Books Archives - Frugaling

What I Love About Reading

When I was younger, you couldn’t pay me to read a book. My parents read to me as a child, but in middle and high school, I was a Sparknotes reader; preferably, about 15-30 minutes before exams.

Homer’s Odyssey sat mostly unread. I was supposed to have spent the summer before my freshman year of high school analyzing the prose and coming up with something intelligent to say. Instead, I read the first 75 pages and called it good.

Reading wasn’t something I naturally enjoyed doing. It felt boring and stuffy. While I enjoyed the cover artwork, the text never enticed me to stay until the end. Ironically, I loved purchasing new — open it up, bend the spine, smell the glue and paper, and see those perfect 90-degree corners — books. But again, they sat mostly unfinished.

Something clicked in college. Suddenly, I enjoyed turning the pages of a good book of fiction. I wanted to read more. And for the last eight to nine years, I’ve become further engrossed and in love with the act of reading.

Now 27, I want to read even more. A lot more. And I’m not talking about finding a good book to read before bed or in between classes or to start my day. I’m talking about reading for entire days — hours upon hours!

I want to get swept away in a non-fiction subject or in fictional characters, plots, and narratives. I want to be amazed by others’ writing and ideas; most of all, I want to learn and hone my own writing abilities through reading. I learn through talented authors. They’re my role models.

The act has become this thing I lust after. Inside, I say to the world, “Get out of my way, leave me alone, stop talking to me. I need to read!” I read like there’s no tomorrow, because I’m not sure if there is. I read because there’s something I need to learn and would be remiss not to know it. More and more pages turned, pulled, flipped. Hours pass uninterrupted; frankly, I prefer it that way.

As I reflect on my habit, I realize what I love most about it. The classic book is a deep dive into a subject — whether fiction or not. Inside this world — and unlike the Internet — nothing pops up. Nothing pokes or aggravates. Nothing makes suggestions. There aren’t click-bait or artificial headlines. I don’t break from the reading to click and subscribe. I don’t scroll down to get back to the content. Ralph Nader says the only time to escape advertisements might be sleep, but books still provide an oasis.

Frugality is much easier with a good book. In fact, reading might be the lowest cost of entertainment on Earth. Consuming television and movies is cheaper than ever, but remains more expensive than going and getting a book.

For instance, a movie might have a 90-minute runtime and cost $10 to buy. That’s roughly a dollar for every 10 minutes. Meanwhile the purchase price of a book might be comparable — say $10 — but the runtime is magnificent. Pick up a lengthy tome like Stephen King’s 11/22/63 at 849 pages, and you’ll be reading for a 20-30 hours. It’s pennies to read every hour — enjoyment at a fraction of the price. And this doesn’t even account for public libraries!

Living simply and frugally is easier with a good book. These hours spent avoiding material consumption for knowledge, empathy, and understanding. And best of all, it won’t leave your wallet reeling.

So, what will you read this summer?

We’ve Outsourced Our Lives

By Frugaling 9 Comments

Michael Pollan likes to talk about food. In fact, he’s written six books on the subject. Some of his highly reviewed books include Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food, and Food Rules. Amazingly, Netflix caught on to Pollan’s popularity and turned his latest book — Cooked — into a series.

Cooked is about the transformation from raw to cooked foods. This simple difference is what Pollan thinks distinguishes man from the rest of the animal kingdom. He’s got a point: we love our cooked food. The flavors ignite. Further, when we cook food we chew less and do more than eat all day.

In the first episode of the Netflix series, Pollan explains how hunting, farming, and scavenging have all been outsourced. We’ve simplified the process of eating on every level. Corporate giants have vertically integrated food prep and delivery with surprising efficiency. From frozen meals to prepackaged sandwiches, everything has been prepared for us. For example, the turkey has been raised, fed, slaughtered, plucked, deboned, frozen, thawed, sliced, seasoned, and placed. We don’t see the life and death — we’ve outsourced everything.

