Prepare yourself because it is only going to get worse. The giant marketing machine that is the modern media will become even more pervasive and insidious as technology continues to evolve. There will be nowhere to go and nowhere to hide. If you live at all in the digital world the drumbeat for material consumption and accumulation will never stop. Through electronic tracking and sophisticated algorithms you will be increasingly targeted. The goal, of course, is to forever separate you from your hard earned money by keeping you on the Hedonic Treadmill.
In terms of materialism, the Hedonic Treadmill means that “enough will never be enough.” In other words, corporations are well aware that it is human nature to become accustomed to higher and higher levels of material existence and wealth. The tendency then, is to then seek out further improvements and upgrades to maintain a certain level of satisfaction and enjoyment. As if on a treadmill, anyone who assesses their identity through material means will never really get further ahead in this regard; one’s self-worth will always spring back to par, thus the need for constant consumption to maintain worthiness, status and pride.
It will behoove all men who value their independence and freedom to become aware of the nonstop marketing campaign attempting to program them to consume and accumulate. They are depending on the conditioned belief that you will base your success on the status associated with material possession and display. And they are specifically targeting our women even more intensely.
The marketers are aware of and willfully leverage the fact that women in the west and many other cultures are responsible for the vast majority of consumer spending. These same women for whom many of us naturally aim to please through our earning power and the display of status and prestige.
Mass media is pervasive and insidious
Indicator #1 That You Are On The Hedonic Treadmill
There is certainly nothing wrong with material possession in and of itself. A nice home, a performance automobile, fine clothing, gourmet dining, vacations and live entertainment can certainly add the quality of our existence. However, as with many aspects of life it is the context within which we purchase and enjoy these things that determine their appropriateness.
If you are living in your dream home and driving your dream vehicle, but do not have a year’s expenses in the bank this is indicator number one that you are on the Hedonic Treadmill. You have sold out your financial security and perhaps your financial solvency for material possession. In this globalist world of corporate consolidation, buyouts and downsizing you are one stroke of the pen away from a world of hurt.
And if you have a woman or a family that is dependent on you, you have sold them out for the immediate pride of material status as well. Despite the best of intentions, you have put the ownership of material things above the financial security of your loved ones. If this is the case, step off the Treadmill and employ the appropriate financial restraint to get yourself to the point of having a solid one year of f-you money in the bank.
Indicator #2 That You Are On The Hedonic Treadmill
The second indicator that you are on the Hedonic Treadmill is if your net worth does not improve every month. By definition then you are spending up to and perhaps beyond your income. In other words, you have failed to control your standard of living so that you make consistent financial gains in exchange for your labor.
Choose health over accumulation
No matter your level of income, it is simply a matter of financial propriety to adjust one’s overhead and expenses so that improvement is made on a consistent basis. A wise man that wishes to remain independent and in control of his life will make sure he gets to keep a portion of every paycheck. Every penny earned should not go right back out the door to pay the bills.
The effort to cash flow on a monthly basis is the foundation for all that ails you financially. If you are in debt, you’ve now got the means to free yourself. Then, once you are relieved of consumer debt you can make a run for your f-you stash. And from there you can invest perpetually until you achieve financial independence.
Costs Of The Hedonic Treadmill
Living your life on the Hedonic Treadmill will take its toll over the years. Likely to be negatively affected are your health, values and the limited time we all have in this life for what really matters.
Living a highly leveraged financial life will create stress that will add up and manifest itself in many unhealthy ways. Many will spend too much of their time working for and worrying about feeding the beast that is the Treadmill.
How many men have you seen that have luxurious homes and cars, but couldn’t lightly bound up a couple of flights of stairs without gasping for air? Looking at them, it is obvious they have sold out their health in pursuit of career and the impressive display of success. One wonders sometimes, what else has been sacrificed for this material gain if something as important as basic health has been shortchanged.
Be wary, because if the Hedonic Treadmill has become your master it will always push aside anything else that threatens its rule. Ultimately men will do many things to maintain appearances if they are without a solid core of principles. Avoid this trap by focusing on implicit values rather than explicit consumption and it will be much easier to do the right thing when difficulties arise.
And no matter who you are on this planet, the one limited commodity we all possess is time. Spend your time wisely. Work hard and work smart to provide for yourself and your family. Put in all the long hours necessary. After all, a man needs to provide food, shelter and a measure of financial security for his loved ones. But beware of burning the clock simply for material benefit. Remember, enough will never be enough. Make quality of life a priority over the Hedonic Treadmill.
Pursue meaning values and experience
Quality Of Life Alternatives To The Hedonic Treadmill
Put material accumulation and consumption aside for more meaningful and enduring pursuits. Focus on accomplishment, experience and financial independence instead. These are not mutually exclusive to owning and experiencing some of the finer things in life, but should simply take precedence.
Create a life mission to guide you each day and pursue accomplishment and meaningful experience. Add some value to the world by setting goals and getting things done. Some of these things might even end up financing the luxuries that appeal to you, but this is simply an aside to a substantive life as a man.
Accumulation for its own sake is an empty pursuit. Reward for accomplishment, however, will have lasting value and represent more than just empty status and pride. Anyone can buy themselves a trophy; earning one on the other hand will make it a representation of integrity, performance and character.
And if you are to pursue the almighty dollar, do it for financial independence. Focus on freedom and opportunity rather than the ostentatious display of material wealth. Have the courage to live below your means and improve your net worth. In the long run, you may indeed be able to afford the luxuries you desire. But will be done in the right order and for the right reasons.
Focus on accomplishment and financial independence
Beware Of The Seduction
It is very easy and seductive to fall for the lure of measuring one’s self-worth through material means. All it takes is a simple transaction and there can be immediate gratification. Every man qualifies as long as he has the cash in hand or available credit.
Be very careful here, even if you don’t consider yourself a materialistic person. Ubiquitous credit along with the natural desire to please your woman can slyly ease you into suffocating debt and a never ending cycle on the Hedonic Treadmill.
No matter who you are you can dress, drive and live in luxury if the bank is willing to finance it. After all, if you’ve got the credit you’ve earned the right to these things say a life’s worth of advertisements. This is what we are told every day as we are bombarded by the corporate marketers. Everything around you validates this kind of thinking. Why should you deny yourself?
Primarily, you should deny yourself because of the soul stealing nature of the Hedonic Treadmill. If you value who you are through material means, it will mean an empty life in the long run. You will have sold out your independence, health and values to a lifestyle that will never really satisfy you. And you will become a slave to your employer, the next greatest purchase and the debt that it creates.
Instead, play the long game and be smart. Separate yourself from the masses by pursuing intrinsic wealth. Have the character to brush aside the superficial path. Focus on accomplishment and experience and adjust your financial overhead and expenses so that you’re a man in control of his life. Do not become a slave to debt and the display of status. Beware of the Hedonic Treadmill.
Read More: The Danger Of Hedonic Adaptation
Time is more important than money. Get a good career so you can afford the cost of living, and you don’t have to put too much time into it. Make the most of the spare time you do have. You only live once.
.. and excess stuff makes clutter.. which is annoying.
Yup, six little kids, you are not kidding.
My recently-departed grandmother had six sons, and I can’t count how many times she lamented spending all her time at the hospital instead of at home with them. As AWALT, this otherwise saintly woman divorced several times and spent too much of my dad’s childhood single, so frankly my dad wound up raising most of his brothers while she kept them fed and clothed.
Time is what she wanted and needed. After they were out of the house and she was married to the man she’d stay with until death, she realized the importance of the time she’d lost and made sure she always had time for her sons and grandchildren from that point on.
Don’t repeat her mistake, the one she cried about on her deathbed as cancer ravaged her. Make the time, and cherish the people in your life.
I’m a pack rat, but I hate clutter.
It’s a miserable dichotomy. If it works, I’ll use it until even my engineering skills can’t make something out of it, which means I’ve got a lot of things that I don’t use regularly but which I know still function and have value.
If you’re like me, you need to take a weekend every few months and evaluate objectively the odds of you ever using the things in your boxes again. Do it – don’t let the things you own control you.
Indeed. For example, I wear shoes that I bought 20 years ago. I paid good money for them back then and, after a couple of re-sole jobs, they look as good as new. The trick is to buy good quality stuff and take care of it, and it will serve you well. I still buy new stuff when it’s needed but I eschew the throw-away junk that wears out after a couple of washes.
We invested (and inherited some) antique furniture which is well made, aesthetically-pleasing, and, in a pinch, could be converted to cash.
Agree. Embrace minimalism.
There’s a term I heard somewhere, possibly from Cappy Cap – “Maximalism.”
