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I've basically wired myself to view every purchase vs how much time it'll shave off paying off my student loan if I put it on that instead, and which is more important to me. I don't necessarily throw more money on there because of not making those purchases, but it gives me some perspective. I generally grapple with buying myself things in general anyway. It's not entirely a good thing, to be honest, cause I tend to delay things I need to buy too long too, but on the flipside I'll end up saving for a thing I wanted for a couple months then by the time I get the money saved for it I'll decide I didn't really need it anyway.
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Mar 15, 2015 00:55
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SYSV Fanfic posted:How do you guys keep from making small snap purchases? I've been watching the story of stuff and listening to pod casts, but that has just kept me from snap buying crap I don't need that is new. $2 cups of decaf coffee are my bane. I could have saved 50% more this month if I had further eliminated small pleasures from my life. I don't have any micro-vices like daily coffee so I'm just thinking out loud here, but what if you approached it from a macro view? For example, instead of deciding on the day of that you want a coffee before work, think about how much you want to spend on coffee for the month. So instead of thinking of it as "Do I want to spend $2 on coffee today", think of it as "Do I want to spend $2*22.5 days on coffee this month?" If you think $45 is more than you want to spend on coffee in a month, then reduce it to something reasonable, like $20, and then derive how much you can spend per day from that. Then say, Monday and Wednesday become your coffee days and you don't even think about getting coffee on the other days. You can use Mint spending categories to help you identify other areas of your spending other than coffee that might be good targets for reduction without significant impact to your quality of living.
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Mar 15, 2015 01:05
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Mantle posted:I don't have any micro-vices like daily coffee so I'm just thinking out loud here, but what if you approached it from a macro view? For example, instead of deciding on the day of that you want a coffee before work, think about how much you want to spend on coffee for the month. So instead of thinking of it as "Do I want to spend $2 on coffee today", think of it as "Do I want to spend $2*22.5 days on coffee this month?"
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Mar 15, 2015 02:31
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SiGmA_X posted:Or brew extra coffee at home and bring it in your thermos to work. So cheap, and I don't have to drink that crap that Starbucks makes. My coffee tastes way better than tim hortons poo poo.
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Mar 15, 2015 03:09
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I love cold brewing. I make big batches at a time (enough for a couple weeks), and keep it in the fridge. 10 second iced coffee every morning.
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Mar 15, 2015 04:17
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cowofwar posted:My new job doesn't have free coffee so i worked making coffee in to my morning routine to bring in a thermos at no time cost. Saves me $4 a day. Beans cost $10 for like a two month supply. Rurutia posted:I love cold brewing. I make big batches at a time (enough for a couple weeks), and keep it in the fridge. 10 second iced coffee every morning.
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Mar 15, 2015 04:58
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I can't imagine running a business without coffee??? It's so cheap and positive for morale I just can't fathom not having a $7 bin of grounds and a $25 brewer.
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Mar 15, 2015 06:58
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BossRighteous posted:I can't imagine running a business without coffee??? It's so cheap and positive for morale I just can't fathom not having a $7 bin of grounds and a $25 brewer. That is what I was thinking.
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Mar 15, 2015 07:00
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BossRighteous posted:I can't imagine running a business without coffee??? It's so cheap and positive for morale I just can't fathom not having a $7 bin of grounds and a $25 brewer.
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Mar 15, 2015 07:56
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SYSV Fanfic posted:How do you guys keep from making small snap purchases? I've been watching the story of stuff and listening to pod casts, but that has just kept me from snap buying crap I don't need that is new. $2 cups of decaf coffee are my bane. I could have saved 50% more this month if I had further eliminated small pleasures from my life. $2 on a cup of coffee on my way to work or whatever (we have free coffee at work) just feels, to my brain, really expensive for something that I don't actually feel is worth the two dollars compared to the alternative, which is perfectly decent coffee for free if I wait a few minutes. I know I can probably afford an impulse snack every day or whatever, but I think about it like this: It's $2. If I buy it, I'll have it for the thirty minutes it takes to drink or whatever, and an hour after that i won't get any happiness or satisfaction out of having it or having eaten it. If I don't buy it, ten minutes later I'll have forgotten even wanting one. If I can so easily forget about having wanted it, then it clearly isn't worth my money and I might as well hold onto that $2 and spend it on something I'd like more. If it's not completely an impulse purchase and you honestly really like decaf coffee and it would make you sad to not have it, do what everyone else says and get a cost-effective source of coffee (make it at home and bring a thermos), so that you still get what you want as often as you want, just cheaper. There are some things I really do like, that make me happy to eat. There's a bakery near me that sells really good pastries for less than $2. But I don't need to get something from there every day and I know that if I did, I'd probably enjoy the 5th bun in as many days less than I do the first one I've had in a while. So I usually only go there once every couple weeks or so.