The reasons for the decline in food production and cooking are multifaceted. It seems work and productivity have motivated us to pursue this path. Imagine the busy lawyer or medical doctor having a catered lunch because they are “too busy” to prepare and eat. We accept this in society — hell, we encourage it. We accept there’s a certain class of people who cannot “afford” to spend the time making food. And we accept that people should specialize until they merely focus on their vocational tasks.

As the episode unfolded, my appreciation of food outsourcing shifted more globally. I thought about what else gets outsourced. Our society has taken almost everything off of our plates so that we can focus more time on other activities. We continue to specialize well beyond food.

The decline of manufacturing in America can largely be seen as an effort to reduce costs, time, and environmental burden on the countries that now produce. We’ve outsourced the “negatives” and taken the cost savings. Comically, we criticize China for using so many coal-fired power plants and then click buy on our new computer, coffee maker, smartphone, etc. — all made in China.

We’ve outsourced reading longer books and research to journalists and even computer algorithms. Now, people read books for us and distill what we need to know — what’s most important. Consequently, this means we get a synthesized perspective of a book. It’s like playing the telephone game through articles, but most of the time we read that review to understand the book.

Even budgeting and financial management are thrown to others. We use Mint.com or other financial software to manage and update us about spending. There’s no need to balance a checkbook anymore — I’m not sure if I’d even know how. We trust financial advisers and/or digital facsimiles to manage everything for us. We’ve got better, more important things to focus on!

More and more, we watch sports and reality TV shows instead of playing outside and engaging in our own relationships. The drama of a royal, elite families and others’ lives encapsulates our attention, as those nearest us seem to wane. Many watch the throw, shot, or pass, but I’m not sure how many are making that throw, shot, or pass themselves anymore.

Even in academic circles, professors and graduate students are using other people to do their statistical analysis. Academics can even outsource their statistical analysis to India for further review and completion. Afterwards, with a nice, clean result in hand, researchers can write up the interpretations — or pay another person to do that part.

And as I type these words, they’re being stored in a cloud server for safekeeping, backup, and preparation for publication on my website. Both the cloud and website servers are miles and miles away from me. I’ll never see the computers, nor would I need to. I’ve outsourced these storage needs — someone else is handling them for me.

Again, I settle on this simple conclusion: we’ve embraced the streamlining of our lives for the purpose of efficiency. But what is this efficiency for? Is it so that we can focus on work more? Is it so that we can make more money? Is it so we can relax more?

Absent of answers, I wonder where we’ll be in a few decades. When asked questions about our personality and identities and hobbies, will we reply that we enjoy watching and reading others’ accounts of life? Will we effectively outsource our identities to the TV shows, movies, and reviews of reviews?

Resisting The Urge To Buy, Buy, Buy

By Frugaling 14 Comments

I scanned the bookshelf and held a new copy of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo in my hands. The binding was unbroken, and the pages were cut like perfect rectangles — the book hadn’t been read.

It’s a favorite of mine, and it was being sold for the bargain price of $3.99. Looking at the back cover, I could see that this regularly cost $9.99. Alarm bells pinged in my head and I thought, “This is a steal! Does anyone know about this? Oh, I can’t let this stay on the shelf; Stieg, you shall be mine.”

I promptly proceeded to carry the new book around the store. My insides smiled as I clutched this deal that others had stubbornly missed. It was my prize, and I had won the shopping game.

But nowadays, in my frugal state, I’m a bizarre shopper. Instead of purchasing that “steal,” “find,” and “treasure,” I held the book throughout the store, and when it came time to actually checkout, I stuck it on some random piece of furniture (no doubt, annoying the shop’s attendants — I’m sorry!).

This goes against everything we are told about the psychology of shopping, but it feels oddly exhilarating. See, marketers know that if they can just get you to touch, feel, and hold an object, your likelihood of purchasing said object skyrockets. If their cameras were trained on me they would’ve seen me flip out about the deal with my friend, predicting a subsequent checkout — book in hand. But in the end, they’d be dead wrong.

