It occurred to me today just how much money I have saved over the years by being a cheap piece of shit. I also waste it in other ways but that's a story for another day.

Film & TV

Torrented. Ever since it became possible to do so. My wife pays for Netflix, but I don't like relying on internet connections to get through shows with varying quality. I also just on principle hate the idea of having this binge-encouraging platform where you have so much junk at your fingertips you end up feeling there's nothing worth watching. Or, because you paid for it, you just end up watching things for the sake of making your money's worth. Instead, torrenting takes time, and you need to actively seek out the things you specifically want to see. I like that.

Music Software

I used to torrent notation software; Finale, Sibelius. Then the open source Musescore came into play and I've been a dedicated convert ever since. It has a cool community website and I think functions better than the now ludicrously priced alternatives.

When it came to DAWs, I'd also torrent them - these are the programs used for music production, recording, mixing etc.

But my delightful lifelong friend went all in on the subscription to it. The company allows up to 5 devices to use the account, and he offered me one of those 5, which I gladly accepted and have complete access to everything he has purchased (a lot!).

Games

My PS5 - Another lifelong friend of mine is a massive gamer and as it so happens, any account can be used on two devices. This friend happily offered me that second device, and so I have free access to every game he ever buys - HUNDREDS. endless content I will never ever manage to touch.

Investing

I've been slowly increasing my investments, and now the app Etoro has awarded me the Platinum Club status (anyone with over $25,000 invested), something that comes with some worthwhile perks. Two of which I'm quite fond of; Subscriptions to Wall Street Journal, Barron's, and Fiscal.AI Pro.

Combined, this is straight up $60/month that I get for free simply by being a fairly large investor.

Would I have paid for any of these otherwise? Absolutely not. But I enjoy the daily crosswords even though I can answer roughly none of the questions.

YouTube

Adblockers & Brave browser. But, I do respect the creators I watch, so I actively annoy myself by watching a whole ton throughout the day on my phone app, and leave the ads going so I contribute a bit.

AI

Basically, I'll use AI as much as free access allows, I'll never pay a penny for it.

I do actually pay for some things.

There are actually four things I can think of that I pay a subscription to use, things that are either absolutely necessary or things that I simply want to support: a VPN which is absolutely essential to even exist in this country, although I split it two ways with my friend again with shared device agreements.

NetEase music (Spotify but for China) at something like $4 a month, and Meituan bike sharing, which is about $1 a month - I cycle 10x per week during work commutes so it's pretty worthwhile.

Finally, I paid for a one-time subscription to the Musescore website so I can have free access to download the community's music scores This is not entirely necessary; there are websites like IMSLP which provide vast libraries of material more than I'd ever need. But I strongly support Musescore in everything it does, so there's that.

Morality

I've struggled with the idea of torrenting my whole life. But for most of that time, I was too poor to buy these things anyway so it was a certainty I would have just gone without if I didn't have access.

Then when I went to China it wasn't even illegal - countless DVD stores lined the streets with pirated DVDs for sale cheap. Even to this day, it's just an ignored part of the ecosystem.

But not being illegal doesn't make it moral - something people often forget these days.

There's plenty of moral arguments for doing this stuff but that's not why I torrent. I just prefer the manual labour of it. I don't like having the entire world at my fingertips at any given moment. It feels toxic.

I tend to ask myself, would I buy this if I couldn't get it for free? If not, then I'm ok with it. I'm neither stealing it from somebody else - it's an infinitely reproducible digital entity - nor depriving the companies of my money.

For everything else, I've had a lifelong dream, quite literally since I was a child, to one day own a home I can build a big series of shelves to then finally buy all the CDs, books and other material versions of everything that defines who I am from what I consume.

Unfortunately, now middle-aged, the idea is still, and perhaps forever will be, a distant fantasy. I've already more or less resigned myself to being a lifelong renter. Sigh. But the image of my living room is still living rent free in my head.

But it is interesting to connect my behavioural habits to my upbringing as a poor kid. Even to this day, despite having plenty of disposable income, I take months of pondering and browsing to buy anything of significant value, and even then I tend to get the cheapest possible version of whatever it is I want; guitars, computers, digital pianos. Rather than pay for a gym membership, I just buy cheap old weight plates from online and work out at home under dangerous, shoddy conditions.

Everything I ever do that costs money has an entire backstory of me finding the cheapest possible way to get what I want, and the act of purchasing is a bit painful over a certain amount! I have no debt, no credit cards. Never have.

I should probably calculate how much I have 'saved' over 20 years with this poor-man mindset. It must be in the tens of thousands of pounds! Perhaps enough to buy a house one day?