The Aggregation Of Marginal Conveniences
Ugh, out of ice cubes again. What a pain. I have to pour water from my water filter into my two ice cube trays and put them back in the freezer.
Back in April my 25 year old refrigerator started to die. The very day I was supposed to meet Drew from GuyOnFIRE in person and do a bike ride with him, I had to cancel as my freezer was thawing.
I needed to address the issue right away or lose a good $200 worth of food. Prognosis? Un-fixable. So I got a new fridge.
I do dislike making ice, so did I get one with a water hook up for an automatic icemaker?
If you’ve read my blog before I think you know that answer. 🙂
Amazing Times
Most conveniences are good. Modern life is, quite frankly amazing.
My phone is smaller than a pack of playing cards and talks to space. And I can use it to access the entire body of humankind’s knowledge at the touch of a few buttons, almost wherever I go.
I sometimes think about it and it still blows my mind.
How do we follow that act?
I’m not quite sure, but I hope we use our notable brain buckets to cure diseases, feed the hungry, and end war and deprivation.
I’m however not convinced that human brainpower is best used inventing electric ski boot warmers, in-dash infotainment systems, and sous-vide cookers that hook up to the internet.
Convenience Monitoring
I’ve become intentionally hyper-sensitive to the amount of comfort and convenience I allow in my life. Why?
Because too much of it can frankly make you soft and unable to deal with discomfort. Or at least make you so annoyed by it that you’ll purposely avoid it. Even if that means going to great – and expensive – lengths to do so.
This leads to laziness, unhealthiness, diva-ness and a whole host of other personality traits I don’t care to cultivate.
And oh yeah, it drains your wallet too.
Before you think I’d rather live my life in a cave foraging for food, please know that I have many of the modern conveniences of a 1st world citizen. And I don’t think you’re a bad person if you have an icemaker or an electric ski boot warmer.
Most conveniences invented in the past 150 years intended to save us time. Especially the big ones that we deem “essential” in the 1st world.
Laundry machines, microwaves, dishwashers. When these things were invented they bought us time back and allowed us to relax and go to the park and read, or hang out with our kids right?
Ha! Try again.
All they did was allow us to “optimize” our time better to fill it with more “productivity” and work. And then more conveniences came, and the additional time these amazing new inventions saved was instantly filled again.
And the cycle keeps repeating. Now we have ALL of the conveniences and NONE of the time. How’d that happen?
The Cult Of Expectation
I have to make ice about once a week. It takes maybe 2 minutes to pour the water into the trays and put them away. So that’s approximately 104 minutes a year.
It’s kind of weird to look at it that way. But on Dec 31st at 11:59 if you asked me “Hey, imagine you could have an hour and 44 minutes extra in this year before the ball drops?” I’d probably say “Cool!”
To be honest, it sounds nice. Time is money. All I would have to do to get that time back would be to get a fridge with an automatic icemaker.
But what would I be surrendering to?
I’d be surrendering more to the cult of expectation. The expectation that everything should be perfect in my life, that everything should be easy, and automatic.
That nothing should require the least bit of effort.
If you run with the concept that everything should be easier and require no effort and take it to it’s full conclusion, then you get to something like Idiocracy. Remember that movie? A cult classic.
The movie is a hilarious dystopia of what America and other 1st world countries are heading to if we keep on certain trajectories. My favorite is the reclining chair that doubles as a toilet and also has a refrigerator in it. So the guy can sit there 24 x 7 and never get up while watching mind numbing TV where cars go fast and things explode.
While we’re nowhere near that reality yet, we are on the slippery slope.
Appreciation Not Expectation
I’ve been trying extra hard lately to get my gratitude game on. To appreciate the amazing things I do have. I find when I spend more time appreciating what I have – both people and things – then I lessen my desire for more.
I have a refrigerator. It’s a friggin’ amazing device!
The last one I had was plugged in the wall in my house in the 1990’s, before I even bought the house. It then ran, flawlessly, for over 20 years! It kept my food cold and/or frozen for 20+ years straight, with no additional work from me needed.
That’s unbelievable!
It kept ice frozen solid even when I had power outages in mid-summer for a day or two! I appreciate my refrigerator and the people who made it. And I’m grateful that I live in a time where we have such amazing things, and that I can afford them.
