I'm thinking of things like:
Often we don't realise how much we base purchasing decisions on "everyone is doing it", without researching properly or even just stopping and thinking about it for a second. What other examples can you think of?
Yeh, I don't even have enough space in my apartment for everything I use in the gym. I certainly can't build a power rack myself. All of this equipment by the way would costs tens of thousands of dollars - hardly cheap compared to gym membership.
The gym membership thing is a little narrow sighted. It takes quite a bit of money to get a decent home gym going.
All I do is lift weights, and I would have to invest around 10k to get an equivalent workout. That would just be squat racks, racks of dumbells bars benchpress etc. That'd be me foregoing anything remotely fancy like leg press.
Not to mention that I don't have the rubber floor or equivalent open space to launch 100kg of dumbbells in front of me once I'm done chest pressing.
I do agree it's a huge waste of money when you don't use it though and you see that all too often.
Rubbish.
All you need is a power rack, decent one with olympic bar and weights will set you back $1500. From that you can do squats, deadlift, bench press, shoulder press, pull ups, all barbell exercises, dips. What do you need dumbells for that cant be done with that setup?
Flys
@kobrien456: They are not the core muscle building / strengthening exercises. Most people doing fly's would benefit far more by doing a couple more sets of bench.
Besides the rubbish music this is what annoys me most about gyms, seeing people performing all these ridiculous fluff exercises and then seeing them squat 60kg, bench 40kg and most times not even deadlifting.
You can do fluff when you spend 6 hours a day training.
Expensive phone plans. I just buy outright phones and pay like $12/month. My friend who earns like 20% of what I do spends $100/month on the latest phone but could easily pay like $30/month without having to reduce his usage.
The big telcos definitely price gouge. Just look at their dividend returns to shareholders.
what phone plan is $12 a month with a humane amount a data? Basement dwellers obviously can just use wifi but for working and studying individuals 1-2 gig is the bare minimum
Well I have PennySIM Go Global which is $8.90/month with 1GB and about 20 free untimed calls. However I don't think they're taking any new customers which is weird.
Amasim As You Go is $0/month and you can add a 1GB data pack for $9.90. Or a 10GB data pack with a whole year expiry is $100.
Vaya has an $18 plan with 1.5GB.
PennyTel you are on your own if anything goes wrong, and the company has so many shady business dealings that they could literally disappear overnight.
Vaya/LiveConnected will not hesitate to screw you over if they want to.
Amaysim is decent.
@The Land of Smeg: Just don't keep paying big bucks to Hellstra/Floptus/Vodafail without considering the cheaper alternatives. PennyTel's customer service has been pretty good the few times I needed to contact them. Been with them ever since Tel$tra pulled the plug on Kogan Mobile.
@inherentchoice: Kogan pulled the plug on Kogan Mobile. They went with One Telecom who resold Telstra, One Telecom had in their literature to Kogan that they could offer "Unlimited for $30" but they only meant that as an example package, not a price point that was properly costed.
Kogan took "Unlimited for $30" literally, and when it proved that it simply was not sustainable without taking on massive losses to pay Telstra, Kogan would not relent on that offering.
Kogan pushed it to the Supreme Court, which Kogan won, as their literature did not have a disclaimer that it was only an example, so those massive losses fell onto One Telecom.
But by winning they were too short-sighted to realise that by forcing their supplier to make good on an offer that they literally could not afford to offer, the only option for their supplier is bankruptcy, and therefore not able to supply anything at all.
If Kogan would have just listed to One Telecom that the plans were unsustainable, and offered the pro-rata refunds on 365 day plans in the first place (like they did end up giving to customers anyway) and made re-offered it at a sensible month-to-month price, then none of those problems and collapse of other businesses would have happened.
@The Land of Smeg:
PennyTel VOIP is still the cheapest around. If you paying a third of the nearest competitor price then one can put up with a little BS
@KevinFine: For sure, use it while it lasts for the price you pay, but don't give them access to take money from you directly and don't hold your breath. I'm surprised they have lasted this long.
@The Land of Smeg:
Yep, Only Bpay payments from me. Their account control is a mess and it's true they may not last much longer. At $5 for the freedom plan and nearly unlimited untimed calls…not really sustainable…but heres hoping
@inherentchoice:
Been with Pennytel for years. Well worth it for me, but if anything goes wrong may take 6+ months to fix.