It’s essentially minimalism, but from a different angle. You make the minimal purchases required to live comfortably, but you buy things to last. Where the minimalist might buy the $50 desk chair and replace it every year or so, maximalists buy the $300 chair that lasts a decade.
I was raised a maximalist. My folks weren’t rich by any means, but we never wanted for anything and replaced our televisions every 15 years or so. Heck, they’re only now getting rid of the couches they bought when I was 5, and frankly there’s another ten years left in those things.
I said the same thing on my first post on the thread, only I didn’t have a label for it.
My parents are similar unless it’s a new technology where they’ll purchase a bargain or middle priced item. Once that goes from than on it’s top of the line.
I think in terms of a ‘requirements analysis’ perspective.
What is it you want or need the thing to do, and for how long?
Look at the options, what they cost and how do they line up to meeting the requirements.
Maximalism is indicative of future-orientation and a low time preference, both of which enhance civilization. Read Hans-Hermann Hoppe for more on this.
But I need to buy more Kratom!
Technical foul: Kratom joke on a non-sponsored post.
Fifteen yard penalty, replay first down.
except James Bond. Zing
Live and let die, I suppose.
Hedonism invariably leads to the hedonist’s paradox. Like a drug, you develop a tolerance to the rush that comes from novelty and excitement and need the novelty just to be “normal.”
Ancient wisdom teaches moderation and stoicism. Acquire that which you need, but do not seek pleasure in acquisition. Purchase for quality and return on investment, but only rarely purchase for novelty or apparent status.
I had something like $20k stashed away for a rainy day, and lately I’ve needed to dip into that money for car repairs, moving expenses, outrageous taxes (after withholding, they still wanted another month’s salary this year), and the like. I’ve still got about $10k on hand, and so even these massive expenses of late haven’t put me in a dangerous financial situation.
There is no high from that, but as a result I didn’t just experience a massive low. And that, to me, is the better trade.
Saving is crucial, especially after marriage. You have a decent cushion, and it will greatly reduce the bickering. If you are not putting away at least $200/month, you need to make some decisions to correct that. Otherwise, some medical bill or breakdown will bite you.
They say most people can be financially ruined by an unexpected $500 bill.
Don’t be most people.
We typically run with about $10k in our checking account. If it goes above $15k we will invest it into retirement. Below $5k, and we will make changes as necessary.
The book The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason covers everything basic a man needs to know about finance.
As long as we’re shilling valuable lifestyle and financial books, Aaron Clarey’s Bachelor Pad Economics is a quality read that every red-pilled young man should study.
Very shrewd and wise. Im like the post.
Ive noticed that everybody who has too much money doesnt know what to do with it, and they are miserable as hell.
Those who have money also have habits that cause them to accrue money. Among these habits is, all too frequently, a hesitation to spend it on others.
Buy a homeless veteran a sandwich or a coffee so he can get out of the cold for a few hours, and you’ll find a new happiness that transcends anything hedonism or stinginess can provide.
Or have kids. You get next to nothing out of buying and doing things for them, but there’s a joy to it.
“Those who have money also have habits that cause them to accrue money. Among these habits is, all too frequently, a hesitation to spend it on others.” you are on a fucking roll today !!!
I’ve been away for a few days. It’s all saved up, I guess.
There is a tremendous difference in saving up to take that scuba trip, get your skydiving qual, a cool gift for a friend, and simply doing so to see numbers increase on a bank account statement.
I like how the author uses the term “accumulation” as opposed to collecting. I was actually just pondering this yesterday on my walk. My father-in-law “spends” money to accumulate (my rebellious wife is a financial prude) and has a house filled with mass produced, plastic stuff that he paid for on credit. This is accumulation.
Then there is collecting. I’m not a minimalist by any means. I like stuff and have a garage full of it. Stuff makes us human. I think humans naturally collect, but collecting implies a certain level of work to obtain pieces of the collection. I “collect” tiny plastic toy soldiers, but each one of those 28mm dudes have hours of painting on them.Even stuff like antiques, stamps, records, etc. implies that you are spending lots of time in thrift stores and doing hunting.
There is value to the painting you do to those mass-produced plastic soldiers. I used to paint them myself, though I never played – my friends just had me paint their soldiers. They provided materials and brushes, and I supplied the art and time.
Is it the ideal use of your time and money? Probably not, though what is ideal will be contested until the end of time. But you get to create, and there’s value in that.
“Value” – that’s a good description of what I was getting at. Stealing that. Thanks.
I have also been pondering the “ideal use of time and money” idea too (your wife getting pregnant makes you start evaluating your life quite a bit) which is really only a few Socratic inquiries before you are questioning your existential being. I’ve kind of settled on the campsite rule. If I leave the Earth having left it slightly better, that’s all you need. In the end, we are just pink, shaved apes. Can’t ask for much more. Thus, I can sit in my workshop selfishly hunched over a project as long as I do some bare minimum improving on life, which I do.
Hell, if nothing else, you can teach your children to create alongside you. That’s a bonding experience hard to match.
Dude, my biggest nightmare is that my children will be sportsball playing jocks and have no interest in all the shit I love.
I’m a gamer, my dad is an outdoorsman and crafter.
You know what? I know how to build a garden and weld scrap metal into a fine chair, because my dad wanted to teach me. I’ve spent precious hours weeding and grinding beside him, and I wouldn’t trade them for anything.
You’ll be fine.
My son is nothing like me, I was big into sports and outdoors, he’s not and he’s into gaming. He doesn’t really like to shoot, but he loves building ARs. You find things to bond over, like working on the cars.
Its HOW they approach their interests that will reveal your teaching.
he buys plastic…with plastic
“Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.”
Heat, 1995.
you know, not only is this accurate on the surface level but it is also accurate on a much deeper level. It is not the attainment of material goods that is dangerous for one’s soul. It isn’t even the desire to attain them that is bad — in fact, if anything the desire for attainment is good and healthy (greed IS good). The thing that is really dangerous is the attachment to those things. The moment that they go from worldly things to things you couldn’t live without you are sliding down the slope. Until then, goal attainment, whatever the goal, is never a bad thing.
The Bible says the same thing. It is not money that is evil – it is the love of money (that is, the obsessive desire for money). It is not material goods that makes you unable to serve God, but living in service to those goods (“You cannot serve both God and mammon”).
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Matthew 6:19-21
Wise words from Matthew indeed…however, my heaven is on earth and thus I lay my treasures here. To each their own in this respect.
Wealth is not the right thing for the niggardly, and what use are possessions to the covetous?
Whoever hoards by stinting himself is hoarding for others, and others will live sumptuously on his riches.
If someone is mean to himself, whom does he benefit? he does not even enjoy what is his own.
No one is meaner than the person who is mean to himself, this is how his wickedness repays him.
If he does any good, he does it unintentionally, and in the end he himself reveals his wickedness.
Wicked the person who has an envious eye, averting his face, and careless of others’ lives.
The eye of the grasping is not content with what he has, greed shrivels up the soul.
The miser is grudging of bread, there is famine at his table.
My child, treat yourself as well as you can afford, and bring worthy offerings to the Lord.
Remember that death will not delay, and that you have never seen Sheol’s contract.
Be kind to your friend before you die, treat him as generously as you can afford.
Do not refuse yourself the good things of today, do not let your share of what is lawfully desired pass you by.
Will you not have to leave your fortune to another, and the fruit of your labour to be divided by lot?
Give and receive, enjoy yourself — there are no pleasures to be found in Sheol.
Ecclesiasticus/Sirach 14: 3-16
You’re right. I’m buying a Jet-ski TONIGHT.
I have found that I became more generous towards others when I was willing to spend more on myself.
we all read stories of the miser living poorly dying with a small fortune, accumulated nothing but numbers on a bank account in the actual reality of their life.
You never see an unhappy person on a Jet-Ski
Unless somebody forgot to put the plug in, or you get run into leaving the ramp by somebody else..
I have a good friend who runs a Yamaha shop. He was telling me that if some person comes in to buy an ATV, sure enough he will have a couple neighbors come in the next week to buy something similar.
I learned that as a kid. If one kid had Pokemon cards or a new game, everyone desperately needed to have them, too. I brought my dad’s Calvin and Hobbes books to school, and suddenly everyone had their own copies.
But it never brought me joy. I look across the piles of stupid purchases I made as a kid to “keep up with the Joneses” and think of how much time and money was wasted on something so petty and meaningless.
disappointing, yet unsurprising….
I will lay one of my treasures….my others (my kids), I will let them be, and just appreciate their growth.
I have a hard time imagining that you, Jim, will have let your talents go to waste (to reference the parable of the talents).
I would like to think my sense of humor is one of my talents. I could be wrong.