Do I need a refrigerator that makes ice automatically, has a water dispenser in the front, and has cameras in it that hook up to the internet?
No thanks. I have a kitchen faucet that dispenses fresh water literally 8 feet away from it, why would I need another?
Not constantly expecting more and more conveniences does two main things for me.
- It saves me money: I’m not always out buying the latest gadget to make my life more comfortable, plain and simple. When it comes to gadgets I do have, the base model is usually plenty good for me. I got my new refrigerator for $450. The models with all of the bells and whistles started at $800 and went up from there.
- It stops me from becoming soft, and expecting everything to be easy: I have no problem putting in the work to rake the yard of leaves in fall because I’m used to doing manual work regularly. If I let manual work annoy me and get a
leaf blowerlawn hair dryer, I’d start getting soft (especially in my spare tire zone). And I’d start expecting other things in life to be easy. That of course leads to spending more money (#1) and the cycle would go round. Next thing you know I’d have a basement full of devices designed to prevent me from burning a single calorie doing anything that the routine maintenance of day to day life requires.
The good thing is that slippery slopes are not inevitably slippery till the end, they’re escapable. You can put your foot down, dig your fingernails in, and stop the slide.
Big conveniences like laundry machines and water heaters to me are worth it. Marginal conveniences like robot vacuums, maybe not so much. This is of course subjective and your results may vary.
I choose to consciously monitor the amount of comfort and convenience in my life as a way of slowing down my slide on the slope. The life of a king where everything is done for me and I don’t have to lift a finger frankly sounds miserable.
I want to earn parts of my life. It leads to growth, gratitude, learning, and accomplishment.
The Aggregation Of Marginal Conveniences
It’s not solely the dishwasher or the icemaker. It’s not one convenience, but the aggregation of too many conveniences that can create a problem. This of course is my opinion.
Perhaps we should look at our lives in whole and ask
- Am I just acquiring these conveniences to squeeze another .5% of efficiency in my life?
- What am I doing with that efficiency?
- Am I just filling that gained time with more work and stress?
- Why don’t I have more time to do the things I like? What’s the real problem here?
- Am I spending all the free time that these modern conveniences supposedly give me to just fix, clean, and take care of them? What’s the net gain?
A popular concept in the FIRE community is the “aggregation of marginal gains”. The theory being that many small improvements in life add up to big improvements.
I agree with that, and it’s a good thing.
But to me there’s also the aggregation of marginal conveniences. Too many conveniences, many of which are just inventions to fix the annoyances of other inventions and of marginal value, can add up to a life of sloth, clutter, debt, and poor health.
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A luxury once tasted becomes a necessity.
Well said!
We got our water dispensing, crush or cube ice fridge before our preFIRE / pre financial awareness days. It was very expensive as well at about $3000-$4000. I wouldn’t say we were very clever back then. These days they have the TV and internet hook up – so crazy. =(
Wow, $3-4k. Well, at least you’ve moved on and improved 🙂
Interesting concept. Not sure how many conveniences I have that do this for me, but I can say I do have a leaf blower 🤗
For a time, I thought about getting a feature phone (i.e. dumb phone) because I have a hard time escaping my smart phone. The GPS function and the ability to immediately have a camera to snap a picture of my three kids made me keep it. Though, it still drives me crazy when people are at dinner or on a date and staring at their phone instead of talking to each other.
TPP
A leaf blower saves a ton of time. It’s way easier than sweeping and raking. I’m a believer. 😉
Time is money, so I see your point!
For me a smartphone is a value-add convenience, but I pay $100 or less for a phone. Folks with huge yards might need a leaf blower, and if I had a big yard I’d probably have one. It’s a bout balancing the conveniences you really need versus the ones you “think” you should have because everyone else does. That’s a subjective line of course, and different for everyone.
Those marginal conveniences for most part are a drain on our financial resources. Also, how many extra hours do you need to work to pay for that convenience. My simple living mindset and enjoyment of (but not there yet) minimalism helps me avoid the trappings of many conveniences. Heck, we haven’t had a dishwasher in 18 years 🙂
My dishwasher broke in 2007 or 8 and I haven’t had it fixed or replaced. My life is still fulfilling and I somehow survive.
You’ve really nailed it here. We’ve gotten to a point where if an escalator breaks, we can’t see that it still provides us a stairway. People might just stand there, puzzled, unable to figure out their “next step”!
