CStanford":drpqa4hv said:
Money for alcohol - wines and beer - is essentially a complete waste. You're left with nothing other than the ability to prove to someone that you have alcohol in your system with a urine test. My grandmother called it "drinking money". Certainly, some folks get a lot of joy out of it, but it is an unnecessary waste in most senses of the word unless it's free.
I did the road bike thing for a long time when I was single, but I lived next to a five mile loop with offshoot loops that had limited traffic (and it was nice). It probably cost me $2000 to ride 10,000 miles over that time. And none since. It can be cheap, but most people I saw didn't allow it to be. Perhaps it was a little more than $2,000, but whatever. It's not hard to buy $2,000 of wood at one time. (and there are more second and third world manufacturers of bikes now, so it can be *really* cheap). I worked with a guy who had $3,200 worth of wheels on his road bike. I hope he never hits a pothole. (He rides obsessively - maybe to an unhealthy level, so I can't say he's not getting his money's worth - and at 50 pounds heavier than I was when I was single, I'm too fat to ride in the drop position, anyway - and there's *no* other way to ride a bike than drop position or on triathlon-type handles).
We can always sling barbs at each other about money wasted. I've wasted more than my share, and recognize there are things that are a complete waste to me (french pots, wine, expensive cuts of meat for regular occasions, granite counter tops, expensive clothes) that other people value highly.
If someone wants to buy 100 pounds of malleable cast iron tools, and the pinch pennies using white pine, that's fine, I guess. I wouldn't want to do it. As much as I like to do the things that I like to specifically do, I can't imagine being that interested in someone else dictating what I should like or not like.
At the same time, who is really hurt by bad advice? (at least advice that is a bad fit for someone based on what they want to do or will want to do). Beginners, I suppose. But beginners don't usually come into the hobby with a specific goal in mind, and they usually want to buy themselves up a level or two because the paint by numbers thing can be had. (buy tool X, set it up like Y). As opposed to what I'd suggest, which is find an old try plane, an old jack plane (wood) and a stanley 4 and make a new wedge for the two old wooden planes and refit anything that needs it. That's not very practical advice for a newbie.
All that said, I've seen just as many examples of the "wood stash" that costs the owner of the wood stash money. I can think of at least half a dozen widows who have sold the stashes of their husbands off, or retirees who are still sitting on theirs because they wasted money on buying it and building the space to store it, and now they are finding out it isn't worth what they paid. My MIL, who hears me talk about how hard it is to get nice wood, called yesterday about a guy near her house who is retiring from architectural work. Somewhere over the years, he acquired a bunch of exotic wood and built a building that had under floor climate controlled storage to stash his best stuff. Nobody wants it.
Just about the only way you can be guaranteed to not waste money is not to spend it at all.
And if anyone can afford to spend money on 100 pounds of new cast iron tools, I'll bet they could afford the wood if they really wanted it. There aren't too many who buy the french pot and then can only afford a hot dog. They eat the hot dog by choice.