Emails to them were answered with solid answers in my case.
I think the $8.88 p/m sim deal looks tempting. With 1Gb and about 24 included untimed calls to mobiles or landlines, but no 13/18 calls.
Good deal.
How come Pennytel aren't allowing new customers.
The $8.90 deal is quite good.
To be fair I've done the math before, and at times it's been cheaper or the same price to go with a plan. The payments are spread over 24 months which breaks the cost down.
It really depends on the cost of the phone. Not uncommon to see a $1000 iPhone on the same plan as some $100 rubbish thing. One gives decent value while the other is a total rip.
Well a 24 month contract for iPhone 6 = $2016 on Telstra with 1gb.
Buy an unlocked iPhone 6 for about $850 + an $18 × 24 month SIM-only plan with 1.5GB = $1282.
That's a saving of $734. Would be surprised to see an example where a plan is cheaper.
iPhone 5. Telstra. $60/month for 24 months. $600 of calls, unlimited SMS, 1.5GB of data. $1440 / 2 years.
Outright was more like $950. That leaves $20/month to try and find a plan that can try and top that (hard) and also is an inferior network.
Samsung Galaxy S. Was like $30/month for 24 months on Virgin. Can't remember the info, something like $400 calls + SMS, 250MB data (this was 2010-11 odd). So $680 / 2 years.
Phone itself was ~$300. Same thing, total pain to find anything like for that $15/month.
"When people keep on their $60 contract after the 24-month contract is up, that's where the real money is made.."
This. I switched from Telstra to prepaid once over, as a lot of the cost was the phone which was already paid off.
One is with telstra, with good service and great reception paying over 24months. Another is with a small reseller with practically no support and inferior network. Paying upfront for the phone with $20 sim card fees, $20 security deposits. Also may overcharge you every few months where you have to call them up and wait a couple of hours to get back. And when you leave you have to chase them up and go to the tio to get back your security deposits and get charged an extra month just because.
Yep I know which I'll pick.
To be fair I've done the math before, and at times it's been cheaper or the same price to go with a plan. The payments are spread over 24 months which breaks the cost down.
It was when one of the big MNVOs collapsed. That's when TPG increased cost, decreased quota, same as every other $15/pm plan. It depends on the phone that's included in the plan as well and the plan allowed usage. Right now I'm not sure, all the outright phones are going up in price (new-releases) thanks to AUD becoming weaker.
When people keep on their $60 contract after the 24-month contract is up, that's where the real money is made..
pay like $12/month
earns like 20%
pay like $30/month
But what are the actual amounts? ><
As I said above I pay $8.90/month for PennySIM Go Global which includes about 20 free calls. Then I can spend an average of $3 a month for texts and additional calls or occasional extra data.
20% and $30 a month are speculative figures. I only mentioned 20% as his finances are tight so he of anyone should be looking for opportunities to save, yet he continues to grease the pockets of the big telcos by signing up for the latest phones and then going over the data limit. And now he's locked-in for 24 months, with a locked handset, it's not so easy to get out of his ~$3000 contract. I think he is typical of many young people who don't give any thought to cheaper alternatives for their phone.
I thought of another one:
To anyone who knows what 4K means, the number of situations you'd want to spend an extra $500 to get 4K on your TV, right now, is tiny. But millions are trying to buy one in 2015 when there's still almost no content (and there won't be a lot of 4K content before your next TV purchase).
…and then they only watch DVDs (via composite cable) and 480p FTA TV shows on it.
…and never hook it up to a proper sound system.
…and half of them have a McMansion with a fully fitted-out home theatre room, that has proper blinds and the wiring for a proper 100" projector, but put their $2000 55" TV in there and enjoy the vastly inferior image quality because they've never seen what a modern 1080p projector can do (for only $900).
…and half the people who do vaguely understand what 4K means are hooking it up to game consoles and Netflix-over-ADSL-or-slower.
Nothing wrong with a 4K TV today, they happen to be the same TVs with the best panels and the best features as they are the flagships. If my current 1080p wasn't so damn competent I would've rushed out and bought a particular 4K TV for ~$7000, the added colour accuracy and black level is amazing.
Nothing wrong with a 4K TV today, they happen to be the same TVs with the best panels and the best features as they are the flagships
Are there really no flagship 1080p TVs anymore? If there are, aren't they significantly cheaper, for the same picture quality (excluding the tiny amount of actual 4K content)?