It seriously wouldn’t surprise me if that happened. I think it was on Seinfeld where he said “it’s not a ride!!”
we don’t have a dishwasher or snowblower and i don’t have a phone. i also rarely upgrade something that is still working. about 7-8 years ago our old rusty (it was literally rusty as frugal mrs. smidlap bought it from a friend for 25 bucks when she bought the house) died on us. i had just hit a big trifecta at the track for about 1600 clams so i bought a stove (necessary as the old one kept refusing and ruining food) and a fridge. we drink a lot of wine and go through a lot of ice in our house, not to mention being able to chill beers in the classic cooler when a bunch of friends come over. i got the one with the icemaker and had to drill through the kitchen floor to the basement to run the line and pierce a copper pipe. the strange thing is i was just thinking the other day about all the little conveniences in my life and how much i love having an abundance of ice on hand. i keep the dispenser full and am vigilant about keeping a large bowl in reserve in case the white wine from the store is room temp and i want it right away. if i had to have a draft of favorite possessions i think it would be a top 2 pick! i guess that’s just diversity of values and not one being better or worse, just different.
i totally agree on the marginal conveniences. i still use pen and paper and a calculator quite a bit too.
Yes – it’s different for everyone! You like having ice around and that adds value to your life because warm white wine kinda sucks. I get it. But you forego other conveniences. It’s all balance. But having “all the conveniences” is the modern middle-class American trap.
I’m always amazed by how many new advances and “improvements” we require in our first world lives. It begs the question of when is enough enough? How much simpler do we need things to be? I hadn’t thought about how unnecessary a water/ice dispenser is on a fridge, since I don’t have one, but it’s a great point. The last apartment I lived in before buying my home didn’t have a microwave, and people thought I was crazy for living without one for so long. I never really cared. I have one now and it’s great for baking potatoes quickly, but it’s certainly not a necessity. It’s funny how all the conveniences weasel their way into our lives and suddenly become necessities for us, but people in third world countries the world over live just fine without them. Our over reliance on them worries me because I think it factors into our declining health.
You probably get the same looks from folks about the no microwave thing that I get when I tell them I have no dishwasher. It’s like I’m an alien from another world.
And I’m thoroughly convinced it’s a factor in our declining health
I’m with you. An ice and water dispenser on the fridge is nice, but it adds too much cost. You need to change the filter and it means more stuff to break. As I get older, I’m going with the KISS principle much more. Keep it simple and it’ll work better. Add more stuff for marginal convenience and it’ll break more.
Yep, more filters, more cleaning appliances, more battery packs etc etc. It comes to a point when you’re looking at all the stuff and saying “what is this stuff?!!”
We used to pay for a house cleaner and lawn service. But then I realized that it’s actually nice to have those tasks to do myself. It saves money and I can get it done how I want to get it done.
And there is the feature creep in items. I just tend to not like things breaking. Time saved for the ice-cube maker is offset by the time for when it eventually breaks and I need to repair it or simply de-clogging it when needed.
You’re correct that people will have items that hopefully matter to them. While I’m not a fan of an ice-cube making, water dispensing fridge, a buddy of mine with 4 boys is a really big fan of that as it is used a lot.
Well said. I find a certain joy in doing some tasks for myself, like cutting my grass. If it were all done for me I’d feel useless to my own house.
I love this idea that time is money. Those 104 minutes a year only matter if you are so busy that every other minute is accounted for, Otherwise it is just filling space. You have to do something. Why not make ice.
“Why not make ice” – should be on a t-shirt 🙂
I’ve seen this “slip” in my own family. its an insidious way of getting onto the hedonistic treadmill. I say insidious because it is not as blatant as buying a mcMansion or a over sized and priced vehicle. However, what I’ve seen is the extra special fridge, the extra special stove, the extra special TV, the snowblower, the leaf blower, the riding lawnmower, etc. Each of these comes with a higher price tag on day one – but also a higher cost of ownership. My rakes don’t need gas or electric – nor my snow shovel. But every year around this time, i’m stopping over to family members homes to help get these gadgets running, replacing oil, spark plugs, belts, loaning extension cords, etc. There is value in simplicity of purpose.
A rake and a shovel – it’s amazing how cheap they are, how great they work, and how they give you exercise. Awesome tools!!