I think we all have talents that we let go to waste in one way or another. We can’t do everything we want in a thousand lifetimes. Yet, people are fine with that and decide a comfortable, sedentary life is more important than action.
Unless they get eaten by a Great White shark.
With six kids, how sedentary can your life really be?
I expect exponential return on investment from your kids, mate. You’re a good guy, and it’s clear to me just from the way you talk here that you’re raising them in the way they should go.
/schmaltz
Do they have lasers strapped on their heads?
Thanks, not perfect, but trying.
That would be so cool!
BETTER:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7aba5388174c3a0d88a3f5bc3c75b5dd4017b4efca669253ac4a6cbacfd37e7b.jpg
I don’t know why, but I just can’t stop chuckling at that picture.
I would laugh, but it’s genuinely frightening to me.
I mean, look at that blue sky. What’s its game?
the ASI (Awesome per Square Inch) is off the charts! That’s why!
The cigar in the bear’s mouth is like the cherry on the cake.
Yogi dont surf
(((Sheol)))
You got that right.
Beautiful – love it!!!
An especially good purchase for someone who is landlocked
Yes, and to me that’s the difference between consumerism and materialism. Consumerism is the act, materialism is more about attachment/value.
If i was wealthy I’d wear Armani suits to work and drive a high end car because I could, not because that is the meaning of life and defines.my world.
I think this is right.
The funny thing about materialism is that it gets noticed with people who have a lot very often (defined by expensive clothes, cars etc) but it is just as prevelant in people who have very little and make a religion of their poverty.
People define themselves and make their whole value about not having fancy things just as much as people make their lives about having them.
The cult of poverty and disparaging things that they can’t afford as “evil” or “stupid” is just as bad or worse than the cult of people who define themselves by their jewelry
Two of my closest friends are like this. Both make a pretty mediocre income and spend all their money on guns, clothes, car they don’t need and motorcycles. I get on their ass about it. “Do you really need another gun? You already have four 9mm’s.” And of course they joke, “you can never have too many guns, mehehehe.” Yeah, I get it. I like guns too but I only have a few for different purposes. Both of these guys want the gun closet, guns stashed away in every room, bullet proof vests etc etc. And I’ll be honest, it’s actually sad to watch because I can see that they are chasing something. And I know they will probably make the same wage for the next few decades. I’ve asked them a few times if they save. They kind of hem and haw, “yeah, I have a little saved up.” Total BS. No they don’t. These guys are my best buds, we have fun when we hang out but they are generally unhappy people and I know a lot of it has to do with this grave digging exercise.
At least guns retain their value better than most purchases, I guess. I’ve got some rifles and shotguns left to me by my great-grandfather, and those things haven’t misfired in fifty years or more. With some tender loving care, they’ll be the guns I teach my children and grandchildren to shoot.
But it is sad to see people chasing something they don’t understand. If they don’t know what it is they seek, they will likely never obtain it and will remain miserable.
Haha, I really want a fancy double barrel break action to complete my whole upland hunting kit, but they are like $2500. I actually hunt with my great grandfather’s shotgun made in 1926 and it has never had a problem even dragging it through Alaska bush so I can’t justify replacing it.
They really made them to last back then, didn’t they? We’ve got this turn-of-the-century Browning, probably one of the first in its line, and after a spring replacement it’s better than anything my huntsman uncle has ever shot (his words, not mine).
You can only live your life my friend.
As the saying goes you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.
Excellent article. Really well written and informative.
Money will usually accelerate and magnify your own destructive behaviors. If you don’t have life figured out and you have a million dollars, you’ll probably end up broke with a cocaine addiction.
You can count on one hand the lottery winners who stayed rich two years after winning, and you’d still probably be able to juggle with that hand.
Not to mention all these “celebrities” that fizzle out and go broke. One of them will eventually be Danielle “Cash Me Outside How Bout Dat” Bregoli. And she’s only 14.
Judging by the pictures, she’ll be dead before having to worry about going broke.
I was actually thinking about that girl when I wrote my comment. Giving this brat money is the equivalent to giving money to an addict.
you’re SUPPOSED to be broke when you’re 14!!!!
Says you. At 14, I had something like $200 from mowing lawns all summer.
Best feeling in the world, covered in sweat and reeking of gasoline as they slide a cool bill into your hand.
And for doing nothing. Of course you can’t legally pay a 14 year old for sex lest Chris Hansen shows up at your door and kindly persuades you to take a seat right over there. And she can’t talk properly, chew her food without spitting all over the place, or have any household skills. But she can twerk at 14.
and being broke encouraged you to work that hard!
Right! Those sodas at the corner store weren’t just going to buy themselves, after all.
I had a strong-box full of paper-route money booby-trapped to keep my so-called family from raiding it!
Oh Christ Hansen. I tried to get a picture with him at a book signing but the line was too long. This man unlocked the code. Child Molesters love cookies. There is nothing a child molester likes more than a big plate of cookies. Man, coolest job in the world must have been dressing up like a bush and waiting for the perp to come outside.
another monster created by “DR” Phil
Brainstorm! If I give my kid the middle name “Doctor”, then he can call himself “Doctor X” (xhere X is my real last name) without going to college.
I wonder how long he could pull that off…
If you’re going to that length, be sure to make his middle name ‘Danger’
On the other hand, quite a few celebrities have a reputation as tightwads. Even in classic Hollywood, Cary Grant and Humphrey Bogart pinched pennies.
And yet our futurist visionaries want to deprive teenage boys of that experience by having the robots mow our lawns.
Imagine how tight {{{{Hollywood producers}}}} are…
In retrospect, Doctor Krieger from Archer is also not a doctor. I may have stolen the idea.
But if the kid doesn’t want to be Doctor X, they can still be John X if they have a regular first name.
If that happens, my sons will be door-to-door mowing robot maintenance men.
Adapt and thrive.
Sir, I’ll have you know that he’s a certified Phrenologist and can examine and diagnose your humors like nobody’s business!
Both my daughters, we gave them no middle name. We told them when they get married, to take their maiden name and use it for their middle.
Good system.
Whenever we see that in genealogy work, it helps connect the dots.
My dad had me read a book on finance when I graduated high school. In this book I learned a simple trick. Very simple and not earth shattering by any means. When you have your eye on that big ticket item, wait thirty days and see how you feel about it then. Thirty days goes by and you’re not even thinking about it anymore. Still thinking about? Then consider buying. I found ninety percent of the time, I didn’t need it.
I use the “carry it around the store” method. I see something in the store that I MUST HAVE, and I carry it around for ten minutes or so. By then, it’s usually back on the shelf.
Nice, back on the shelf it goes. No guilt and you have the gratification of thinking about how much money you’ve saved in the long run.
“A penny saved is a penny earned.” Always nice to be able to count those pennies at the end of a shopping run.
And decide on the price you’re willing to pay for the big ticket item. Don’t budge from it out of emotion. Took 6 months for me to buy a jet ski because it took that long for them to come down to my price.
Most of the things you crave are more expensive right now than they will be in a few months or years. If you have an abundance mentality, the price will come to you instead of the other way around.
I think it’s also a good approach in car shopping. Know what you’re willing to pay and then walk if they can’t meet it. Too many folks walk in without really having thought it through, get caught up in emotion and then the distraction of payments/monthly cost — vice total cost.
With regards to cars, it will be extremely unlikely that I will buy a new car anymore. A car that is 2-3 years old with a reasonable mileage is almost as good, and someone else already took the value hit.
Oh, I always buy new, and for cash. Always. A used car is just somebody else’s problems that you agree to take on yourself.
Learned that the hard way with my lemon motorcycle.
But, on the other hand, it’s a carb bike, and those are fun to work on.
Most of the time if you negotiate and aren’t really particular, a new car can be the better deal. There’s no hit- the used blue book is higher than what you paid. And, if you’re like me and will be holding onto the car for 10 years or more, starting from 0 on the odometer with a full warranty is a plus.
Cash probably gives you more flexibility when it comes to negotiations too.
I love car shopping. The sales guys are trying to sell me a monthly payment, which is their main negotiating tool 9 times out of 10 on the dupes who use credit. Since I buy cash that literally shuts down 90% of their spiel and they have to basically resort to that horrible ol’ “Well, here are its features” thing which most people don’t care about most of the time due to societal adhd “oooooohhhh…that’s pretty”.
It puts you literally in the driver’s seat of the deal.
If you put it in storage without draining the carbs, did you know that Pine Sol is a very effective carb cleaner? And it leaves your garage smelling fresh as forest after a rain shower…
I did not know that. And I do like the smell of a fresh forest after a heavy rain…
I think it also depends a lot on the car and its intended usage. If this is a regular drive-to-work type of car that has spent most of its life in stop-and-go city traffic I don’t think I’d buy it.