I would've rushed out and bought a particular 4K TV for ~$7000,
Hand in your OzBargainer card right now!
the added colour accuracy and black level is amazing
I'm sure it's pretty cool. Is it cooler than the new laser projectors in that price range? Was it 130 inches, like they can do?
Most people who say this have never seen any of the amazing new $2000 home cinema projectors in action. 80" TVs can't hold a candle to them.
If you really care about picture quality, then you need to at least consider projectors.
Are there really no flagship 1080p TVs anymore?
Yep, you won't find a 1080p TV that will tickle my fancy with technology like full array LED backlighting. LG 1080p OLED is an exception, but their processing and ability to control gamma is laughable…and the push for curve TV, I'll wait for another brand
Hand in your OzBargainer card right now!
Why because it's not $1? The definition of a 'bargain' is the cheapest price or massive discount, and certainly that certain TV I want can't be had for less than ~$9000, but I have the opportunity to buy for ~$7000.
80" TVs can't hold a candle to them.
I reckon the TVs I'm thinking of do hold a candle to or exceed. But I won't bother with the details instead I'd say there's a big reason why many like myself don't have a projector: my room isn't big enough for a screen ~75"+, I don't have structural mounting points for a projector, I don't want to pay $300-$700 for a lamp change every 3-5yrs, running a permanent HDMI/power cable through the roof is a nightmare or will be costly, projectors can't produce great picture with the blinds open for casual TV, they don't instantly turn on, there's likely no integrated features like WiFi for quick mobile phone casting. Sure you could say, you would run it all through an integrated receiver, which I do have a great flagship ~$2000 one but sometimes I don't want to run my full home theatre system for news programs etc.
And in the end of the day I don't live in a McMansion to fit a projector lol
@plmko: the issue is that the $7000 bracket doesn't represent the best value, don't you think that tv would be exceeded by a $2000 tv in 3 years? Even if that wasn't the case, surely you would be better to buy a $2k TV every 3 years than a $7k tv once every 10 years.
No actually the issue is what you 'value' in a TV, some people pay $1k,$2k and call it a day, where as people like myself get pedantic about certain attributes and benchmarks. Honestly TV technology doesn't change as fast as you think, I'm currently running a Sony HX925 which I bought over 4 years ago, and you'd be hard pressed to find many TV's beating it still in colour accuracy or core technology, but in the end of the day i've enjoyed top notch picture very early.
I am a gamer, your arguement is invalid :p (I have a custom built beast PC and optic fibre.)
What about mouse lag?
currently my razer naga mouse is ultra reponsive, which can be a pain, but I will look into input lag at purchase time.
adding to what "schwinn" pointed out, i would suggest trying to research what the input lag on the TV your looking at is before buying.
I plan on buying a 4K TV for PC gaming myself, and for me i had to make a choice between the lowest input lag or good (but not great) amount of input lag but with a strobed backlight. i chose the strobed backlight for lowest motion blur but you might have other priorities.
I found this site to be quite useful in finding out about input lag among the various 4K TV's: http://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/by-test-results/input-lag
This is gold!
Thanks for the reminder.
OP forgot to add ludicrously priced gold-plated HDMI cables.
It depends what your using it for. most people who just watch movies (not many 4K movies yet) and play console games wouldn't benefit.
I plan on buying a 4K TV this year though, but that's because i plan on playing PC games at 4K.
i plan on playing PC games at 4K.
Have you looked at benchmarks for 4K gaming? I was under the impression that current hardware still struggled badly with 4K on graphically intensive games (i.e. the ones you care about getting 4K for), even for those spending thousands on SLI 980's…
980 TI master race here. Can run most AAA games now at 60+ FPS @4k on triple monitors (Witcher 3, Dragon Age, MGS5, BF4 etc).
Iv'e been saving up for awhile but waiting because either the screens were shit (back in the days when we had 4K30hz screens) or 2 GPU's just fell short (back when Sli 970 was seen as the go to) i now plan on going with Sli 980ti and going by benchmarks they will run most games maxed at 4K60, the only exceptions being games where you can push things really far, like hairworks in Witcher 3 or some of the advanced settings in GTA 5. see this video where someone runs Crysis 3 at max settings 4K60hz :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rgw2D9jB7Qw
Niiiiice. Can't wait until these come down in price a bit. Can't justify it yet, I have an R9 280x.