I still mow my lawn myself for a few reasons (1) save money (2) get exercise, (3) excuse to walk around my home and garage to see if other things need to be maintained. I also use it one last time in the fall to mulch all the leaves!
Yes! Thanks for reminding me to get out the mower one last time in my backyard this weekend and mulch those leaves up to a pulp!
It is quite interesting how these conveniences reframe your mind. It is why we are becoming an impatient fast food society. Making lunch at work a few days ago I remember thinking what a pain it was to open the film of my frozen entree and stir the contents and then heat for another 90 sec. Lol Definitely am spoiled by modern luxuries (I have a leaf blower by the way but really need it because I have probably 60 or so deck steps and multiple tiers that get covered with leaves since I live out in the woods.
Nice thought provoking post
Ha those frozen entrees are a bitch 🙂 I didn’t address impatience here as much as convenience, but they’re definitely tied together.
It’s amazing how much we accumulate for the sake of luxury or convenience. I tend to be more on the side of functionality than bells and whistles. A camping trip always makes me appreciate all the luxuries I have at home.
you pay for convenience – and that’s the truth.
more than status, luxury, basic essentials – I think we pay for convenience. Certainly when it comes to discretionary spend.
Sometimes it’s worth it – but most often it is not.
I like to cook and freeze food – and often we get a takeaway because we can’t be organised enough or bothered to take the same food out of the fridge to defrost.
Also, going shopping without checking what we have in the fridge/need – bad habit and it costs us everytime!!!
We paid through the nose for two appliance replacements this month – getting what I’d call lower middle-end models, but certainly not the cheapest ones they have. With a family of 6, living in the Summer-Lasts-10-Months Deep Southern U.S., we would have been making ice manually at least 2 times per day. But, truly, you’re right: that method is something we’ve almost eliminated from our minds as a possibility, what with becoming accustomed to luxury levels of convenience.
I held out on the replacements as long as I could. Had to balance my urge to use them forever vs. my wife’s wishes to replace them long ago. Over the past 10 years I had repaired the stove myself 3 times using YouTube with used parts purchased online (seems like a couple of years after manufacture, new parts become suddenly unavailable – I suppose the makers want us to have replacement as the only option, when something breaks). I was able to find a compatible new oven element and replaced that as well, about 3 years ago. But once again we were down to 1 burner out of 5 actually reliably working, with about $50 worth of parts needed for its fifth repair.
While we were at it we finally replaced our 10-year-old fridge. It needed a $170 part in the door, and $240 worth of replacement shelves, and was making increasingly loud clunks day and night. Over 10 years I repaired it myself 3 times, squeezing another 5 years out of it by learning the self-repair of internal parts. One freezer valve repair was MacGyver’d up, literally, with duck tape. If it was just me, I’d have tried to keep it another 5 years. It was becoming a “Fridge vs. Man” challenge.
We made one frugal change, for this appliance replacement: I was offended when the store wanted me to pay $20 per appliance for haul-away. No thanks. I listed the fridge and oven for sale, fully disclosing their issues, and the fridge sold to a young couple who had no fridge in their apartment. They were happy to get it, even in the shape it was in. Couldn’t get any takers on the stove, even for $25, so on the day of delivery I just put the stove on the curb and it was gone in 24 hours. So I saved $40 on haul-away and we have $150 from the fridge sale in our pocket, plus some strangers out there are putting them to use rather than both of them ending up as trash. I won’t be paying any stores for haul-away in the future.
Wow, it sounds like you’ve really put the effort in to extend the life of your stuff. That’s awesome man, to me it fells good to fix things and extend their life, even if that costs me some time. Makes me feel good to try to prevent more landfill waste as long as I can.
I’m with you in keeping some challenge and adversity in our lives.
I was listening to Dave Rubin interview Eric weisntein and a point Eric made about raising children had a similar theme. Teaching kids to be independent and strong individuals who maximize their potential requires that we provide them challenges. That we bring them to the limit of their ability and push them just a little bit further to the edge. And maybe just a bit over it but without letting them come to harm.
We do the same for ourselves all the time. We run faster and harder than yesterday, climb higher, seek out the hills and bike up them, take the stairs. We build resilience by doing hard things of value to ourselves. There is a great intrinisc reward to accomplishing something you find personally challenging.