My brother-in-law taught my nephew well. The nephews wife wanted a new car and went shopping without him. Couldn’t qualify, nephew goes down to the dealership, looks at the paperwork and says- Aw, hell no! They don’t negotiate much as the wife loves the car and they’re banking he’ll cave. He walks instead. Wife is pissed, gets her mom to go there and ends up buying the car. They just got a divorce, wife is stuck with the car and huge payments. Mom is at risk as the co-signer on a large loan, with payments her daughter probably can’t afford.
Nephew is clear of the deal.
Good man.
Lot of youtube videos on it- worked really well on the 4 carb assembly on my Kawasaki that had sat 5 years. (I did do the jets with actual carb cleaner after removing them)
I blame myself for being late to the party when it comes to responsible personal finance… although I will pat myself on the back for one thing… at present, I happen to have *just enough* savings socked away for an emergency crisis that happened to my family just yesterday.
So there’s that.
But even that pittance would not have been possible had I not made automatic deduction of payroll into a savings account a priority. Pretty much *every* raise I will get from for the next few years will have to go into savings.
Yup, two (possibly three) things you should ever buy on credit. An education, a house, then if you decide to start a business. Anything else, and you are living beyond your means.
For me, I’d like to teach my kids not to repeat my mistakes, but how does one impress upon a child the idea that they must put a chunk of money (IMO at least 10% of the pretax amount) into savings before doing anything else?
Pretty easy. At first you simply do it and explain how and why you’re doing it. Make it a rule. You can earn however much you can, but you WILL put away 20% towards college (or whatever long term goal you think works). When they’re young they don’t buck that and agree easily enough, and by the time that they’re teens they just do it out of habit.
Well, they can learn by the example you set and explain. Some can only learn by blowing their chore/mowing neighbors lawn money and than not having it to pay for something they really want– at which point you highlight that if they’d saved as you advised they would be set to buy it.
I can definitely supply plenty of bad examples. 🙂
Yeah, save for a future that will never be. Smart.
Yeah: impress upon your children the importance of money by making them mow lawns for a 50 cents an hour while Finkelstein charges $1000 an hour as a lawyer. Goy labor is cheap!
Funny thing is, some folks truly won’t learn from others mistakes. They have to make the mistakes themselves.
The fuck are you going on about? I don’t “make” them accept any wage, they ask what they want (when they were little, now they both have real jobs).
The market will bear what the market will bear!
hahahahahahaha
Borrowing or paying cash– the buyer has the power, too many folks don’t realize that. The dealership needs your money more than you need their car- you can always go to another dealership, wait for a better deal.
Exactly. Learning the difference between Good Debt and Bad Debt is absolutely critical to avoid a lifetime of pain.
A dealer has 4 main methods of manipulating a transaction in order to maximize their profits:
1. Your trade in value.
2. The price.
3. Your down payment.
4. Your monthly payment (usually the interest rate, not a dollar amount).
For example, you can talk them down on the price but then they assrape you on the trade in. Or, you can talk down the price and then they raise the interest rate, etc.
Taking away one or more of these methods and you gain more power in the transaction. As I finance vehicles, I would never walk into any dealer without a financing solution in hand, so that takes #4 away from the dealer and puts you in more control of #3. I was also able to use that financing solution to bargain down a better financing option from the dealer.
Another thing to do is to never trade in a vehicle at the dealer. Even if the car is totally undrivable or needs a significant amount of work you can still get scrap value for it, which will likely be more than what a dealer will offer. Depending on your area, CarMax might even offer you a nice deal to buy your car without making you buy from them (never buy from them or any “no haggle” dealer). This of course takes #1 away from the dealer.
Of course paying cash takes away #3 and #4 completely, so you can go mano-a-mano in the negotiation process.
Agree with your points. I never, ever, talk financing up front or what I do for a living to avoid them gauging my income level and there’s no trade in. Just purchase price.
I’m told they make more money on used cars, and I can believe it in that I’ve paid less at the same dealer for a new truck then what they were willing to sell a used and identically equipped vehicle.
Its fun for a while but you’ll get much more use out of a god quality ski boat, ski natique or mastercraft….skiing and wake boarding much more fun….. and chicks in bikinis look way better stretched out on the back…..
I tend to agree, however, had a bunch of neighbors/friends with skis which makes a big difference- fun to ride in a group.
One of my guidelines is that if I want to purchase a completely discretionary item with savings, I must have at least 3.5 times the full cost of the item, tax included, in my savings account.
Emotion, nailed it. You’re exited, you’re living in the moment, boom, impulse buy.
I read an article recently and the author said something profound….”I spend my money on experiences not things”.
Yes, I am of the same mindset. I want to DO things. Wether it be travel or a new/different activity I haven’t tried yet.
I love buying and shooting new guns. I truly do. But I set aside cash as I get spare change in my pocket for a few years then when I see something I really have wanted for a while, I’ll use that set aside and buy it. The kind of guys you talk about I’m well acquainted with, who buy “just because” and as you say “You can never have too many guns”, which to me, a gun-o-phile, still seems a little silly. Buying unique or high quality guns? Fantastic! Buying 10 GP-101’s? Um….why?
Knew a LEO who had a father in law who bought firearms in bulk and then stashed them around the country. First time they met his future father in law was putting a crate of AKs into PVC piping, he was gonna bury them somewhere. No one in the family has any idea how many firearms he has stashed around the country.
So, if they come for our guns, at least one man is making sure guns are still available when needed.
Clever. Does he do the same for ammo?
Yes. He did, this was years ago and I lost touch with the LEO.
Those people are fucking idiots. I mean truly fucking idiots. First, unless its on their own land then they’re burying them in places where others, including kids, can find them. Second, because the whole point of the 2nd Amendment was to use the guns and not to hide them for after the 2nd is repealed. What’s the point in that? If they repeal the 2nd and then confiscate all the guns (ha! good luck with that!) then you going out and digging up your Winchester is pointless. First you’ll have nobody to help you and you’ll die alone or in a small group of loons and second you can’t practice with it because gunfire would draw attention.
For what? Him to go out in a blaze of glory?
The time to use your firearms is *when* they’re trying to take them. If they manage to take them all, then owning a cache is pointless unless you plan on getting into organized crime.
Even more pointless when nobody else knows. What if you die? Get in an accident?
It’s just weird, but at least he could afford it.
Absolutely true. If we lose our current firepower, we’ll never be able to stand against our governing powers should the need arise.
But if we lose our firearms, then shit goes bananas and the state can’t expend men to protect the populace, then having access to a gun and some ammo lets you set up a small militia. Nothing big enough to matter on a grand scale, but enough to keep your streets safe for a time. After that, of course, I suspect you’d all be hanged, but who knows.
Of course, he needs to be careful about the where. You don’t want just anyone finding them, and you also don’t want to lose them.
What a waste…..guns are to be used against the enemy, not stashed.
Exactly. I went over to his house and he’s got three AR’s laid out. First he shows me his favorite. He’s excited. I point to the other one, “what about that one?” “Eh, that ones ok…” ($1,600). Three AR’s, one of them is “ok” and later bitches about not having enough money for a down payment on a house. He has a ton of pistols all of which are very similar. Makes no sense. My response is always the same. “Nice dude, you’ve got some great guns, you should start saving your money now.”
If I see a model I really want I’ve learned to watch the market and trends closely. I don’t buy guns (or anything) on the “oooooohhhh….shiny” method, but rather, because I really like its features and abilities. That means sometimes I’ll have the money but will wait out what I see as a rush on the model before I buy it. My KSG was in the $1400 range for years because it was considered oooooh….shiny by a lot of people when it first came out. By the time I bought it, the model had been improved and the price had come down to $800.00. Patience and discipline are really good things to develop in your character I’ve found.
Fools like those guys exist in every category. Some guys do it with motorcycles (know a lot of that type), trucks, boats, whatever. And then, yep, they bitch when they can’t move out of their trailer due to “lack of finances”. Yeah, sure.
Nothing sadder than a piece of trash driving home in their new Cadillac, chatting on their newest model phone, and pulling into the dirt lot of a trailer park.
I like building ARs- that can become addictive, like building computers. So many options. Fortunately, I can’t really afford to go wild so I only built a couple. M4gery and one set up for longer range… less than $1,600 but the Geiselle Hi-speed NM trigger makes it far more than ok.
I can definitely see the AR addiction for the reason you mentioned. Options. I want to go wild and buy firearms but it doesn’t make financial sense for me right now. I’d like to get into gun smithing somewhere down the road.
Yeah, it’s easy to get sucked into a boat or an ATV when Bass Pro has the “$198/month!!!!!” sign dangling.