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Mar 15, 2015 08:36
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I really appreciate that my office has great free coffee, an espresso machine, and cabinets and refrigerators full of whatever else you might commonly want ranging from healthy (juice, fruit, nuts, granola) to junk food (chips, soda, candy, beer). Cuts down on my own spending on things like that, plus its just good for morale and the environment in general. Also an office with lots of windows and natural light. I've had to do some contracting/consulting at places that don't have anything but water in the break room and no windows, and holy crap is it just soul crushing. The things you take for granted once you're used to them.
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Mar 15, 2015 09:09
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BossRighteous posted:I can't imagine running a business without coffee??? It's so cheap and positive for morale I just can't fathom not having a $7 bin of grounds and a $25 brewer. Not every business is an office. In large scale manufacturing with over 5k people spread across a 200 acre building, it would be a logistical nightmare, and cost several orders of magnitude more than $31.
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Mar 15, 2015 10:52
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zamin posted:Not every business is an office. In large scale manufacturing with over 5k people spread across a 200 acre building, it would be a logistical nightmare, and cost several orders of magnitude more than $31. Plenty of companies with tens of thousands of people make it work, I'm pretty sure that one can too. It will definitely cost more, but the more people you have using something, the cheaper it tends to be per person.
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Mar 15, 2015 13:45
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My hospital job only provided a water fountain (no cups) in our breakroom. I used to bring a thermos/mug in to use for coffee and then water, but people kept stealing them or using them (finding lipstick that was not colors I wore was pretty gross). After going through three mugs I gave up and started buying coffee and the occasional bottle of water to refill. Some people have gross and untrustworthy coworkers and management that refuses to spend any more money on employees then they have to. But yeah it's bad for morale.
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Mar 15, 2015 14:30
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BossRighteous posted:I can't imagine running a business without coffee??? It's so cheap and positive for morale I just can't fathom not having a $7 bin of grounds and a $25 brewer. There is so much money in office coffee supplying with all these loving K Cup and Gevalia pod systems. There are at least 4 companies supplying different parts of my hospital and it must be a couple hundred thousand dollars a year with 10,000 employees going through those pods.
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Mar 15, 2015 15:05
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BEHOLD: MY CAPE posted:There is so much money in office coffee supplying with all these loving K Cup and Gevalia pod systems. There are at least 4 companies supplying different parts of my hospital and it must be a couple hundred thousand dollars a year with 10,000 employees going through those pods. We've got good beans and drip tho, I'm careful because some assholes can't make a decent cup to save themselves so the quality is variable. We've got one of those magic automated espresso things in one of the conference rooms. Some dummy bought a few Kuerigs with the proposal that people just bring their own k-cups if they want better than drip. Everyone realized how dumb and expensive that is for people so we got an auto barista thing now. It's pretty neat.
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Mar 15, 2015 16:29
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Remember the kudos Google got for giving free soda and snacks to their staff, when they were the first to do it? It was considered a major benefit of employment. Of course, the real benefit was to Google itself - staff were more likely to work through their lunchbreaks, they were happy=more productive and it was probably easier to just buy a shitload of stuff and leave it in the breakrooms than sort out coffee contracts, etc.
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Mar 15, 2015 16:52
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We have big machines that are closer to vending machines that supply free but sub standard coffee tea and hot chocolate. We apparently recycle 9-15 million of the vending cups each year and a lot of employees dont bother to drop the cups in the recycling bins. Thats a whole lot of coffee to buy.
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Mar 15, 2015 17:08
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spog posted:Remember the kudos Google got for giving free soda and snacks to their staff, when they were the first to do it? Any time someone trots out that lame joke about building us a nap room I snap. If you're tired, you need to go home. I travel and when my computer is 5 feet from my bed it is a struggle to not work every last moment before turning in. Getting you a cot to nap on would just be another way to wring hours out of your life. Stop joking about it.
