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Purchase is the Cheapest Part of Possession

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by airportkid, Oct 8, 2011.

  1. airportkid

    airportkid Will Fly For Food

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    Ours is a deeply materialist culture, nurtured by the high powered accelerator of advanced Madison Ave science. If there is one dominant hallmark of our society it is to accumulate an ever increasing inventory of stuff. We buy and keep buying stuff, and not even the manufacturers' ideal of making everything disposable (so it'll have to keep being bought) slows down the steady accretion of permanent goods.

    We accumulate so much we no longer have room in our homes for it all. The biggest growth opportunity in real estate for the last 20 years, one hardly ruffled by the housing collapse, is public storage facilities. Money invested there will only be lost by incompetent management, not market demand, as the rising tide of accumuation spills out of more and more homes into rented storage.

    The amazing thing is, we're completely blind to what we're doing.

    What jerked my eyes open was a friend's exclamation of disgust, when sorting out his deceased father's estate, at how much his father had spent to store a lone Kawasaki dirt bike in a storage unit: about six times the bike's value across the few years it had been stored, unused. "Why didn't he just sell the damn thing?" my friend sputtered in frustration.

    And my sensitivity kept pricking me, when I rehabilitated my living room and moved its entire contents to temporary storage, at whether it might have been more cost effective to just sell all the furniture and then buy new furniture. Only my large libraray of books stayed my hand, since replacing them would have incurred too much time (not expense) to locate and replace all their titles in the hardbound editions I prefer.

    But even the stuff we keep at home has its cost. Because we keep grandmother's clock on the mantle, we can't put something else there where it sits. And that's true for every single thing we possess: it occupies space no new thing can occupy, unless we put the old thing into dead storage, and incur extra expense.

    And how often do we consider that equation when picking up some new geegaw at the mall that catches our eye and fancy? Hardly ever. So AAAAA Rent-A-Space annexes another ten acres and builds new units to keep up with that lack of attention.

    That purchase price is the least expense of possession is obvious with cars, boats, airplanes and homes, items that require constant maintenance as well as operating costs. But the equation holds true for nearly everything we keep, because by keeping it we either move it to dead storage to make room for the endless stream of new stuff we keep bringing home, or we forgo acquiring new stuff, and we'll never stop acquiring new stuff.

    You might say that e-Bay and garage sales are the answer to the expense of possession, but a look at the gross figures puts the lie to that notion: total e-Bay and garage sale volume is a petty fraction of total national retail volume - and I'm talking units transacted, not dollars. The dollar fraction is even tinier. We're net accumulators, at a rate probably ten times what we do get rid of. And futhermore, neither e-Bay nor garage sales actually ged rid of anything, they only shift it to somewhere else.

    Look around the room you're in right now. The house just caught fire and you have to leave with whatever you can carry out in two arms. How much of your room's contents would you not even consider taking (aside from the furniture)? More than you think, I'll wager, when you start to study it. How much of what would get lost would you not even miss?

    Yet you're paying for it, in the space it occupies that something else more worthwhile could occupy instead (and the something else could be just vacant space, itself of value in the aesthetics of an atractive home).

    Think about it next time your at the mall, giving some shiny attractive geegaw a fond, longing eye. Ask yourself, would you miss having the item a week from now, or would it likely be entirely forgotten. Then put your wallet back and consider that its purchase price might have been cheap, but the price of its possession more than its worth.
     
    #1 airportkid, Oct 8, 2011
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  2. a_gray_prius

    a_gray_prius Rare Non-Old-Blowhard Priuschat Member

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    People love buying crap - especially when it's shiny and marketed well.

    You want to be shocked, take a look at how much it costs to maintain an older Ferarri (like a 355) that you can pick up for $40k.

    Oh yeah: tl;dr :).
     
    #2 a_gray_prius, Oct 10, 2011
  3. 2k1Toaster

    2k1Toaster Brand New Prius Batteries

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    Yeah people have crap... So what? If you put it into a storage facility, too bad. If I run out of room, then I throw old crap away to make room for the new crap.

    You don't have to live so that everything you have is something you need. Keep what you need, and then some stuff you want, and some stuff that reminds of you good times. When newer stuff comes along and there is no room, out with the old. eBay and craigslist. It is more of a maintenance-as-you-go than a wait until you can't move around your house then clean it to minimalism.

    Not everything has to be done to the extreme. I have things in my home I wouldn't really mind too much if they were gone. But for a few minutes a month that particular thing might make me happy and it is not doing any harm there.
     
    #3 2k1Toaster, Oct 10, 2011
  4. xs650

    xs650 Senior Member

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    Kid, I'll go you one better on the rental storage. If you don't count the few people that actually use it as short term storage during a move I would bet that most people would be financially better off throwing the stored stuff away instead of storing it and replacing it if they ever have a use for it again.

