not realize that other people enjoy different things. I wouldn't start an advice column by saying, "make sure you keep a good stock of high end bourbons, because there's nothing better than a good bourbon on a cold night". It's something I like, but other people don't, and that's cool.

There's like 5 of those points that are worth generalizing and a whole host of things that just make him seem short sighted.

Regardless of your preferences, if someone is dirt poor and lives by his standards for, say, 5 years they'll have the capitol to leverage themselves into a much less austere lifestyle.

Living that way when you don't need to makes you the definition of a miser, and Charles Dickens can tell you how such a life turns out.

[Deleted]

Which items do you think are good advice? Even setting aside the ones that are purely subjective personal preference, a lot of it's just bad economic advice.

I'd say 1 is ok, 2 is sound if you need a car but have limited budget to buy said car (it pretty much means "buy sth with good cost/efficiency ratio that doesn't break much" - that is good advice in general), 3 is ok (way better to buy products and make your own food than eat crappy packaged stuff), 4 is excellent and what most of EU is doing most of the time anyway, 5 is... nobody's fucking business, so I'd say bad, 6 is whatever/mixed (good advice if you can find the time maybe). 7 is fine, doing minor repairs around the house is actually an important skill, also things like replacing laptop keyboards that break or whatever - takes next to no time and little effort and pays off, 8 is indeed a hobby, not real advice most of the time, 9 is... well, fine, but unimportant, 10 is excellent advice for everyone everywhere, 11 is in the same category as 8, so meh, 12 is a sad reflection of the US health system being by far the worst of all developed countries, so you can't really blame the guy, 13 is just bs Paulo Coelho shit (but true, I guess), 14 - I dislike judging people, so fuck this, 15 is indeed dumb, would replace with "think very carefully about any credit or loan and always consider the worst-case scenario", 16 is of course bullshit in the sense that this stuff is mostly not preventable and you can die of parvocellular lung cancer while living the healthiest lifestyle ever, but anything that reduces risk is ofc good, 17 is nobody's busines, but I guess something can be said about not pretending to be someone you're not, 18 I don't really understand, 19 doesn't concern me, since I have very drinkable tap water (and most people do), 20 is sound. Fuck cable.

Altogether, most of this advice is pretty sound, if indeed cliched, with just a few leaning too far on the naive side and thus being shit. Not bad though for a random musing of some random internet dude, I've seen much worse stuff passen on as wisdom ;D

[Independent voter]

18 I don't really understand, 19 doesn't concern me, since I have very drinkable tap water (and most people do),

Had a gf with a big purse, we'd go to subway and buy sandwiches and get cokes in the plastic bottles with screw on caps. We'd go to the show and eat that instead of buying $4 dollar cokes and a $4 bag of popcorn.

[Gamdwelf]

DO you know how much extra food you have to eat when you bike everywhere????

it costs more to bike than to drive places honestly.

This is the stupidest premise for a thread I've ever seen. DO YOU EVEN KNOW HOW KINGS LIVED?

wtf is this garbage this post is shitposting taken to an extreme please delete this thread mods.

[Gamdwelf]

Well, in fairness, leaning how to fix most stuff around my house took all of five minutes maybe and saved me quite a bit of money.

It's not like learning that stuff involves a whole college semester.

Kings don't fix their own shit.

[Lady Dragonheart]

I don't really see how this would be considered "living like a king." I would say that this is more of a bulleted list for people who are starting to live on their own moving out of their parent's houses... "Living like a king" wouldn't imply frugality while sacrificing other aspects of your life, it would mean that you live well off enough to not care about your situation. In short, "living like a king" means being vain, it means not caring about how money is spent because you have excess. Saying "living like a king" but employing a list of frugal habits is essentially an oxymoron.