3x 4K monitors and you think you are getting 60+ FPS with a single 980ti?
The BS meter is off the scale! All the games (bar BF4) that you mentioned can't even get 60fps on a single 4K monitor.
http://static4.gamespot.com/uploads/original/422/4222343/283…
http://cdn.overclock.net/1/19/350x700px-LL-190d4eda_4k.jpeg
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph9306/74772.png
http://www.techspot.com/articles-info/1060/bench/3840.png
@c0balt: Yeah something definitely seems off, considering a single 980 TI struggles with Witcher 3 at 4K60, so 3x4K60 seems like a nightmare to run. maybe they wrote their comment wrong and mean't that they use 4K as well as 3x1080p?
@c0balt: It is probably possible with lower settings. E.g. using zero AA is perfectly fine when for 4K. I don't lower my settings, cause I'm a beast, but just saying it is not necessarily false.
lol, MGS5 @ 4k is easily 60fps max with no dips at max setting, only big dip is the dust that quiet kick up during her sprint.
Witcher 3, take out AA, hairworks and foliage (ESPECIALLY foliage). Easy 60+fps there.
BF4, take out AA, still an easy 60fps.
Dragon Age Inquistion, easy 60fps unless you're slinging multiply fire spells such as meteor, fire mine, explosion etc.
But hey, lets all be sheep here and believe whatever is on the internet/"tech expert".
If you actually are using 3 monitors, then yes, you are spouting some absolute, reality-defying bullshit.
There is 4K content on Netflix and Youtube
4K Tvs upscale 1080p and make it look way better
Once you have a 4K TV, it ruins 1080p TVs for you, you can see every single shitty pixel that was never there before.
4K TVs aren't anymore expensive than 1080p TVs.
4K TVs have all the best features
You need 4K 70 inches and above
There is 4K content on Netflix
That's nice, but does it look better than a 1080p blu-ray yet? The verdict so far is from the experts is: "Maybe a tiny bit, but not really, and the sound is worse" (see https://www.avforums.com/article/is-4k-netflix-better-than-b…)
…and to get the streaming quality that high, you need very fast cable or NBN. And you have to make sure the TV comes with a special 4k netflix app. And very few shows support it, so far.
All in all, while we hope this changes soon, watching a decent proportion of your actual films or high-quality TV in 4K is still not ready for prime time.
All correct. I have a 4k computer monitor and NBN with 100 down and the 2 shows netflix offers in 4k looked terrible. Was highly compressed even with NBN.
I have a 4K 70 inch Sony, Bigpond Cable and the 4K content is amazing.
But way to ignore everything I said. It doesn't even matter about the 4K, the TV up scales HD and it looks amazing too, way better than any HD TV.
Owning a 4K TV did one bad thing. That LG 55inch OLED used to look unbelievable when I first saw it. Now when I see its crappy 1080P image, with all its blocky pixels, all the black in the world can't save it from looking like complete ass.
My folks just bought this: http://www.harveynorman.com.au/tv-blu-ray-home-theatre/tvs/t… for about $1600 I think, I thought oh no when I heard they bought 4K, especially at 50", they don't even have a bluray player. but they seem happy with the TV, hopefully my thoughts on 4K at this point are out of touch and the comments above about flagship panels pan out that they didn't get ripped off, but i'll rock my Viera 54 Plasma for a while yet I think.
4K TV I can understand, but I'd be very keen for a 4K monitor for my desktop. One of my colleagues at work has recently been allocated a very shiny new monitor…
Agreed, the increase in bitrate does not justify the size of screen you'd need to see the difference from upscaling 1920x1080.
HDR was added with the UHD spec though on some models, the standard that dolby pushed through. Sad that the sound guys were the only ones concerned with bandwidth and how much is too much.
Id be all for it if UHD managed to make the film industry drop their 35mm cameras since the resolving power from scanning it runs out around 6k anyway, maybe then 16:9 might actually win.
DCI 4k is still pretty close as it is.
I don't get those UHD TVs either. Nothing is broadcast in anything better than HD (with most in SD). Even Blu-Rays are only full HD. The only thing I can think of that could be shown in true UHD (as opposed to up-scaling) would be computer games.