There’s an oozing potion that comes from having things. To covet and hold seems so… American. We buy bigger vehicles for bigger homes to fit more stuff. We are a nation of filler-uppers; yet, the favorite part about shopping is in our imaginations — that split second when our minds scream, “buy, buy, buy.”

When I pick up that book, I imagine flipping through the thriller’s tantalizing pages and having the book forever. I picture it sitting on my shelf, a testament to that one time I read it and a beacon of conversation among friends. “Oh, yes, let me tell you about crime, affairs, and sordid protagonists in Sweden,” my imaginary voice already quips to a non-existent audience. The reality is far simpler and boring. I’d read it, stick it on a table, and be done with it.

There’s an alternative choice. I could rent it from the library for free. The $4 — deal of the century — is still more expensive and takes up more room than a temporary library book. What could be a better deal than free?!

To hold the book is like picking up a favorite drug and almost getting high. And at the last moment saying, “No. I’d rather spend my money on something else. I’d rather travel to France with my rudimentary language ability. I’d rather save up for a more comfortable future — one not spent working endless hours on a treadmill that always runs towards death.”

These days, I can hold the magic potion that I struggled with so much — spending wantonly. I can smell the elixir that is the rush of a purchase.

And I can say, “I don’t need this.”

Piracy And The Rise Of Subscription Services: Are They Worth It?

By Frugaling 4 Comments

Spotify Premium Subscription Service — *Screenshot of Spotify, a popular music subscription service*

Problematic piracy, answered by private corporations

Subscription services have become a popular way to access media content ranging from books, magazines, television, and films. Before analyzing what subscriptions might be worth your time and money, I wanted to give a little historical context for their popularity. For many content creators, the rise in subscription services was scary, as they were linked to declining revenue growth. But increased interest in subscription models was actually an answer to something that’s been seen as even more malicious by copyright holders: piracy.

In France, if you were caught pirating digital (i.e., downloading a film, book, magazine, etc. without consent from the copyright holder) material three times, the 2009 HADOPI law (French acronym for the policy) would restrict your access to the Internet. Suspension of Internet services, depending on the level of piracy, would vary from 2 months to one year. Opposition groups argued and protested the law, arguing that it restricts a human right to knowledge.

In recent years, France curtailed the targeting of individuals’ copyright infringements, in favor of prosecuting major corporations and hosts of pirated materials. Today, TorrentFreak, a popular news source about pirating, reported that the organization now had five years of data to share. HADOPI has given warnings to 3,249,481 people, which suggests that about 9% of French Internet users are participating in possible copyright infringement (French report, PDF). That’s a staggering number, and it’s likely greater because some people can circumvent basic detection of copyright infringement.

Anti-piracy groups like the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) have lobbied for greater Internet restrictions for infringers in the U.S. and around the world. The MPAA has suggested that if piracy were “properly” dealt with, revenue to the film industry would subsequently increase (researchers and scholars at the London School of Economics have suggested otherwise). It’s no surprise that the trade organization for content creators would like more control over copyright concerns. But the answer to their calls for action actually came from private companies starting subscription services.

What do subscription services offer?

They usually provide a simple, monthly fee that gives users access to everything. It’s like an all-you-can-eat buffet for digital content. Subscription services offer somewhat ancillary but important benefits to copyright holders and consumers, too: they manage and lessen the cost to enjoy content. It even attracts those who would otherwise be pirating content! Effectively, as Kevin Spacey suggested, when users are given an affordable product and given complete control over when they’d like to listen, watch, and read, piracy will naturally decline.

In this article, I wanted to analyze three popular subscription services: Amazon Kindle Unlimited, Netflix, and Spotify. Each offers a different selection of content and unlimited access for a fee.

