ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, I prefer to pay less for something.
If it meets my needs why spend more?
My flivver is a 2008 Hyundai Elantra. I get the oil & filter changed every 3,500 miles or so. The vehicle is MECHANICALLY in great shape; the interior no so much, but it gets me from Point A to Point B just fine.
Could a Caddy do better? Do I need the speed of a souped up (do people still use that expression) pony?
It’s pretty good on fuel as long as I stray within the legal limit and its fairly comfortable — all-in-all, I consider it money well spent.
I’ve had Fords, Lincolns, Oldsmobiles, Buicks, and even an American Motors Rebel wagon — another good vehicle — but the Hyundai does the job and I’m happy with it.
My daughter gifted me with a smart phone. It’s a Redmi 6A. Hardly a top of the line Motorola or Samsung, but it turns out it sounds better than the Spouse’s more expensive (and slightly bigger) LG.
All the reviews I’ve read are that it is a very good phone for the money.
It meets my needs as a phone, a text message exchanger, and a platform for WhatsApp.
What’sApp for anyone who doesn’t know, is a free, international voice/image service similar to Skype but sans the heavy hand of Microsoft. The “better performance” mentioned above is via WhatsApp.
The daughter got the phones as part of a wireless plan. She also got one for her 7 year old daughter, a/k/a My Favorite Grand-daughter. (She’s my only grand-daughter so no one will have hurt feelings.)
The phone is a “little” small for my fat fingers, but the Spouse gifted me with a stylus from a neighborhood dollar store. The $1 stylus includes ! a flashlight (torch for those from across the pond) and a red (ruby?) laser pointer. Both work on a replaceable battery — and all for one U.S. dollar.
Actually, styluses — to be correct, “stylii” — are 10 for $10 on line, but with a flashlight AND laser pointer?
Our phone service — smart phones and pseudo-landline — are from Consumer Cellular.
Consumer Cellular, hereafter “CC,” is a pretty good service. I have a ZTE “wireless home base” that converts cell phone signals to something my ancient Uniden cordless system (of two stations) can use.
The Unidens are often more comfortable to use than cell phones of any type, especially when on hold.
CC just sent me an email telling me it was upgrading the service to four or five “G.”
I’ll have to swap out a SIM card and hopefully the card will match my account. Fortunately, CC has “pretty good” customer support; it’s better technically than the billing unit.
The combined CC bill — two cell phones with voice, text and data, and the ZTE (voice only) is less than the bill for our former landline-only service.
Since 90% of all data — including WhatsApp — is via our modem/router, our data usage with CC is minimal. (We still have the ISP to finance.)
My name is not Benjamin Kubelsky (right) and I am not “cheap.” It is just that I hate to pay for a “name” that the only benefit it carries is snobbishness.
True, a Caddy may be better built than my Hyundai — then why doesn’t it have Hyundai's 10 year/100,000 mile factory warranty? — and a Moto smart phone may have a better camera — but does it compare to my 4*5 (inch) technical camera or my old Canon F-1?
My Spouse drives a Benz 350 that is so technologically advanced she can’t use many of the goodies. We had a Jaguar X40 (a/k/a XJ6) — in order to change a headlight the whole front end had to be removed ! — and neither vehicle was as reliable as the Hyundai.
I won’t buy something because it is inexpensive if it is cheap.
“Cheap” meaning “shoddily made” or “made of inferior materials.” That is throwing good money after bad (or something); in the end it is wasteful.
But, when I find something that has good value for the money (even if it is manufactured in China such as are the cell phones and the stylus — the Hyundai is from South Korea), if I have a need for the item, I’ll buy it.
There is a difference between being frugal and being Benjamin Kubelsky cheap.
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