…and half of them have a McMansion with a fully fitted-out home theatre room, that has proper blinds and the wiring for a proper 100" projector, but put their $2000 55" TV in there and enjoy the vastly inferior image quality because they've never seen what a modern 1080p projector can do (for only $900).
Better have an LED in it for that $900 or you'll be replacing bulbs every year or two at $300+ a pop IF you can find the right one.
Nobody buys replacement lamps anymore, a new projector is too cheap, and the lamps now last for years. The BenQ W1070 is $950 and the lamp lasts 3500 hours (6000 in eco mode).
That's a two hour movie every night for 1750 days (4.8 years) or 3000 days (8.2 years) in eco mode.
If you're not upgrading to a better projector by then, $270 for a new lamp won't exactly break your budget.
You believe that the lamps last 3500-6000 hours? I have a bridge to sell you.
Sure but the claims made about light bulb life are often bogus. I don't own a projector but plenty complain on the forums and I do have first hand experience with too many CFLs burning out and so do friends and family.
bottled water.
I forgot my steel metal bottle at home during a tennis session one day. Was adamant I was not going to buy a water bottle, so drank from the tap using my hands as cups, while people looked at me weirdly.
Just like we did in the old days lol
everyone always says that, but buying a bottle of water when you are out and thirsty is sometimes practical / convenient. Carrying your own bottle is just not feasible all the time.
I remember when I first saw bottled water scratching my head and thinking that such a stupid product would never take off. I just didn't think people were that wasteful or silly as to spend money on something that was all but free. How wrong I was! It's execellent proof that the "free market" is sometimes crazy. A sane market would demand better availability of the nearly free stuff instead of an all round expensive environmental disaster.
Children's birthday parties at playcentres
Actually, I consider these decent value! My local one costs about $200 for ten kids. I break that down as:
When we don't use them, we spend $150 just on the food (that's not even going that fancy, these days, just a few things from Costco).
I don't have kids but my siblings and friends do.
Most of the parties they've had costed closer to $1000.
BTW - in south east melbourne
Yeah you have to shop around…
$1000? I'm in the wrong business!
The place we use is in a very cheap area, I'll admit.
and eat chips and nuggets
lol healthy nutrition for growing brains
brains
Take some party food to the park, sweep the mess into a garbage bag when you are done. If your kids' friends have parents like some I've met they won't be able to help themselves from doing the herding.
I held a party in the park a month ago for 10 kids - $60 of drinks/snacks from aldi, 6 pizzas from dominos, some streamers and balloons. go and play kids. use your imagination.
A great idea if you don't have kids born in winter as that generally means rain and wet slides and stuff.
Eneloop - one of our favourites.
I keep running out of eneloops, actually…
try recharging them
You mean that you actually use them? I thought it was a collectors item.
@ShiKu: Well they do retain their recharge for longer than other rechargables, so it sounds like a sound investment to me.
@herzy: No they are an investment that will save me when the recession hits. Eneloops will be the only commodity left standing.
$4.50 flat-white from local cafe, 2 cups a day, 5 days a week… How many Eneloop can you get from that! Although some might argue that hoarding Eneloop is also a waste of money.
Edit: eatwell365 beat me by 1 sec.
I don't know what you're doing with your flat-whites. But I find that Coffee is a serious investment in my productivity.
Should campaign to the government to make coffee consumption tax-deductible, at least on a workday.
Almost as bad as cigarettes
(1x)$4.50 coffee per day over 1 year = $1642.50. That's 3.29% of a $50,000 salary.
(2x)$4.50 coffees = $3,285. That's 6.58% of a $50,000 salary.
Or $1170 per year as most people only work 5 days per week.
My coffee addiction doesn't stop for weekends.
Coffee is free from almost every Pokie Room, it's one of the only ways to actually beat the house.
Over $2k in coffee a year, wow.
Whatever that can be considered as "hobby related" or "personal satisfaction related" can be seen as a dumb thing that way too many people spend way too much money on, in my opinion. Usually those come with personal satisfaction which some people might not understand because they don't see the value in that.
I have a home gym and just signed up for a gym membership.
Power rack and treadmill at home (Granted I wish I didn't buy the treadmill as I don't use that enough since I just do weights at home)
I bought the gym membership as I got bored of doing nothing during my lunch break at work and figured the gym would be a good time killer.