I’ve been traveling pretty light the last five years and it’s been great.
RIGHT. Reducing everything to a ‘monthly’ is one of the greatest coups in marketing.
The best part of a sales pitch is the word, “only.” Only! Only $198 dollars a month? For a boat?! (Said in stupid naive voice). I always mess with sales people and repeat the word back, I can’t resist. I do it every time.
I love those car ads back in the day when the guy on the commercial would say, “we’re practically giving them away!” “We’re crazy! Hurry down before they put us in straight jackets and haul us off to the nuthouse.” (Starts foaming at the mouth). However I do admire those guys in used car sales for the killing they make.
Many are not pulling into their trailer park, but into their taxpayer-subsidizied, section 8 housing.
Firearms also hold resale value if you take care of them.
Jewelry made of precious metals and gemstones does too, so the women who spend money on it, like Jeb Bush’s Mexican wife, at least have a hard asset that can provide some financial security.
Except diamonds.
Worthless rocks.
One of every hi point!
….
….
I keed. But. 40 handgun and carbine that use same mags aint terrible.
Exactly…I always do a “walk away, think, come back to it later” on every high-ticket item, or whenever I feel as though I might be acting on impulse.
So as long as I’m not in debt nor denying my family or friends anything, then buying nice things is fine. Ok, I can subscribe to that. Getting in debt for stuff you don’t need is pretty stupid, clearly. Just be careful it doesn’t turn you into some aesthete type who if you see somebody driving a Porsche you sneer “Consumer!” and throw a rock and run back into your cave, and you’ll be fine with this advice I think.
When you look at it, this article is like a lot of other articles about unhealthy habits, which always comes back to not taking things to the extremes, aka, learning self control and discipline.
As an aside, I think that buying things you want is fine, as long as you want them for real and not on an impulse. My advice is *always* to buy the highest quality that you can afford, and to never deviate from this, regarding things you both want or need. Spending money on the same thing every couple of months is just wasteful. Buy the best (not necessarily most expensive, but highest quality) and spend only once.
Wasn’t S&W’s motto for a while- “Buy the best, you’ll only cry once”
Lol! I have no idea, but if it wasn’t, it shoulda been.
I remember seeing the sign in a gun store decades ago, but not positive of the brand.
I dunno, but my dad always said the only thing more expensive than buying the expensive one, was buying the cheap one and then needing the expensive one.
Debt is perfectly okay so long as you can pay it back without being crippled financially. I oftentimes use debt to invest in things and use the actual cash to buy shit, only letting me more money.
Kevin O’Leary, also known as the Canadian Donald Trump, famously said “Spend the interest, not the principal”. Which is great advice.
Yeah, no thanks man, I’m good.
“Canadian Donald Trump”…..he must cringe at that title…
I don’t see why.
Just that Ol’ Trumpie is more well known as a “character” than for his business prowess.
Kevin O’Leary just quit Canadian electorial race this week.
I think it’s because he’s saw that Trump’s own base has begun to lose faith in him.=
I can agree with that to a certain extent. I have a HELOC on my first home that’s at prime minus 1. I’m constantly using that money to make other investments. Its cheap to borrow right now, although US interest rates are starting to climb. But its like anything else. Use with moderation and don’t get in over your head.
I’ve always been a big fan of Robert Heinlein’s book Time Enough For Love and the within contained “Notebooks of Lazarus Long”
One quote that gets me is “budget the luxuries first”
To the Native American of the Pacific Northwest the man accorded the greatest prestige was the one who, at the annual Potlatch ceremony, gave the most away! He gave away the most salmon, the most honey, the most furs, and he gave away the most prayers; for everyone understood a real man could always get more of what people needed and therefore he had no need to hoard any of it! This is masculine thinking.
That is, if it is unexpected. If he gives it to some demanding harpy squaw who uses the beaver pelts to woo John Redcorn, then he has been emasculated.
Eh, you can make a fetish out of that too, and many people do, and it becomes little more than virtue signaling.
Everything in moderation.
It took me a while to find the time to read this article as I had to rush out and buy the Samsung Galaxy S8…
My wife has some Gen 4 type phone (not iPhone) and the current line series is up to 8 I think? Not sure of the make but I do know the numbers because I’ll hear my daughter mention “I can’t believe you still have a 4!” Why? Well, easy, because it hasn’t broken yet, it works perfectly fine and it fulfills everything she demands from it without flaw. Why upgrade? And this is one of the many reasons I married this girl up.
I have the cheapest Walmart Android phone available. $35. I hate cell phones. Had an expensive one once, and the thing sucked. The only people I text are a couple of close friends, my latest plates, and two major clients. Everybody else I type back, “Stop thumb-fucking your keyboard and call me if you want me to take you seriously…”
“Stop thumb-fucking your keyboard and call me if you want me to take you seriously…”
ah, you’re a man after my own heart!
Texting is flat-out retarded…except in certain situations. Money or pussy, usually.
I keep reminding my kids that these new-fangled smart phones have a really cool real-time audio communication feature.
Ain’t it the truth. Kids are text-addicts. The expensive cell phone I had, I let a stripper have it. It’s her problem now…
IMO, text is good for quick, information only messages, like phone numbers, or appointments. Anything else is better by voice.
Exactly. Most of my texts are from clients. They ask a quick question, I type back, “Got it”. That kinda thing. Otherwise it’s phone call or email…with women it’s, “Yeah I’ll be there wear something slutty” or “Can’t do it”. I think the longest text I ever sent was 16 words…yes, it was…”Stop thumb-fucking your keyboard and call me if you want me to take you seriously…”
I will sometimes text something like “What are you wearing? ;)” to the wife, just to get her brain going for after work when I don’t want to talk to her.
Haha, nice one! My SOP with women…they say, “Why didn’t you text me back the other day, Bob?” I say, “Call me like a sincere human being or I won’t communicate with you. Save that texting shit for guys with low value.” They usually wise up. If not, shit, there’s only about 3 billion more of them out there…
Years ago when everyone was on Myspace, I was supposed to take my daughter and her friends somewhere. I asked her what was the status- ‘I’m waiting for them to post’ ????? How about picking up the phone and calling them now?
I think it’s part of the dumbing-down thing. Mission accomplished.
On the bright side, the internet has proven wrong the notion that you can sit 1,000,000 monkeys at typewriters and eventually they’ll produce one of Shakespeare’s plays.
…and with far less mess to clean up!
Real time audio communication!
I like
Idk if youve seen Boondocks.
…
Sam jackson and charlie murphy(rip) play a couple characters.
..
Sams guys called texting “nigger technology”.
Said anything thats typed by thumbs is bullshit
.
This was a decade ago or so
…..
Look it up on youtube. Hilarious and poignant.
My kids laugh at the fact I still use a simple flip phone. Does everything I need it to do.
side note OT about phones….guys, if you text a girl and that bubble comes up green she will do ass to mouth. Take it from the kneeman, he knows.
This is a definitely a topic worthy of further discussion, but I’m already a little lost. Green bubble?
agreed
I might have figured it out. I’m reading a page that explains Apple iPhones display incoming text messages in blue if coming from another Apple device, or green if on an Android.
If I’m on the right track, this means chicks with Android phones go ATM.
This may have settled that narrow question, but raises a few new ones.
Yeah, I’m kind of lost on that one too. I’ve never seen any association with sexual preferences correlated to phone brand before.
What about a ma-bell rotary phone?
Those means that she’s the worst kind of slut, and will, without even being asked, put on her nightgown which displays many inches of bare ankle for your prurient pleasure.
If you told me gays and iPhones had some positive correlation, I’d believe it.
Yeah, kinda like Granny in “The Beverly Hillbillies”. Irene Ryan. Here’s a photo of her when she was Irene Hervey, back in the day…
egad! my own mother has one of those phones!
Yeah, kinda like Granny in “The Beverly Hillbillies”. Good ole Irene Ryan. Here’s a photo of her when she was Irene Hervey, back in the day…
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0329a53888a4911e23f497e80fa8dd5397b1bf73507426932c0392d053227dbf.jpg
Holy cow, I had no idea that what was “Granny” was once “Hubba!” Geez, neat! But now I’m going to have a lot of confusing feelings when I watch that show….
I fucked up. She wasn’t Irene Hervey. They fooled me; that girl was a different actress. Here’s a shot of a young Irene Ryan…still, not bad –
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5fd4d8241b2b04912674ace32c564679b0602b39a1e4216433146c682bd419ee.jpg
Ah, yeah, she’s ok, but she is not “Whomever the hell you originally posted and whom I wish to now build a time machine and head back in order to seduce” chick.
Yeah, I agree. I cadged it from a site that titled the picture “Irene Ryan”. They fooled me. Irene Hervey, I guess…what a letdown.
