 We on this channel are highly anti-consumeristic Okay, that's why we use old thinkpads that only cost a hundred bucks that are from eight years ago But I want to talk about some other things like one one of my viewpoints I did a video on this a while ago is that whenever you are spending money on any kind of purchase that isn't like Basic living like food you have to make sure that you are spending money on Saving money. Okay, very simple heuristic like everything you buy or you got to think is this gonna save me money If I'm spending a dollar, I want to be able to save two dollars in the future or at least two dollars Maybe a whole lot more. Okay, so let me talk now I do this video because we are now living in that yearly period of golden opportunity at least for Americans because you know We're lit black Friday is coming now black Friday is a consumerist holiday So when everything's cheap people who don't have any kind of Impulse control go out and buy a whole bunch of stuff But it is also a good time of the year for people like us because things are cheap and if you are smart about it If you know how to spend your money if you know how to make investments instead of we're not really consuming We're investing. Okay, that's what I'm saying If you know what kind of things that can make your life easier or can make you know make it cost less Now is a golden opportunity for you now. Let me give you the example of what I did last year Okay, if you've been around if you saw my video on that you might know. Okay, here's the deal This thing right here This is a now you don't care. I know you don't care about this, but it's you know, I know you're Linux nerds You don't care about power tools, but let me explain why this is important. This is a 12 inch Double bevel sliding compound miter saw from default. This is like the highest the highest quality there is out there This is a fine like it. There are a lot of contractors who you know really oh man I really want that default. That's a great thing if you look on Amazon right now The saw is unplugged. So don't don't get nervous about me. All right. Well, no, I should be safe I'm not even gonna touch it. Okay, but it is unplugged. So don't worry about it so This saw if you look on Amazon right now, this thing goes for 600 700 800 bucks something like that some ridiculous price. Okay, that's not actually ridiculous. It's actually just a really high quality Machine, okay, this is like number one. All right default is like one of the best companies This is like the defaults number one slides. It goes at all these crazy angles. It's it's really precise I got this last year at Black Friday, and I did not get it because oh it wasn't an impulse buy It's something that I mean if you get a tool like this This is something like you can build a cabin with and I still plan on do I actually do plan on making a little cabin out They're a literal cabin like I want the meme to be true, but that's just for fun But this is the kind of thing I've gotten a lot of steam I've gotten a lot of work out of this thing It's say I don't know if it saved me 600 700 800 dollars yet, but it saved me a good bit, but here's the deal I did not get this for 600 700 800 dollars. Okay, and in fact, I also same thing with the stand Okay, that usually costs like 70 100 maybe even 200 some places. Okay, I did not pay that money for that That's ridiculous. Okay, you know how much I paid for this saw and the stand together I paid 200 bucks. How did I how did I work that out? Very easy? Okay two things First off. I waited all year I waited months and months to get the black Friday at black Friday this thing not only had been marked down to $400 But this stand you get the stand for free if you buy it, you know this thing with all the perks Okay, if you buy the the number on top of the line thing you get the stand to okay So that already fantastic deal. Okay, and that's the kind of thing you get a black Friday But even more than that I doubled that up I doubled that up with something else now something I did a video on A month or so ago credit cards credit cards in America They are they know that they can make a lot of money on stupid people Okay, they know that if they put off introductory offers They put out these introductory offers that are literally steals that is they will say open a card with us If you spend 500 bucks in the first three months, we will give you $200 as a credit or you can redeem as cashback or something like that will give you $200 okay, so for dumb people for consumeristic people who who buy things impulsively and don't know that they're supposed to pay off their credit cards Or don't know how first off make sure that every single one of your credit cards has auto pay enabled I don't know why and I will say there are a bunch of people out there who apparently I know for my last video don't even know how credit cards work But if you set up auto pay if you pay everything off that money is quite literally just free money Okay, spend $500 get $200 of that back. That's fantastic I mean, especially if you're gonna be spending that I mean you nearly certainly are gonna be spending 500 bucks if well If you're like a an adult who like has their own bills You're nearly certainly gonna be spending 500 bucks in