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Mar 15, 2015 17:43
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Cast_No_Shadow posted:We have big machines that are closer to vending machines that supply free but sub standard coffee tea and hot chocolate. This, I worked at a Walgreens Distribution Center and they had a few of these. They also had a bunch of the large thermos containers with pumps for larger batch drip brews. Even sites with thousands of people generally have break rooms to accommodate smaller portions of the workforce.
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Mar 15, 2015 18:24
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AgrippaNothing posted:Any time someone trots out that lame joke about building us a nap room I snap. If you're tired, you need to go home. I travel and when my computer is 5 feet from my bed it is a struggle to not work every last moment before turning in. Getting you a cot to nap on would just be another way to wring hours out of your life. Stop joking about it.
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Mar 15, 2015 21:45
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cowofwar posted:A half hour nap can mean the difference between a productive 3.5 hours versus an unproductive four hours. His complaint isn't about napping itself. It is that companies only provide stuff like nap rooms, gyms and free food on the expectation that you spend more time at work. I have personally experienced this when my company buys food for all-nighters on work I completed weeks/months ago. When I leave at 5 or 6, people complain that I have "nothing to do" and that I should be helping them do work they put off instead of going home because the company is going out if its way to make doing the work easier. I rarely do the work, but it does make my life more difficult.
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Mar 15, 2015 21:56
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cowofwar posted:A half hour nap can mean the difference between a productive 3.5 hours versus an unproductive four hours. It also means people stay 5.5hrs instead the originally planned 4. MickyFinn is right, companies that provide onsite food, drinks, nap space, gyms and showers are doing it for one reason; so you'll work 11hrs instead of 8.
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Mar 15, 2015 22:05
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MickeyFinn posted:His complaint isn't about napping itself. It is that companies only provide stuff like nap rooms, gyms and free food on the expectation that you spend more time at work. I have personally experienced this when my company buys food for all-nighters on work I completed weeks/months ago. When I leave at 5 or 6, people complain that I have "nothing to do" and that I should be helping them do work they put off instead of going home because the company is going out if its way to make doing the work easier. I rarely do the work, but it does make my life more difficult. Slightly different topic, but I always have a hard time working the cost/benefit analysis in my head of accepting free food that's probably not great for my diet and current fitness goals vs. the fact that it's... free. When I can, I like to host recruiting candidates because it means I get a decent breakfast & lunch and a much nicer dinner out than I'm used to all without choosing me anything. Usually I pick the good and try and make up for it with lighter eating the next day. Even better was the time my coworker wanted to expense the dinner on his card for the cash back reward points, but let me apply the dinner's points to my Landry's loyalty card since he didn't have one. I got $125 in credit off a ~$1300 bill just for being there, and he probably got about $70 on his rewards for being in a 5% category that quarter. I used the credit later on a Veteran's Day dinner special to take my pregnant friend and her vet husband out to a fancy meal that none of us would normally spend on for free except drinks. I felt pretty  about it, plus I learned about the ambrosia that is broccolini.
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Mar 15, 2015 22:07
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AgrippaNothing posted:It also means people stay 5.5hrs instead the originally planned 4. MickyFinn is right, companies that provide onsite food, drinks, nap space, gyms and showers are doing it for one reason; so you'll work 11hrs instead of 8.
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Mar 15, 2015 22:17
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My company gives a few lifestyle benefits (and we're increasing them steadily), but it's less about maximising time spent at the office than it is about minimising employee's distractions and worries. We're just trying to make sure as much of your mental energy goes into your work as possible (instead of worrying about food, laundry or gyms).
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Mar 15, 2015 22:53
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the littlest prince posted:Plenty of companies with tens of thousands of people make it work, I'm pretty sure that one can too. It will definitely cost more, but the more people you have using something, the cheaper it tends to be per person. They make it work by hiring an actual coffee service.
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Mar 15, 2015 23:06
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AgrippaNothing posted:It also means people stay 5.5hrs instead the originally planned 4. MickyFinn is right, companies that provide onsite food, drinks, nap space, gyms and showers are doing it for one reason; so you'll work 11hrs instead of 8. Not true across the board. My company offers much of that (no nap rooms, though...) and I rarely work more than 8hrs in a day. Some companies offer that stuff because it makes the office a nice and pleasant place to be, which helps with employee morale and retention. When you're a company of highly skilled employees that could have a dozen other job offers within a week of looking, overall morale and happiness is a big intangible factor.
