So… i was a student traveling abroad w/gf in hong kong. We decided to check out Macau for a day so we took a ferry. As the story goes, I majorly fucked up and I overspent the ammount needed to get the ferry back (~$100USD i think, only had about $45). So I took a gamble… seriously. I went to a casino and bet everything we had in 1 go on a roullette table. All on black, we won (@$90 now), still not enough to get back. Again, all on black… we won again(@$180 now).
You would think i stopped here. At this point my GF was no longer pissed at me and more relieved but I said ‘fuck it, we missed the ferry so lets pocket 100 and have fun with it… we are sleeping in the street tonight anyways’. So now we start at 50 and decide to try Sic Bo (another card/dice game). We are both pretty good at math so we though lets run this for as long as we can. We ended up leaving with a modest $4k USD or something, stayed in the nicest hotel suite, and just went hog wild until sunrise for us to catch the ferry. Good times.
I’m a miser so I’ve got a couple:
Carried a microwave by hand for an hour on transit rather than have it delivered for like $10.
Rushing to hike up a mountain before sunset rather than taking an $8 gondola ride, I survived but my buddy who was with me had a sore foot for the next week.
Small suggestions? Start thinking of all your time at your hourly rate. You saved the $10 on a delivery fee but spent the hour of your time ‘delivering’ it yourself.
Yes, well that is why it’s one of the craziest things I’ve done. Def not worth it in hindsight.
Delivery fee really stinks big or small.
My brother and I have carried a portable AC unit to his apartment once. We dragged it across the parking lot to the bus stop, took it on the bus, took it off the bus, crossed the road, took it into the building, and carried it into the elevator. In our case, I’d say it was worth it; the bus stop was right across the street from the building, so a car would not have reduced the effort by much. And the reason we even bought that AC unit was that the one my brother ordered on Amazon got stolen.
I ate ramen for almost every meal for like a month and the doctor said my sodium is off the charts and that I need to stop.
Ditch the seasoning packet. Use a blend of alkaline spices.
Boil the noodles, drain all the water. Add back a little bit of cold water. Add half the seasoning pouch, some soy sauce, a little sriracha, and a spoonful of peanut butter.
It’ll change your life man.
Bought a house so I could pay $1200 in mortgage toward my own investment instead of $2k a month into someone else’s pocket. Insane, I know
I did the same thing, except looking at your mortage, I only seem to be a little less than half as crazy as you.
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Worth.
I quit smoking and saved the money every day until I had enough to buy a TV. Would have been a good way to incentivize myself to quit smoking and not crazy but I started smoking again immediately after buying the TV.
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I did eventually quit permanently and I did have more money to buy cool shit
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Steal
Ata canned sardines for a week.
By Wednesday I was beginning to make mistakes at work.
By Friday I had more mistakes in that day compared to 3 months of workday. I was having a hard time understanding instructions and documents.
I did it to save lunch money.
What is it about sardines that has that effect?
No it’s not the sardines, it’s just that my body is used to eating full meals. And a small can of sardines is just not enough to give me the nutrients and energy that I usually ingest at that time of the day. So in short, by starving myself I’m also starving my brain.
IANADr. But it is my understanding that the fish would have been the ONLY thing feeding your brain while your body was shutting down to conserve its resources. Sadly, you weren’t eating ENOUGH. And to eat enough you probably would have hit that lunch budget you were trying to save in the first place. So, yes. Starving yourself while trying to do the right thing at the same time. There has to be a Greek tragedy about this somewhere. Or a maudlin French poem. Or an O Henry story.
I’m curious WHY you started having those issues. There shouldn’t be really anything in sardines that will cause issues like that, unless it’s all that you ate?
98% probability it’s some malnourishment issue affecting their nerves, but I’m surprised it would happen that quickly
At college I walked to the nearest train station to pick up half smoked cigarette butts when I couldnt afford a pack of cigs (~10 km). At the end of the month usually. Me & my then boyfriend waited until like 2 am then walked the city to go through clothes & house items left besides the dumpsters. This was before covid and all that
Never paid for health insurance in the last 13 years. I still don’t have it.
Had a temporary promotion running for a vacuum in the store I worked at. Ran out of them, no New stock coming, but for a week we kept awkwardly repositioning this one show model. Until I just walked up to the boss and asked him if he’d at all mind if I took it home. Didn’t have a charger, or a manual, or anything else for that matter. So one internet search later, I got the charger in the mail for about 40 bucks. Sure that’s a lot for a charger, but it’s all I paid for a vacuum that would’ve set me back 300 bucks or something.
Either that or a store that went bust where I bought a jacket. Still got it. Priced it down from 170 to 30 lol.
Besides that, hardly any social life so no going out, no drinking either, no smoking, no drugs. I do spend a bunch on old books though. Gotta have a vice right.
Maybe not that crazy, but I yanked a tooth that cracked after getting an estimate of $8,400 USD from the dentist.
I spent my sophomore year in college eating nothing but oatmeal except for family dinners and holidays.
Craziest as in the most profound or the craziest as in the most out-of-my-mind thing?
Yes
Most profound thing I did to save money: Switched from having a phone number to an all-Discord diet.
Most out-of-my-mind thing I did to save money: Many things probably count, but one I was talking about not long ago was how little I eat. I remember at school, even though lunches weren’t free, people were so pressured to eat at lunch time that, when I was seen not eating, I would be provided for because it hurt them more to see someone not eat. Over time it stuck.
As I’m considering travel for holidays in a couple of months, I remember trying to save money on a similar trip by using five states …
— starting in Massachusetts
— drive to airport in New Hampshire
— layover in ??DC??? (sorry, many years ago)
— fly to Toledo
— drive to Michigan
