Help Affording Textbooks

For a frugal workout, skip the gym membership

The Simple Dollar is a blog for those of us who need both cents and sense: people fighting debt and bad spending habits while building a financially secure future and still affording a latte or two. Our busy lives are crazy enough without having to compare five hundred mutual funds – we just want simple ways to manage our finances and save a little money.

The question I always ask is why go to a gym? What does going to a gym offer than home exercise does not? Here are some of the issues I worked through before deciding to give up my gym membership and exercise at home.

Equipment Aside from a small number of weights, I found that I was rarely using any of the equipment at the gym. Instead of using the treadmills or the ellipticals, I would just jog outside (the only exception to that is in the worst part of winter, which really doesn’t last that long). Instead of using a stationary bike, I’d just go… ride my bike. All that I really need at home is a small set of weights and knowledge of how to use them.

Honestly, though, most of the exercises I find value in require little or no equipment. The exercises in the book You Are Your Own Gym or in some key videos you can find demonstrate very valuable exercise without any equipment at all.

Trainers I have never in my life been in a gym environment where I’ve received more than cursory help from a trainer. I have found much more help from watching online videos, reading books, and asking questions in online forums.

One could easily argue that perhaps I didn’t demand enough attention from trainers at various times. What I found, though, is that getting sustained attention from a trainer was expensive . At every gym I’ve ever attended, trainer session times cost a significant extra amount and trainer free times were incredibly overcrowded.

Obviously, we’re not talking about perfect form on powerlifts here, just suggestions for keeping in basic shape.

Affording It All | The Moral Liberal

And has been associated with other television programs.

So how could O’Donnell permit himself to say this in a promo that ran on his network: “We can afford anything in this country. It’s just a matter of deciding what our priorities are. . . . There isn’t anything we can’t afford, if we prioritize.”

This clearly is nonsense. He seems to be saying that if we prioritize—ignore who “we” are for the moment—we have the resources to satisfy everyone’s wants. He also might mean that if we prioritize, there isn’t any particular thing we can’t afford. I doubt that’s what he has in mind because it would be far less sweeping a statement. Even so, it would still be nonsense.

We live in a world of scarcity. Individually and collectively we want more than available resources can yield. That will remain true even as the supply of resources expands. That’s how people are. Ends exceed means. Demand exceeds supply. That’s why we economize and always will. That is why human action is choosing. That is why we face tradeoffs all the time. Indeed it is why the discipline of economics exists.

And it is why we prioritize, that is: “arrange or deal with in order of importance.” Since resources and time are limited, we have to rank our ends so 1) we don’t expend resources achieving a less important end at the expense of more important ends, and 2) we don’t achieve a less urgent end at the expense of a more urgent end.

If we literally could afford everything in terms of resources and time, we would have no need to prioritize. But prioritizing doesn’t prevent us from running out of resources.

I assume that Lawrence O’Donnell knows all this. To be fair, tucked in between the two sentences I quoted is this: “If we want [fair and decent health care] we can afford that. It may mean that we have to cut back on something else somewhere else. But we can do it.” But then he immediately forgot he had said this.

The Help

Help, The Original Human Dilemma

The trouble with textbooks, distorting history and religion

Help!, A Story of Friendship

Help!, Healthy Thinking in Times of Trouble