I like this idea of not making life too easy and finding enjoyment in some of the challenges we are quick to dismiss as inconveniences.
Run faster, climb higher, and seek out the hills – now THAT sounds like my kinda fun!!
Great comment!
Funny how you show a picture of a Roomba. I think that is one of our best conveniences. It magically keeps our floors clean 🙂
Ah. Was wondering what that was…
I’m not anti-Roomba, I swear. It’s the aggregation
🙂
Technology can be a pain in the ass. Smartphones, Game Consoles, DVRs, digital thermostats, talking cars, and home appliances. A lot of this technology is designed to improve our lives, give us more free time, maybe even help us save a little money. Most of it falls short. In fact, when multiple technologies are combined, they can often have a negative impact on our time and quality of life. Multiply this by a family of four or more, and all this stuff can make you its bitch. Constantly beeping, demanding upgrades, presenting you with unrepairable failures, offering multiple support options, mostly paid ones, none of which actually solve your problem, and all of which require your time. Simplicity is the key.
Well said Brad! I can’t imagine having kids and multiplying the ‘stuff’ even more. It gives me anxiety simply thinking about it!
I have this disease, and it’s one I have been slowly curing myself of. Now that being said, in fairness to myself, I do a lot around the house. I have only hired folks to paint the room in my home that is two stories high; I do not live in a mc mansion, but it is an odd shaped house. That and putting in windows and wood flooring are two jobs that are beyond my skill level. Rewiring electrical outlets, however is not. That, and things like that, I have done.
That being said, though, I do like my gadgets. I just spent $8 on a micro sd memory card for my Roku to save time loading channels. It seems, and is a bit ridiculous, while simultaneously being not that big of a deal. Those little things do add up over time, though. That’s problem.
On the other hand, after careful evaluation, I did talk my wife out of a roomba. Those that I know that have one, added to the cost, and the reviews I saw online told me one thing; they are a waste of money. There is just no use for them. They don’t work well enough, yet. Besides, I have a son who’s old enough for another chore. The swiffer is his new way to earn money. At age 4, his earnings go into US Savings Bonds, but in time that will be some money.
Sounds like you do pretty well at DIY. It’s all about balance to me. Conveniences in one area are okay, but probably need to be offset in others. Conveniences all-around in every aspect of life, to me, is too pricey, and can spawn laziness and expectation.
I agree. We cant do everything but we have to do some things.
Some conveniences are hard to forego after adjusting to them. Clearly not everything fits this billing, but by and large, I appreciate the aggregation of conveniences, so long as the time freed is used productively (this could also mean allowing for more R&R).
But some elements of work excite me, or at least make me motivated not to adopt the latest gadget to “simplify my life”. One example is a dish washer. Some people think I’m crazy when I say I enjoy washing dishes by hand. For me, that work is therapeutic. Sure, it’s time I could spend doing other things. But I enjoy it. It helps me sort through thoughts. That’s important for my sanity.
I’m in favor of increasing convenience, but I’m also in favor of knowing when it is important to push back.
Good point! Same here, on washing by hand, though rather than devoting that time to thinking through my thoughts, I blast away my thoughts by cranking up some music. This helps me avoid focusing on any irritation at having to do the dishes – always it’s somehow 9 forks for 6 people, 8 plates for 6 people, and dishes that surely must’ve been hiding somewhere since breakfast. We get 2 to 3 people involved with drying by hand, and putting them all away, and we dance around the kitchen the whole time. That’s one of my favorite parts of the day!
Boo-yah – family time washing dishes, better than heads buried in smartphones!
Yep, great point. It’s all about balance. I too wash dishes by hand and find it easy and fast.
What? You mean you won’t have the pinnacle of useless appliances? https://www.amazon.com/Presto-02910-Shooter-Electric-Shredder/dp/B00006IV0R
Ha, that thing could take an eye out!!
Toys versus conveniences are a bit different in this equation for me. My boat is a canoe so “manual”. But the ideal of marginal conveniences is a great challenge question related to how much is enough or even too much.
I have lots of toys, including a kayak and 2 paddleboards. I see those as workout equipment, and there’s always room for more of that in my life 🙂
It appears you are indeed a Stoic… https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/02/what-is-stoicism-and-how-can-it-turn-your-life-to-solid-gold/
I try to practice it as much as possible!