three months. Okay, so what I did when I got this saw Is I opened a card? I think it was with Wells Fargo that had exactly that deal spend $500 get $200 back So I spent 400 of that 500 bucks on this thing and then the other hundred dollars on something else who cares I don't know just like different stuff. So that means Although I on paper. I paid 400 bucks. I get 200 dollars back immediately from that So that's why I say this whole thing cost me 200 dollars. Okay, that's what I'm talking about So that is now here. Here's one thing that I don't want you to do do not do this Okay, a lot of you guys are gonna be like, wow, that's really cool You can use these credit card introductory offers and get basically just get free money. Okay, that is true In fact, I do that. I've done it In the past 12 months, I've done it for three credit cards and next year I'm going to be doing it for three more I already have it all planned out But do not just do that because you can do it. Don't just be like, oh, I gotta find stuff to buy with this stuff No, that's what they want you to do Oh, actually really they want you to go into crippling debt or something like that because you don't know how to pay off a credit card Again, just enable auto pay. Okay But they what you don't want to do for your own good is say, oh, I could get free money if I spend more That is stupid. That doesn't make sense. You know what I why I bought this because it's going to save me money Because I already had the plan of buying this kind of stuff or buying this thing and that could apply to you It might be that you Oh, I need to uh, you know Let's see. I want to get a new think pad and frankly you can get a think pad for 100 bucks on ebay Um, so okay, that's that's part of it. You know my bills. They might be in the next three months They might be, you know, 200 300 dollars and then, you know, I'll use this Okay, if you can get to that 500 bucks fine, open the card get your free money back. That's like living It's like living with a permanent 20 25 off Uh, a gift card, you know for every coupon for everything you buy. So that's something that you can do Um, but uh, why I mentioned this is there are just so many ways like if you plan like my heuristic For spending money first off only buy things that are going to save you money. I'm not gonna not going to put my hand on it Just being an example, okay? Only buy things that are going to save you money and when you buy them plan them out Okay, I planned this out. I saved a lot of money. It was fantastic Uh, another thing while i'm thinking about it because i'm looking over here. Okay, recently I got uh Some peat moss potting mix some pearlite Other things that start with pee that are important for planning And uh, the reason I got that one other nice little benefit of having all these stupid credit cards And i'm never actually gonna use for credit Uh, but one nice thing that I have about that is you know different credit card companies They'll do deals with different businesses like for example in that case, um Chase did like some kind of deal with lows where like You could buy stuff from lows and get 10 back Okay, that that is in addition to any other coupon you have So I bought that stuff that i'm going to be using next year for planting and stuff and gardening Which is obviously going to make make me money back Uh, I went ahead and bought that on my chase card that I had opened just to exploit for an introductory offer And I also got 10 back on that so that's that's nice in addition to all that kind of stuff So that's what i'm talking about. So this is this has been your clark howard advice Uh, just plan things out if you're buying things Make sure that you are going to be saving money in buying them. That's what i'm trying to say My goal is to get my my daily expenses basically down to zero I mean my week. I'm usually I don't have any daily expenses, but you know monthly expenses We'll say that that's my goal. Uh, and I'm actually getting there. I'm actually getting, um Like at this point in time in addition even even stuff like uh food like things, you know meat I don't have you know, I have no way of growing meat. I don't have animals out here But I still do like buy meat extremely tactically like I will freeze stuff You know, I if there's a meat sale where things are just a little cheaper than usual like or significantly cheaper than usual I will buy up for like six months. I will keep my entire freezer stock Um, I have not I probably I think I'm gonna buy some chicken breasts soon But I other than that I have not bought meat in like two months Just because I have so much of it in my freezer that I've just been defrosting defrosting things can be a big pain But uh, uh, yeah, it's it's definitely work of it worth it still Um, so anyway, there's my advice don't don't take this autistic Thing that people do where they say oh well, I want to be anti-consumeristic So I'm just not gonna buy things or I'm just not gonna think about how I'm gonna buy things or I'm not gonna optimize things I'm not gonna have credit cards. I'm not gonna do any of this stuff No, all of the stuff that is there to exploit stupid people can be exploited by people who know what they're doing Okay, that's my message. All right. See you next time