Mickey Mouse Rotary for the win.
just from observable data. When I get a girls number and I text her and the bubble comes up green I just know she is going to be a particularly filthy little whore.
I can almost see the casting couch behind her.
1000 cock stare on this one.
She totally got finger-trapped in her day….
ATM has always concerned me. Do you kiss her after that? It would give me the creeps even after she brushed her teeth.
The Kneeman doesn’t do anal, I don’t believe…I think he was pointing that anomaly out for any guys who were interested. But don’t quote me on that…
That shit is just nasty (pun kinda intended?). No. Never. Girls who do ATM or rimming are grotesque sex clowns.
I don’t get down with butt stuff unless she really wants it….but I know what I know.
on point.
I will take rimming on a case by case basis but I would say that the VAST majority of women I’ve been with, from every race and from all walks of life, have gone in for the old tongue in the Arschloch. Everyone grom sluts to good girls from young artists to well to do attorneys. Something in the current zeitgeist.
That really has to be something unique to NYC or “high society”. Girl even pretended to try that on me and I’d be smacking her head.
I would wager there is an inverse correlation between education and sexual depravity: the more education a woman has, the more debased things she will do.
I agree. But you should pursue a grant to study this.
I would have to think about that a bit. I am not sure it is as simple as education to depravity. I thing there is some qualifications that would need to be added…like type of education…but in general I think you are on to something
“I’m a graduate of NYU”
The thing about NYC is that there are girls from everywhere….even ohio. I don’t really stick to one type of girl. I am kind of all over the page with all sorts and there is a marked percentage of them that are going for it…including a few that were little goodie girls….
Like I said, I have a case by base basis. I have one little conneticunt who is a blondie wasp trust fund baby and when she goes in for the mudhole I think about the ghetto I grew up in and smile.
yeah … you know you’re not the first she’s done that for, right? Keep that in mind as you’re kissing her … throat cancer when?
I said unique to NYC, not unique to where a person comes from. When you throw a girl into Soddam, even if she was born beside baby Jesus in that manger, she’ll end up becoming a harlot slut.
I hear Las Vegas has the same effect.
Kinda, but people generally just go there for the weekend, not move there “forever”. That’s what I’m talking about. You dip yourself whole into a sexual cesspool, and you’re not going to come out clean.
I wonder if it would work on the wife if we moved there.
You say harlot slut, I say interesting.
I like a classy little bish who gets dirty as fuck
I don’t kiss
Dude…we’re talking about rimming and ATM here…
And I absolutely know I’m not the first
Oh yeah…..nevermind.
Dude, I know what you like. That wasn’t what I was saying. The whole “every girl rims” thing seems rather alien to me and somewhat revolting, and it’s not something you’re likely to find as part of a normal girls sexual toolset around these parts. I mean sure you can ask one to do it no question, but it doesn’t seem to be an expectation “must do” like, say, a blowjob or whatever here. Thankfully.
I would prefer a girl who works at KFC but doesn’t tongue assholes.
not if she’s fat though….
It may seem alien and revolting and I won’t argue you on it, but every girl rims. All of them. It is just part of the blowjob routine…they may do it selectively but it’s like anal was 20 years ago…a dirty little secret but they will all do it and once they start it becomes part of the repotoire
It’s AWALT even with this
No, it’s AWALT in NYC. You’re in your bubble again man. It is not a normal thing in a lot of places, let alone “AWALT”.
Tough to find but I’m sure if you put your back to it.
What’s worse is that they will deny it. They will deny it so much.
When you kiss a girl you just have to accept she has slurped some poop chute
you are being all cute and innocent…not a color that looks good on you. I am sure there are some good girls out there that get married young and bla bla bla…but if a girl is in a university she will slurp some pooper before she graduates with a very negligible margin of error. In this sense pabst is right I think regarding education.
btw as I think more about it I think you are right RE education. A few Latinas I’ve been with that have been waitresses with very little education and plenty of slutiness to go around didn’t go that route.
Here’s your logic.
You visit St. Carib Island (does not exist). All the girls there will cup your balls into coconut shells and massage them with the husks. It’s weird but feels good. You get used to all the girls there doing it. None of them deviate from it, it’s part of their script. You come to think of it as normal and all girls do it.
Yet it’s not AWALT as in applicable to all women across the globe. You might be able to talk some girl in Miami into doing it for you (assuming you supply the coconuts), but generally, it’s just not a thing outside of St. Carib Island.
if you say so…I have a feeling that you give off a vibe that you are not into their more disgusting kink and as such they hide it from you…..women have no logic, but they have a high social IQ and know how to manipulate a situation. These little whorebags may not let you in on all their dirty little secrets because you are more of an upstanding and decent guy but boy oh boy do they let their filth fly when they are with old scratch over here.
Eh, again, not saying you can’t talk a girl into anything. I’m discussing the “just a normal part of sex for all girls”. It’s not, except maybe in NYC. I’m sticking with Bubble Theory on this one.
I actually am going reverse bubble based on your own innocence and decency. Here again we will have to part ways disagreeing. But that is ok, we had loads of agreement regarding Nick and Skippy Handleman, the 80’s and why there is no excuse to be a beta if you grew up in the 80’s. I consider the week a positive one so far.
makes sense: modern women who highly esteem education also regard sexuality as something to be experimented with, explored, tinkered with etc
Makes you wonder what it will be like in another 20 years.
I am just wondering what it will be like when old women have young girl names. Grandma Ashley just sounds strange.
agreed. I still think some refinement on the idea is necessary so it can be more all encompassing but yes
Could be that GOJ and I are both long time married and are more stuck in a time bubble than a location bubble. Still, I have a hard time believing that it is that common.
répertoire*
don’t you have someone you need to surrender to?
I can make a white flag using my shirt and surrender in 34s, blindfolded. I finished valedictorian of my platoon.
I need a girl who knows the real ATM. She hands me money when I push the right buttons. (why didn’t I think of this earlier?)
I wish I could get you to meet a girl I pedestalized in my youth.
oddly enough, I have heard things like this before. Send her my way and I will whisper my favorite Ghengis Kahn quote in her ear “I am the punishment of God…If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you”
Sold.
I’ll send you her email address one of these days.
Make sure you have a fire extinguisher on hand lol
Yes, we live in a simulacra (in many ways) and are definitely on a materialistic “conveyor belt of life.” The solution is to stay connected to the primeval. Let me briefly try to explain:
We live in a vastly complex society which has been able to provide us with a multitude of material things, and this is good. But since at least the 1950s, Americans have been suspecting that we’ve paid a high spiritual price for our plenty. Each person would like to feel that they are an entity, a separate individual capable of independent existence, and this is hard to believe when everything we eat, wear, live in, drive, use or handle has required the cooperative effort of millions of people to produce, process, transport and, eventually, distribute to our hands. “Man” simply must feel he is more than a mere mechanical part in this intrinsically interdependent industrial system. We enjoy the comforts of highly organized production and technology, but don’t we sometimes feel that we are living a secondhand sort of existence, in danger of losing contact with the origins of life and the nature which nourishes it?
I realize how very few of us will ever be faced with the necessity of
living off the wild open country for any extended period of time. The
venerated outdoor skills, crucial to the survival of our ancestors, are
now utilized in the service of recreation.
Beyond the malls, Amazon One-Day Delivery and population centers there is a renewal of interest in faded connections to the primeval. Fortunately, there is a saving streak of the primitive in all of us who sought to escape the increasing complications of modern life by running off to some remote desert, forsaken pine barren, or windswept South Sea isle to eat coconuts, fish and breadfruit. It is right and good for a man to retrace his ancient instincts. Getting lost in it wouldn’t descend us into deplorable atavism, but serve as a creative demonstration against the artificiality of our daily lives.
Unrelated. This is about girls who hit the wall. This chick was an ex-Hooters Phoenix AZ girl, and now she’s a high-end fashion model (single mom, with one child). Guess her age in this picture…
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5b8dcea3a888545edea575c05fbbb5035301b050b4e2a3b78f02d30d1cce7ef1.jpg
62
Come on, be serrrRRRRRious…she was 33 in that picture.
Here she is on the cover of Playboy, two years ago (age 31).
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e3216de5572997d6ebb59d2982a76a868473fab40d86b6bed45f211ed30303c8.jpg
Wait…but Bob, I’ve been told on good authority that white girls are ugly after the age of 25. What is this voodoo thing you’re showing me here, bro?!?
she is quite attractive indeed.