    OTOH, I'm with Toaster in that I'm not going to downsize from our not all that big 1900 sq foot house and move into a yurt, so if I want some frivolity that might get little use, so be it. I have no reservations about giving away, throwing away or eBaying stuff that gets in the way.
     
    #4 xs650, Oct 10, 2011
  5. hyo silver

    hyo silver Awaaaaay

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    I haven't kept stats, but it wouldn't surprise me to find that this theory applies to clothing, too. The cumulative cost of laundry is bound to exceed the article's purchase price. If it's something that needs dry cleaning, then the environmental portion of the cost would be even higher.

    Another thing this may apply to is marriage. If you thought the wedding was expensive, think about the ongoing maintenance costs. (And not just financial!) :rolleyes:
     
    #5 hyo silver, Oct 11, 2011
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  6. Pinto Girl

    Pinto Girl New Member

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    I don't like electronic crap, despise clutter and am very careful about what I buy (especially the smaller stuff that seems so temporary). But I do have a weak point for cars.

    I know how expensive they can be and how much impact they have, too. But [sigh]...

    Pic is of the latest obsession. The anti-Prius.

    Rental storage is the devil's work, though. I too have calculated storage costs. It's amazing how much they add to the actual price of an item.
     

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    #6 Pinto Girl, Oct 11, 2011
  7. amm0bob

    amm0bob Permanently Junior...

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    Possession


    The Cobra isn't anti-Prius Sis... the drivers may well be, but the ride certainly isn't. They both love the pavement...

    I am a Vette owner at the moment... and have lusted after my cousin's Cobra for 30 years... but... it isn't a Corvette either... all my cars now have air-conditioning and cup-holders... his car never did, and never will... and that is OK too.


    Now as for the topic... yes, I also am guilty of hoarding crap I don't need in storage... I think it has something to do with going without things others had when I was younger... but... since I do not go without now, there really isn't a reason for me to stack that old crap in the shed anymore... although... I still don't want to get rid of the square grand piano that is currently sitting in the living room of my cousins house, because I didn't want it in this house because of the twins still being less than 10 years old and full of breakage bursts still that I do not want to live with on my vintage 1825 instrument.
     
    #7 amm0bob, Oct 11, 2011
  8. Corwyn

    Corwyn Energy Curmudgeon

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    "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful."

    -- William Morris


    This is not a cost unless I have a storage unit. For an existing house, and with no intention of ever buying another house, I can add anything I want with no ongoing cost (other than dusting).

    Throwing it away also has costs.

    There are three storage units closer to me than any grocery store. That is screwed up.
     
    #8 Corwyn, Oct 11, 2011
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  9. Pinto Girl

    Pinto Girl New Member

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    In my case, in order to get some things (like the Cobra) I have to make lots and lots of other sacrifices.

    Generally I feel more comfortable having many eggs in one basket, rather than treating myself to little things that don't really seem very costly until they all add up, and then I wonder where the money went. Not to mention, I have to dust them every time I clean the house!

    So it's partially a budget consideration, partially prioritizing, and partially my dislike of clutter that drives the decision making process.

    Also my like of vintage Fords, but that's another story.
     
    #9 Pinto Girl, Oct 11, 2011
  10. zenMachine

    zenMachine Just another Onionhead

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    Our town has a website where people can post things they no longer need; anyone who could use them can claim them and then come and pick them up (first claim first served). Every year we shed a lot of old household stuff this way. From furniture and appliances to electronics and kid stuff that we no longer need.

    Of course one can also give things away to Goodwill, Salvation Army, etc.
     
    #10 zenMachine, Oct 12, 2011
  11. J5A

    J5A Active Member

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    It's one of the silver linings to moving every 3-4 years. We don't accrue a lot of crap.
     
    #11 J5A, Oct 12, 2011
  12. zenMachine

    zenMachine Just another Onionhead

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    On a related note...

    [​IMG]
     
    #12 zenMachine, Oct 12, 2011
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  13. JSH

    JSH Senior Member

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    This is something that my wife and I have been contemplating a lot lately. When we got married we lived in a 600 sq ft duplex with 600 sq ft of garage below. Then we built a 1300 sq ft house with 1400 sq ft of garage space below. Then we moved again and the smallest house that we could find was 1850 sq ft with an attached 2 car garage and workshop. Six months out of the year we pay to heat and cool space that we never use and didn't want.

    We've also been working on being less materialistic and cut down on our consumption. We set a goal at the beginning of the year to buy no new stuff for a year. We've done pretty good but not perfect. So far this year we have each purchased a pair of running shoes and an Ipad 2. No new clothing so far.

    We've also been looking to declutter and divest of items that we don't use. Time start listing some things on Ebay!
     
    #13 JSH, Oct 13, 2011
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