If you join Netflix’s subscription service, you’ll gain access to thousands upon thousands of movies that can be instantly viewed. Similarly, Spotify provides “premium” users access to millions of songs, playlists, and radio without ads. Amazon Kindle Unlimited is the newest platform and offers frequent readers access to a tremendous library of ebooks for Kindle (or Kindle apps).

Should you pay for a subscription service?

I’m not going to answer that, as everyone’s preferences are different. Instead, I want to provide you with some straightforward questions to consider before purchasing any service.

How much does it cost?
Are there any student discounts and/or free trials?
Can I share my account with other people? Could I split the cost with someone?
How much will you use the service?
Are there other ways to get the content without the cost?

Amazon Kindle Unlimited (Link)

Cost: $9.99 per month
Access: 600,000 books
Student discounts and/or free trials: No student discounts. Yes, there is a 30-day free trial.
Sharing: There are no reports that you can share this subscription.
Usage: Are you reading all the time and traveling a lot? Then this really stands out as one of the best subscription services.
Review: It’s by far the greatest collection of books in an unlimited, checkout service. By paying for the subscription fee you also get unlimited audiobook listening, too. If you are reading and then hop in your car, you can continue the story at exactly the point you left it! That’s a pretty incredible benefit if you frequently travel. One caution: there’s no information about how many books you can checkout at once. My guess is it functions on a one-at-a-time checkout basis — meaning you’ll need to “return” the ebook before you can get another one.
Other ways: Libraries are free and increasingly offering ebooks for electronic checkout.

Netflix

Cost: $7.99 per month
Access: Netflix doesn’t publicly list all the films, but a popular site that catalogues the digital store says there are over 10,000 titles.
Student discounts and/or free trials: No student discounts. Yes, there is a 30-day free trial.
Sharing: You can share your account with up to 2 people when you upgrade to the $8.99 per month subscription model. This could effectively reduce the cost of Netflix in half.
Usage: For the frequent TV or movie buff, Netflix is an easy first choice. Watching a movie could not be simpler and the bandwidth is impressive. You can easily stream HD-quality content on multiple devices (i.e., tablets, smartphones, computers, and televisions).
Review: The instant, on-demand collection that Netflix has built is impressive. Although, keep in mind that they have stiff competition from Amazon’s Prime media service. Netflix is a steward in the media distribution industry. They noticed that accounts were frequently being shared between other people and didn’t stop the practice. Instead, Netflix instituted a reasonable sharing and account model to allow members to split the costs.
Other ways: Hulu, Crackle, and YouTube all offer vast media stores where you can find tons of free content.

Spotify Premium

Cost: $9.99 per month
Access: Millions of songs, and offline access.
Student discounts and/or free trials: Yes, there is a student price of $4.99 per month. Yes, there is a 30-day free trial.
Sharing: Spotify explicitly states that you are not to share the service. If two users begin streaming at the same time, one user will be cut off. Spotify only allows one person at a time.
Usage: This is best music subscription service out there. Tons of companies have started their own, but Spotify leads the way. If you are listening to music everywhere you go and on multiple devices, no service is easier.
Review: It’s important to note that Spotify has a free, base level of usage. You can make playlists, listen to music, and start special Pandora-like radio stations at this ad-supported level. Once you pay for Premium, the ads are removed and you can save songs for offline use. This definitely comes in handy for the frequent air traveler or the ad averse.
Other ways: You can always keep the free level or use YouTube to listen to nearly any song.

For a price, the content world opens up and becomes an amazing buffet of entertainment. Over the years, premium services have become more affordable. But frankly, there’s still more progress before the prices are easily affordable for everyone across platforms. To enjoy the benefits of each platform to the fullest, you’d be spending about $30 per month. While not an exorbitant sum, this may not fit within a tightly constructed, frugal budget. The choice is yours, but it’s never been easier to go without pirating copyrighted material. That’s progress.

What I Love About Reading

Resisting The Urge To Buy, Buy, Buy

Piracy And The Rise Of Subscription Services: Are They Worth It?

Problematic piracy, answered by private corporations

What do subscription services offer?