I’ve never been much of a collector of anything. I have never bought a bunch of DVDs, music, or books. But back in my spending days I did have one weakness: sports video games, particularly college football games. This week, NCAA Football 10 was released for the XBox 360. Oddly enough, it was a non-event in our household.
In years past I have done such things as camp out at Wal-mart to buy (charge, that is) a Playstation 2, and take an extended lunch to run to Target the day a football game was released because I was terrified there would be a run on the stores and I wouldn’t have a copy the day it was released. Looking back it seems kind of silly, but at the time it was my one major spending weakness. Had I traded the games in for credits towards new games, or got more play out them, it might have made more financial sense. But, I usually got bored and tossed it in a pile of other old games and went out to buy another.
These days I play college football on my original Xbox, which I’m convinced will one day return as a classic video system much like the Atari and Sega consoles have done recently.
The Frugal Roundup
From Discretionary Spending to Discretionary Thrift. I do look forward to watching the American consumer as the recession ends and spending increases. Have we learned a permanent lesson, or will we fall back into old bad spending habits again? (@The Wisdom Journal)
Wealth Creation: Is it a Myth? A thought0-provoking post from Lazy Man that addresses the question of whether or not the creation of wealth is a zero-sum game. In other words, does your building of wealth cause someone else to be poor? (@Lazy Man and Money)
8 Reasons You Should Spend More Than You Earn. Yes, you read that correctly. Without spoiling things, I’ll just mention that there are some spending categories you should heavily invest in. (@Saving for Serenity)
Frugal Tip: Make Your Own Wine. My grandfather has been making his own wine for as long as I can remember. It’s frugal, and he actually likes the taste of it better than anything bottled commercially. (@Million Dollar Journey)
9 Unique Ideas for Frugal Date Nights. My wife and I are always on the lookout for frugal date nights. When you consider the cost of a traditional “dinner and a movie,” and compare how many groceries you could buy with the same money, it really kills the mood! (@Mom Advice)
Bye Bye Dada Truck. I thoroughly enjoyed this story of another dad giving up his “big boy toy” for his family. Reminded me a little of my own story of “amputating” the Silverado. Man, that was painful! (@Busy Dad Blog)
My Best Posts That Got No Attention. I’m a huge Philip Brewer fan, so when I read about his two-year anniversary over at Wise Bread and these posts which languished without many eyeballs I just had to mention them here. Maybe it will help! (@Wise Bread)
Best Home Improvement Projects Under $1,000. Though it didn’t make the list, we plan to convert carpet to hardwoods (or laminate) in our home over time to help with allergies. When we are debt free, of course! (@Wallet Pop)
On My Nightstand
Frugillionaire by Francine Jay. This is one of the better “frugal tip” collections I’ve read in a while. I’ve worked my way through roughly the first hundred of the five hundred presented. Lots of good ideas, and more to follow on this one.
I really enoyed that article by Lazy Man as well!
I checked out the Lazy Man blog and while it’s an enjoyable article and he writes well, there are a couple missed points.
He’s trying to prove that wealth accumulation is a zero-sum game, so he first changes the customary definition of wealth into a currency-only definition. This removes the permanent value increase argument (as in, once you’ve created something useful and valuable such as a building, it remains for a long time even though the number of dollars someone is willing to pay for it may vary). But it doesn’t save the zero-sum argument, because in order for wealth accumulation to be a zero-sum game the things purchasable with currency have to be constant in quantity and quality. But they’re rather provably not.
Lazy Man’s logic falls apart when he talks about inflation. He says inflation is a necessary consequence of money printing by the government (or, one could argue, artificial increase of a security’s value due to a bubble or a market trend). According to Lazy Man, when there are more dollars to go around, each dollar buys less. That’s only true if the goods and services available to be bought remains constant (which it can’t because of permanent value increase), or if the supply and/or demand for those services does not expand proportionate to the increase in available currency.
@ Squeaky:
Economists talk about Mv=PQ, where M is the money stock, v is the “velocity” of money (how often the average dollar gets spent), P is the price level, and Q is output (the total quantity of goods and services bought and sold in the economy).
M is largely determined by the central bank, Q by the behavior of producers, and v kind of drops out of the behaviors of all the people who hold and spend money. So P (the price level) is treated as the adjustable part of the equation: If you change anything else, in the short term the price level is the thing that changes first.
And that kind of makes sense: You can change prices by just updating the cash register database and changing a few signs.
Inflation is the money becoming less valuable. It may not be an inevitable result of growth in the money supply (if the economy is growing at least as quickly), but it is a very likely result of growth in the money supply.
Now, in the medium term all the variables will react. Higher prices will push consumers to cut back on how much they buy (and change the mix of what they buy–they’ll buy more of the cheap stuff and less of the premium stuff). Producers will produce more. A rapidly growing price level will tend to raise velocity, as people (seeing inflation) will try to unload their dollars early, before they lose more value.
@frugaldad: Thanks for the kind words, and the link!
@Philip Brewer:
In modern times inflation has often been caused by growth in the money supply, but I’ve also seen it caused by other things:
- scarcity of consumer goods
- transport issues related to infrastructure
- excessive debt both public and private such that a large slice of income goes to debt service
- a situation in which most individuals’ income is not related to their productivity (in terms of value created for others) and
- artificially high production costs due to lopsided taxation, labor issues, quality control issues, or similar problems
These conditions caused out of control inflation in France back in 1779, and we all know how that ended. For a more recent example, consider what happened to the ruble in the former Soviet Union even before the decision was made to float the currency. Government stores were so ill supplied that an underground free market economy formed, and prices followed supply and demand.
But the good news in all of this is that hyper-productivity on a large scale is a possible means of collective economic survivial if our government decides to hyperinflate the currency to deal with the deficit and the debt (which is its most likely choice).
Have you checked out any of John T. Reed’s anti-inflation strategies?
Cheers,
Squeaky
Thank you so much for including our frugal date night ideas in your round-up. Both myself and @dadadvice appreciate it
The X-Box is a fine gaming system (Halo=Sweet) but I have several friends whose x-boxes have failed. I don’t think it will last long enough to become a classic. The old NES is practically indestructable, simple to replace parts, and I think that’s why it’s still around bringing good prices on Ebay. Plus the xbox games scratch easy unlike the NES cartridge. Also, the cartridge has easy maintenance (blow on it if it doesn’t work!)
I think you’ll be better off in the long run dumping the Xbox and finding an NES with Super Tecmo Bowl.
Loved the article. NCAA College Football games are pretty hard to pass on but the games and consoles continue to keep costing more and more. They are just now nice to see playing on the TV’s at the department stores.