That’s why I’m posting this. I saw that exchange the other day – heh. The best tits I have ever had the pleasure of handling, were those of a stripper who was a single mom with 9-year-old twins. She was 32. Those tits were…perfect (not fake, either). Not a stretch mark on that bitch’s flawless body. Women can be hotter than hot way past 30…
…So long as they don’t fuck it up. You see two kinds of Asian ladies in their 40’s – those who look like they’re still late-20’s and those who look like potato sacks.
If a girl doesn’t smoke, sleeps well, eats properly, and gets some sunlight and exercise, she can stay attractive for quite a while. Of course, having kids younger helps them bounce back and avoid stretch marks, but even without kids they need to take care of their bodies.
Man, if the only thing I accomplished in my life was making women take care of their bodies throughout life, starting young, then it would be a life worth living.
Amen, brother. You can lead a whore to water but you can’t make her…look younger.
Bob, I seriously don’t get the whole thing about the rejecting single moms. I would totally nail the freaking crap out of that and maybe marry her if I had kids of my own.
Also, I wonder who the father is. Probably some football dude or criminal scum like all of them.
Many, many single moms may seem like great dates and shit, but end of the day she will put her kids before you almost every single time. And when you ring that up, you’re basically stuck without any authority to correct the kids but with the obligation to finance them and their mom. Single moms who are good may exist (widows seem the best chance here) but I’d avoid them like the plague except for ONS stuff if I were a young man.
Note how I mentioned “If I had kids of my own”.
Not sure how that changes what I said?
Because she’ll be financing my kids as well (joint household income, ya know).
Ok….and? You’ll still have no real authority over her kids, and she will always put them first. Further, situations like that, you’ll find that she’ll preference her kids over yours more often than not. I’ve seen what you’re talking about, it rarely works out well.
But hey man, you know the risks walking in if you’ve been on this site for any length of time, so it’s your call.
Same with me. I’ll put my kids first too. It evens out, so to speak.
I won’t marry her unless I’m in this situation, however.
I’m right there with ya…there are some advantages to banging/dating single moms. If you catch them when they are young enough, they can be quite the catch. Now, I’m not the marrying kind, so take it with a grain of salt. But I had two on the side (including the stripper I mentioned), who were single moms, and they were dogs in the yard, basically. There’s a chain on them, and that chain is their child. So if you can bring something to the table, and they aren’t total SJW whores, it can be a great experience all the way around…granted, it can also be like getting hit by lightning. Odds of finding a good one, are about the same there, too.
Not sure who the kid’s daddy is. But he looked a hair…dark. Like partly Hispanic, maybe.
What I like about this chick is, she’s against “safe spaces”. She caught some shit for that. My kinda girl though.
See, now that’s actually what I’m talking about. To me, and I’m some ancient geezer born around the time of Homer, a relationship with a man and woman will not work out well unless both puts the other into the first spot in regard to things. I’ve corrected my kids before when they’d start to get a little mouthy to my wife and they’d give me this look like “What?” and I’d tell them “You are snarking at the woman I love, and your mother, you will not do that to her or I’ll take it as you doing it to me”. A relationship where you withhold that top position from your wife/hubby is, in my opinion, on the long drive off of the short road.
Banging, absolutely. Dating even, sure. They’re desperate and, rumor has it, the best sex you’ll get outside of bipolar insane crazy girl sex.
I still wonder who the dad is. Hot, dumb girls like her (given her resume is Hooters) usually do it with criminal scum or athletes.
That was one of the bright red lines my father set in my young life. Disrespect or mouth off to mom meant quick and decisive corporal punishment.
Or suave charming country boys who have an underlying and hidden intellect and social skills who can have her falling “in luuurvv” before she even knows what hit her. Or so I hear.
Suave charming country boys = The Tim Tebows of this world
Need to learn how to read doublespeak GOJ. 😉
No need to be Tebow. Just be built like him. Besides, Tebow is a genuinely decent human being, so I’m not sure that a woman choosing him is doing a stupid thing.
Hence “The Tim Tebows”.
Tebow is a virgin. That’s something I genuinely respect, given the sheer amount of pussy this man must’ve been offered.
On a side note, is it possible to get 6’0″ if one is 5’8″ 5’9″?
Nothing like a single mom with multiple personalities to lighten your, um, “load”…marry ’em? Well, never say never. I’d marry Rachel Mortenson (the model in this thread). But only if I got a prenup which guaranteed me half of her assets, and only if I got a double-indemnity life insurance policy taken out on her. There are exceptions to every rule, for sure…
I perused your other comments below and you seem intelligent. Why do you discount this, perhaps the wisest advice in all of red-pilldom for any man over age 25? Or are you just on the fence about it? Interesting, regardless.
I won’t touch marrying her, but sure I would pipe her out in a heart beat…less than a heart beat. Still, I do think that having babies makes a woman kind of gross. I don’t mind fucking something that is kind of gross in that way but I am certainly not going to make it a steady relationship.
ugh, tebow makes me want to puke. I really hope he is outed with some scandal one day.
You’ll notice where I say “if I have kids”.
Yeah that would certainly level the pitch, at least kinda. Still…”Not my genes, not my problems” is the safest credo.
And I was thinking too, I should be more specific in my comment: there are single mothers out there who might not be totally bad bets. Primarily the widowed, or girls who initiated their divorces because of beating or cheating. Those would be my 3 main asterisks.
Looks sharp.
Really sharp. Here’s another pic from her Playboy shoot…those tits are real; and no stretch marks from having her little hatchling…
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/af345f7fcbfa1677f14d9dab9508ce1cce622682b9132738addd8d438b149e86.jpg
I’ve cruised around in a make and model pretty similar to that one Bob. It’s a good easy ride with good handling and which hugs the road like you wouldn’t believe. And as it’s manual you get to choose when to shift it into overdrive.
You are a connoisseur, my friend…hot, vintage submissives are the top of the line.
MILF fantasy initiated.
Only 22 photoshop filters old.
I’ll bet not. I know some 33 year olds you wouldn’t be allowed to even think about without special written permission, they’re so hot. This isn’t saying that all 33 year olds are hot, but the low cutoff shit of “hit the wall at 25” that some guys have here is laughable on its face.
They must have PhotoShopped this video of her, too, taken in January of this year…
I don’t care how old or young she looks unless she’s sitting on my dick. What’s the point of that exercise, Uncle Bobski?
I’m waiting for the picture of her with a dik…..
It won’t be long as her natural career progression will be the porn industry.
I think she bangs down $2000 an hour doing high-end fashion shoots for the Wilhelmina Agency. Porn is probably not gonna happen in her immediate future. Although it would for most Hooters/Playboy sluts, granted…have to wait and see what happens.
hahaha. between me ruining your ability to think of Asians and our other friend ruining your ability to look at pretty women without fear of them having a cock I have to say you have been thoroughly screwed
I would not call Playboy and swimsuit modeling high-end fashion Bob.
That being said, she seems in her late-twenties, early-thirties.
Guess Brands (Marciano), BikiniLuxe (high-end swimwear), etc. She’s with the Wilhelmina Agency, and Look Models. Not exactly agencies that handle girls who grip stripper poles (heh). She started at Hooters, did their calendar, did Playboy, now she does high-end swimwear and other high-end shoots. Gotta start somewhere…
Pretty nice. I had one of those that remained hot well into her 40s. They usually got a little crazy in them too, but that’s OK
Nothing wrong with that sex-crazy streak…
A little crazy is ok, as long as it’s the pleasant fun kind and not the stabby kind. I really like happy, kind of bouncy, always joyful type girls, you know the kind I’m talking about? Just get excited about everything, wake up with a smile on her face even if it’s raining outside and lightning is striking the house, and does that insanely sexy little bounce up and down on the balls of her feet thing when she’s standing around talking. Love that shit.
I just imagined this, and have fallen in love into that imaginary girl. Thanks, pal, as if I did not have enough problems already 🙂
I agree, however to me the stabby kind can be fun at times also. It’s a challenge to find the buttons to turn it into the fun kind, which is fun to me in and of itself… or maybe I’m just a masochist and don’t know it lol
you and I are very much in synch Corvin
Like I always say, we’re never gonna survive unless we get a little crazy…….no wait, that’s not me that’s Seal. I am always getting us mixed up
I am so bad at guessing ages. I know there is too young, very young but not too young, younger than me but no longer very young, younger than me but close enough for me to say “my age” then there is older than me and finally too old. These last too are incredibly subjective. My guess on this one is younger than me but old enough to say “my age”
But you would bang that…
Sure Bob. I mean assuming that without the glamor and glitz of profession photo editing she doesn’t look like nelson’s mother from the simpsons. If she walked out of that picture looking like she looks in it—absolutely would bang.
