I agree with the sentiment but keep in mind that being able to do that is a luxury, not the baseline. Too many people in the world, very developed countries included, have to take decisions based exclusively on their finances, having no more room for the niceties than you have for a yacht.
I've found, in my own life, that when I'm hyper focused on optimizing things for cost I often get far less "out" of things. I end up not eating my whole dinner because I don't like it. But if I let go a bit, things are actually in aggregate more financially efficient when I'm getting more of what I pay for, if that makes sense.
It only works for people who are built this way though. Not hedonists.
That's a much bigger problem. People at the limit of survival financially - and there's a lot of them - may not have the luxury of any kind of financial education, or the leeway to experiment and take longer term aggregates and strategies. There is only now.
It's expensive to be poor and this is why. It's not just hedonists, a chronically empty stomach changes the way you think and how far and wide you're seeing.
> So you are telling me poor folks are poor and struggling?
No, I'm telling you that your examples, the "strategy" of getting financial efficiency, and calling it "hedonism" are disconnected from the reality of the people who suffer from this the most. Unlike you those people don't leave dinner on the table because it was too cheap.
> As if this isn't known?
It doesn't sound like you know know. You're telling a blind person how to get around better by just "looking around".
Your perspective above is the modern version of "let them eat cake" [0]. "You don't have enough money? Try to live like you have enough money".
It does not make sense,to me, can you elaborate? I know I spend too much time / effort cost optimizing. Interested in reasonable ways to justify not doing so!
Calculate a cost of your time, maybe it's your salary, maybe you come about it a bit differently.
Then if you spend 10 mins saving 8 cents on Ramen, and you like the cheaper Ramen less, you have a paradigm within which you can objectively (not emotionally) determine if you are wasting your time (therefore money) on a false optimization, or actually doing good for yourself.
Its more than that, our whole social world is constructed by financial possibility. The very reason that you are able to go see a cool movie or try that new restaurant or take a vacation is because someone or some entity, usually a bank, has calculated the risk of the loan or investment into whichever enterprise you are requesting goods or services from. Which is to say that the element of that risk which is non-quantifiable is still articulated within the boundaries of a certain quantity.