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Mar 15, 2015 23:44
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I think my company does employee perks right. Donuts and bagels for free on Friday mornings, and all the coffee you can drink. Also, if we work 11 hours or more (a rarity, but crunch time is very much a thing with civil consulting) we get $10 extra for dinner. It's a nice little set of perks, but certainly nothing that'll keep you in the office. I'd kill for a gym though.
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Mar 16, 2015 00:56
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Cicero posted:No, they're also doing it because their employees like it and it helps recruitment/retention. I only rarely work overtime at Google and those things are awesome (although I'm not aware of any nap space). I don't believe that's a boon to the company has overlooked either. I'm also 100% sure that management would think you perceive these things as awesome. I'd loving love for someone to launder and press my shirts at work or some such poo poo but I'd also take account that the company was providing this in lieu of actually paying me a fair wage. I wish you google motherfuckers would unionize. You'd all have live in maids I swear to god. I look at the Microsoft campus and lol. That soccer pitch is a big gently caress you, you are worth so much more than we are paying you. Take solace, people with 2 years at google are most likely paid far far more for their knowledge then my 12year experience in my sector. Maybe I'm bad with money for going into a science that was already weaponized by the DoD 50-30 years ago and no one gives a poo poo anymore. AgrippaNothing fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Mar 16, 2015 |
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Mar 16, 2015 02:41
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Working at a company that expects pressed shirts is bad with money and life 
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Mar 16, 2015 02:50
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nothing to do with my company, i like a crisp seam.
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Mar 16, 2015 02:55
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ohgodwhat posted:Working at a company that expects pressed shirts is bad with money and life We recently did new hire interviews for my department over a two day period and several of the guys complained about having to wear a tie on back-to-back days
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Mar 16, 2015 02:56
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AgrippaNothing posted:I don't believe that's a boon to the company has overlooked either. I'm also 100% sure that management would think you perceive these things as awesome. I'd loving love for someone to launder and press my shirts at work or some such poo poo but I'd also take account that the company was providing this in lieu of actually paying me a fair wage. I wish you google motherfuckers would unionize. You'd all have live in maids I swear to god. I look at the Microsoft campus and lol. That soccer pitch is a big gently caress you, you are worth so much more than we are paying you.
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Mar 16, 2015 04:39
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AgrippaNothing posted:I'd loving love for someone to launder and press my shirts at work or some such poo poo but I'd also take account that the company was providing this in lieu of actually paying me a fair wage. Wow. The reason they provide coffee rather than pay that amount out in wages is that the cost of the coffee isn't taxed like your wages are (including double FICA), the plumbing and electrical utilities that support them are already in place in the building, and because by buying some basic equipment, they can supply those things much, much cheaper than what it would cost you if you went out to Starbucks everyday. Are you one of those people that sees everything in the most cynical possible light?
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Mar 16, 2015 04:44
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AgrippaNothing posted:nothing to do with my company, i like a crisp seam.
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Mar 16, 2015 05:05
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AgrippaNothing posted:It also means people stay 5.5hrs instead the originally planned 4. MickyFinn is right, companies that provide onsite food, drinks, nap space, gyms and showers are doing it for one reason; so you'll work 11hrs instead of 8. My company has a few onsite "gyms" (buncha cardio machines, dumbbells up to 80 and gobs of strength machines, but no barbells or plates), even though we can't start work earlier or end later than the shift provides without explicit permission, which is limited. This probably has a lot to due with the nature of the work, though. In manufacturing, people that work out regularly are less prone to injury, and need less paid time off, so it definitely makes financial sense to the company.
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Mar 16, 2015 07:24
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zamin posted:My company has a few onsite "gyms" (buncha cardio machines, dumbbells up to 80 and gobs of strength machines, but no barbells or plates), even though we can't start work earlier or end later than the shift provides without explicit permission, which is limited.
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Mar 16, 2015 07:29
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Cicero posted:Between salary+bonus+stock new grads at Google are making like 150k. How is that not a fair wage? I'm not anti-union in general but I don't see the value to software engineers who are already well compensated. Wage fixing lawsuit? It doesn't surprise me though that tech isn't unionized as a pretty substantial number of people hold political views that oppose unions.
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Mar 16, 2015 08:05
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SiGmA_X posted:I work at an insurance company and we have a similar gym in each of our buildings basements that is free. I really wish there were plates and a squat cage. Software shop here. There's a gym with barbells and plates. Even an ez-curl one though none of the plates fit it.
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Mar 16, 2015 08:14
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