Based on the excerpt from this Discworld book, what other items do you use regularly that would fit in this theory? (Boots and shoes are fair game!)
Text transcript for people who want it:
[The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socioeconomic unfairness.]
Bonus: suggest ways you can repair/restore your item/other people’s items.
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Renting -
Buying a house is like having a bank account you can’t access until you want to move. Renting a house is just paying into someone else’s bank, and you end up unable to save for your own.
On the plus side, short notice and a little risk and you can just move. New job? Bad neighbour? New family? Other changes in needs?
Trying to sell property can be a massive pain and take ages in many places.
The rich don’t get rich by saving more or spending less: though it is an advantage when they choose to use it.
The rich get rich by exploiting the labor (or income from labor) of those less fortunate than them.
I would say it’s not so much that they managed to, it’s that they could afford to spend less money. You cannot afford good food, so you eat crappy food and get sick, so you have to go to the doctor. You cannot afford good insurance, so you have to spend a ludicrous amount to get good care that will fix the problem, but you cannot afford that, so instead of a one time charge, you now have the worse prescription that still costs a bit, and it doesn’t even keep you healthy, it just keeps you moving forward, barely. Because of your condition, you now can’t even work as well as you could, so you get paid even less, all the while your health is deteriorating because the medicine you can already barely afford isn’t actually what you really need.
How the fuck do you get out of that on your own?
I always thought that laundry was the best example of this.
Poor people go to the laundrette, which is expensive over time and time-consuming.
Less poor people buy cheap washing machines which are expensive to run and break sooner.
Rich people buy highly efficient washing machines which are cheaper to run and last for years.
And on top of that poor people buy cheaper clothes, which wear out sooner (as with the boots example) and dry their clothes indoors on hangers which, again, takes longer and also creates damp, unpleasant living conditions!
EDIT: Typos.
I agree with your point, but a lot of the more expensive washing machines are not that reliable, and expensive to fix. I had to spend $200 on a refurbished circuit board. They had a whole business dedicated to repairing those boards. Usually cheap ones have simple parts that (used to be) cheap.
I see Sir PTerry, I upvote.
And hey, just sliding this totally smoothly into the conversation, did you all know we have [email protected] (Lemmy / Kbin)
*sidles out awkwardly*
Super neat!! Thanks for the link. :) If anyone likes the style of writing, go look at the Discworld community. These books are great.
I’m hoping this quote can drive some critical thinking about sustainability, and maybe some discussion about how to better what people CAN afford/already have.
It’s Terry, so it’s good. But as someone who buys expensive leather shoes due to fucked up feet and good shoes increasing the time until the hurt, it absolutely tracks. I’ve been using my 250€ leather shoes for three years now and they’re still OK. 75€ standard sneakers I used before had holes in the soles within a year.
The system is set up against the poor. Not only is long term quality something you usually cannot afford for your purchases as with the boot example, things that were normal goods are now commodities people must have a subscription for (or buy the quality version). All the late fees, overdraft fees, fixed rate parking tickets, anything is set up to fuck over the little guy and keep him poor and running in his hamster wheel.
Fixed rate fine based penalties for “crimes” really bother me. Not that I have a better solution, but that is inherently unfair.
Renting a house/appartment vs. owning is a pretty big one, same with renting vs owning most things.
Nice tools vs cheap tools. It really does seem to be everything, from clothes, to tools, to food and healthcare.
GNU STP.
GNU STP.
add insult to injury, banks not approving loans for homebuying even when the mortgage payment would be less than the current rent …
Home ownership bigtime. Yeah I have to do way more work to keep my house in good shape but every time I do it literally adds value to the place.
But I know Im damn lucky to own my own place. Not an option for many around the world.
Yeah, the maintenance can be a pain, but it does add value, and it is pretty satisfying to improve things.
Food.
If you don’t have much money then it can be a lot harder to eat healthily, due to cost of fresh ingredients and time to cook, which is time you may not have.
This can lead to eating a lot of unhealthy and processed food, which then causes knock-on costs later with poor health, illness, and medical bills that aomeone with the money to eat healthily might have been able to avoid.
I think the “time to cook” is the kicker here. Healthy food is really much cheaper, but you have to buy ingredients to cook with, not ready-to-eat or close to.
Things like dried lentils, beans, rice, etc are way cheaper than even inexpensive canned. In-season produce or frozen counterparts, too.
I think so many people underestimate the value of time.
There’s a reason why fast food companies have more shops per capita in lower socio-economic areas. For a lot of families asking them to “eat better” is like telling them “stop being poor”.
In 2021 I rented a car and did Uber for about a year. At $316 a week, that car was costing me 1200 a month!
Eventually I lost the car as I couldnt afford to pay.
Now I’ve got a job, been building my credit, gonna buy a car instead. That car will be about $300/mo. And all because I’ve got the credit and cash to buy instead of rent.
Is public transportation not a thing where you live?
If they are American it’s not pretty common in many places from what I’ve learned
This car will also be for Uber.
Can you imagine you order an Uber and the driver rolls up like “hey man, c’mon, I got you the day pass but the bus leaves in like 2 minutes”
Boots, shoes, clothes, technology, cars, houses, furniture.
Everything.
It’s a true point, but am I the only one who finds the writing style genuinely cringe? It’s all I can think everytime I see this quoted.
Fair opinion, it can be a little rough to follow along if you’re not in the mood for comedy. Rating things as cringe is so dead tho.
Well pick your adjective then. Cheesy, campy, etc
@H3L1X reminds me of one rule from woodworkers/DIYers – buy a cheap set of tools, when one of the tools breaks, replace that one tool with a more expensive one (upgrading based on use)
That is true, I do quite like that rule.
This works for all sorts of things, especially automotive tools, but there’s one exception that I live by.
Don’t cheap out on the things that come between you and the ground.
Your shoes, your socks, your tires, your bed, the chair you spend twelve hours a day in. Those are worth some investment. It pays dividends.
Boots, same as Vines. I used to buy boots every year for 200pln and they gave out mid season. Bought a pair for 700pln and it lasted 6 years. Also I have a 15 year old backpack which I wore almost daily.
My mother always says: we are not so rich to afford cheap stuff.
For exactly this reason
I like this even better than mine.
Tyres
In a subtle way. Go cheap and you may total your car in ugly weather. Go reliable and you may stop in time.
Of course you don’t have to feature in c/idiotsInCars