Closest I could find online to what she looks like with no makeup…you would bang her. Check out the video of her I posted a ways down, too…yikes.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5901a2960bcd442c9df1055dac9ab6f3874231037452c3f2816da2fdc07b56f9.jpg
oh no question about it. But how old. Curious. Fine looking little piece if flesh there.
28.
Ethos of the Baby Boomers when young / hippies: to reject materialism:
Like Barrett Strong and Berry Gordon said
The best things in life are free
but you can give ’em to the birds and bees
I wan’t money
Yeah, that’s what I want.
or for the English:
He had white horses and ladies by the score
All dressed in satin and waiting by the door
Ooh, what a lucky man he was
Ooh, what a lucky man he was
White lace and feathers, they made up his bed
A gold covered mattress on which he was laid
Ooh, what a lucky man he was
Ooh, what a lucky man he was
“Doesn’t matter that much to me
To live a life of luxury
And I don’t want to be a king
Have all my fingers covered in rings
Long as both of my eyes can see
As long as I’ve got two legs and feet
Well, other things are just formalities”
If everyone is equal, then the only way to rise above is through conspicuous consumption.
All these parents so concerned with saving for their childrens’ college education: maybe if your children weren’t so stupid, they could get a scholarship.
Nothing but the finest: gotta have the newest fitness center costing $50 million. Parents: pay up!
Tell me about it. My senior year, they kiked up the tuition, make a special “engineers fee” to build this new building. It wasn’t even finished until after I graduated.
“kiked up” is that liked being “jewed” down?
Freudian typo
(((typo)))
what is up with those parentheses? I still don’t get it.
Sideways yarmulke?
That is a silly convention pioneered by the “Stormfront” types, to indicate that the subject is jewish. I use it as a bit whenever possible.
Meanwhile, the Bloods and Aryan Brotherhood inmates are working out with cinder blocks and mismatched plates but are jacked up while the college students with the $50 million fitness center are all noodly armed… weird
Genetics.
Because I’m so poor, I just got a free 1 year pass to my University swimming pool. It’s really nice and I use it every day. Hardly anyone else there, as it’s too expensive for most (not poor) students to use.
this is absolutely true. The state of aid for college is such that being average at everything and slightly above average at paperwork will get at least half your tuition paid at one school or another.
Offering scholarships is part of the scam. Schools try to attract the best students. So of course they’ll have the best graduates, which is the most attractive to employers. So what makes a university elite is not the education, it is the selection process. Parents are paying for a name on a piece of paper, not an education.
Young adults could actually be responsible enough to educate themselves.
With modern technology, all coursework can be put online. Students learn from the best lectures and experience the the classroom with VR glasses. Going off to college to learn should be an obsolete concept.
When someone graduates high school, they should have all the tools to learn for themselves. But this is a fantasy world were public teachers and administrators could actually be fired for failure.
If they need someone to pay for their education, they aren’t worthy of it.
Luxury?
“I go to Baskin Robbins every night and buy myself a little treat.”
It’s important to pamper yourself. It’s the little things in life isn’t it? Moronic mindset.
Reminds of Brian when they had him fixed.
If the love of money is the root of all evil, the Bible was red pill 2,000 years before the rest of us.
Once again the teachings of Christ were ahead of their time:
-Hedonistic consumerism is bad
-Unrestrained sexual lust does not lead to happiness (cock carousel sluts with depression)
-The wages of sin are death: not because God will smite you, but you will smite yourself if you give in to your unrestrained desires.
If the story of Samson and Deliala isn’t red pill, I’m not sure what is.
True, how to get the contemporary churches to stop preaching “Jesus was a socialist” and “Love your neighbor, despite his sexual orientation” is the real question.
A lot of Christian morality comes down to a parent telling their kid, don’t touch the hot stove, it would be bad.
So f’n true
Having children should be more of a priority than owning nice, brand new things imo.
yes! if you have children you can build a factory and have them make you nice new things!
Or cook them & eat them in times of famine.
Or they can support and look after you should you become sick or infirm.
No. Ain’t my kids job to look after me when I’m old. I raised them, they raise their kids–I’m not their responsibility.
That’s one of the problems with the modern world, no responsibility towards your elders. I certainly send money to my grandmother, even though I don’t have much.
Problem in the modern world is with no-fault divorce and two income families, elders have shirked the responsibility of maintaining an intact home with parental presence for their kids. We can’t really then expect the kids to be held to the responsibilities of the past system.
Don’t see how men have any choices in this process. She divorces he. You should have written “Women have shirked the …….”
I think I’d rather croak…
That’s women’s priority not mens
So men don’t care about continuing their lineage and family name?
no not really..what you are saying only applies to women since they have an expiration date…men’s dna only cares about having sex with fertile females.
So basically what you are saying is that patriarchy doesn’t benefit men and you are socially left wing because of it?
So right wing men shouldn’t care about patriarchy, and preserving society, when that is supposed to be their role because of muh dick?
the only way men would care about having kids is if they came from some dynasty like the kennedy’s or something like that where it was guaranteed that your kids would be well off. nowadays with the divorce rape laws and women having all the martial rights men don’t really care about having kids and marriage.
Me no likey kiddies…
Not that it’s ever been an issue for me…
OT
This evenings scheduled entertainment has started just a hair early.
Live from Berkeley:
what is conspicuously missing from this stupidity is the enormous first generation Asian population in Stem majors who have no idea any of this is going on because they are locked up in a library working on being the next generation of successful adults.
Invest in yourselves, my friends.
What would I want with physical possessions, when we’ve got ROK to keep us entertained.
Good story Max, I enjoyed reading it.
Net worth not increasing every month …..
That’s me, saving gives the banks free money.
This idea of increasing your net worth really does play into the hands of the elite, earn just enough to survive, then stop working, this is the way to defeat their evil plans.
Maybe in the spirit world all our dreams will come to fruition.
Whoa!
Nice article.
I’ll read it again.
P.S.
Listening to this music while reading it, feels so Miami 1980.
great track. a good reminder that there’s an entire universe of amazing music around – arguably, more than at any time in human history. just not the mainstream garbage on the radio.
This article, is just perfect. Like a 24 year girl but cheeks, like the smell of coffee in the morning, like the summer breeze at the seaside, like the smell of Church candles, like the hand of God patting you on the back in support, like a cold beer with your father, like a … fill it in.
,,Instead, play the long game and be smart. Separate yourself from the masses by pursuing intrinsic wealth. Have the character to brush aside the superficial path. Focus on accomplishment and experience and adjust your financial overhead and expenses so that you’re a man in control of his life. Do not become a slave to debt and the display of status. Beware of the Hedonic Treadmill.”
This I especially agree with.
We should go into detail.
“like the hand of God patting you on the back in support”
– best complement I’ve ever had
“Like a 24 year girl but cheeks”
– a close second
Thanks Conan Man
…umn…..american movies did this !!!
Excellent article with good information!
Or you can become a cam who’re and charge 97 per hour
Get a money tin.
Keep it close-by, and every time (“Every. Single. Time”) you come home with cash in your wallet, deposit it into the money tin.
If I have shrapnel, I’ll wait until I’ve got coins in increments of $1 before depositing it.
The beauty is that until you physically get a can opener and cut that money tin open? That cash is going NOWHERE!
It’s an awesome feeling when the tin becomes so heavy and so full of cash that you can barely put any more money in it- and then you open it and hundreds (thousands) of dollars pour out.
All that small change you invested instead of wasting it on shit- and you suddenly have money up your sleeve!
the funny thing about this article is that it describes the far left millionaires/billionaires to a tee. it seems the most greedy, acquisitive people are personified by the Hollyweed elite, the vermin in the recording industry, especially the super rich ‘black entertainers/rappers’ who can never be satisfied no matter how much ‘stuff’ they have and the billionaire vermin in Silicon Valley whose greed knows no bounds. their appetite for ultra expensive boats, cars, and, most of all homes (mine is bigger than yours) shows a sickness that is really hard to contemplate. maybe that is why these filthy rich vermin support the most leftist of causes, in order to soothe their consciences. the only good thing to come of their absurd ‘buying habits’ is that they provide lots of jobs for us little people who produce the stuff that they gorge themselves with, all the while as we secretly laugh at their grotesque life style.
Being around a person who may have strayed on to the treadmill is no fun. A heavy tension attends the display of material things and the need to impress in the ‘right’ company. One can usually see through the hollowness of a lifestyle designed to impress.
You remember Edward norton’s character in Fight Club? I think his character was the archetype of the castrated male – the cuck, beta, omega etc. domesticated and only motivated by material goods. Home decor and fancy furniture to boot. I think that caricature is what material hedonism eventually leads to. Tyler Durden was a primal resurgence that was an instinctual reaction in his evolutionary psyche. He didn’t even know it.