26
Mar 2009

Yes It Does Matter!

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Last night we were hanging out with a friend and he was showing us all of the cool things he can do with his new iPhone.  Yes, it’s a pretty cool phone, but he paid $200 for it, and another $90/month for service.  Our phone doesn’t do as many neat tricks (although it does have a camera and a mp3 player), but it cost $20 and we pay $45/month for service (we don’t have a landline – that’s our only phone).  He used his phone to show us a trailer for a movie that’s opening tomorrow, and asked if we were going to see it.  We said we might, but that we would wait until it came out on DVD so that we could get it from Redbox for a dollar.  We sat there trying to think of the last time we saw a movie in the theater, and decided that it was “The Longest Yard”, which was released in the fall of 2005.  He thought that was amazing.

Then my husband asked how much movie tickets cost these days, and our friend replied in an offhand manner that “it doesn’t matter”.  Now it was our turn to be amazed.  He and his wife just have regular jobs like us – they aren’t doctors or lawyers.  We assume they might have some family money, but we don’t know the specifics.  I suppose we’ve gotten so entrenched in our frugal ways that we just can’t imagine spending money without caring about prices or cheaper options.  For us, renting a movie for a dollar (or free if we get it from the library) is a far better value than going to the theater.  And if we watch a movie in our living room we can wear our pajamas, make our own snacks (much better for us than movie fare), and hit the pause button whenever we like.  And now that we have a baby, we only plan outings where he can go along.  So a movie theater isn’t really an option anyway.

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Category: the simple life, ways we save money
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  • http://nopinkhere.wordpress.com Gabriel

    Over time I have discovered that I have become closer to my friends who are financially aware and responsible and rarely see the ones who aren’t. I lose patience with people who moan and groan about being broke, but then spend money in bizarre or frivolous ways (at least to me). (P.S. My hubby does have an iPhone, but he has to have it for work.)

  • FrugalBabe

    This particular friend never complains at all about being broke. I think they have plenty of money, although we aren’t sure. They are very generous, and often offer to treat their friends to dinners out, etc. They are very good friends, but they sure do spend their money in different ways than we do! One note – they decided a long time ago that they didn’t want children, which does free up money for other pursuits.

  • http://ipickuppennies.blogspot.com Abigail

    It can be startling how different some friends’ priorities are. I cannot personally imagine paying $200 for a phone, especially not for MORE expensive service etc. Just not worth it to me.

    On the other hand, if your friend never complains about being broke, I suppose it’s his right to have different priorities. You save a lot of money without children, so that’s probably where he finds the money to go to movies etc.

    FYI, some chains now have “quiet rooms” for fussy kids. It’s soundproofed but the movie is piped in. Others have “Reel Moms” where the whole audience is parents with their kids.

  • Tee

    The only thing better than $1 rentals is FREE rentals. You may not be aware of this, but you can get RedBox coupon codes sent to your cell phone on Mondays for FREE rentals. The month of March they were also issuing codes on Wednesdays. Needless to say, I watch movies on Mondays and Wednesdays :) If you are charged for text messages, you can just find them posted all over the internet on a lot of the couponing blogs that are out there.

  • FrugalBabe

    Tee – Yup, we do sometimes get free rental codes. We typically work until pretty late in the evening on week days, so we normally only have a chance to watch movies on weekends. We watch some movies from the library, some from Redbox, but rarely spend more than two or three dollars per month for movies.

  • Kara

    Not everyone has the same priorities and I have to say that you’re kinda coming across as condescending and a bit holier-than-thou in this post.

    I go to movies in the theater once a week. Yes, I pay $12 per person to go to a theater. To me, the experience is worth it. Some movies are very much worth being seen on the big screen. I don’t care about the cost – like your friend.

    OTOH, I drive a 14 year old car. I live in a 2 bedroom townhome (in an area where 4+ bedroom McMansions are more common). I grow most of my own veggies in the summer. I cook at home 9 nights out of 10 and I take my lunch to work with me rather than eating out. I (like your friends) have chosen not to have children.

    I’m not a doctor or a lawyer either. And I don’t spend money wastefully. I just have different priorities. And for me, the purpose of living frugally in some areas is so that I am *ABLE* to indulge myself in others – like my love of movies, and my love of electronic gadgets.

    Having those priorities is no more wrong than choosing to stay home and watch movies in your PJs (which is also fun and I do that as well).

  • FrugalBabe

    Kara,
    That definitely was not my intention, so maybe I should clarify the point of my post. It’s not that he goes to the movies frequently that surprised us. It was the idea that he doesn’t know or care how much it costs. I’m a big fan of the idea that being frugal allows us to be able to spend money in areas we wouldn’t otherwise be able to. For example, we buy organic food – which we know is more expensive than conventional food – because it’s worth it to us. But we know how much it costs. Our friend had mentioned to us that he knows he “wastes a lot of money” (his words, not mine) earlier in the evening, and his comment that it doesn’t matter how much a movie ticket costs seemed to go along with that theme.

  • http://frugalchick2008.blogspot.com/ FrugalChick

    Wow, I do find that a bit amazing. Even though I love movies and going to the theater, I am *always* aware of much tickets cost and make sure I budget accordingly. Even if you live without a budget, how can you not even have a ballpark idea of what your movie tickets cost?

  • Kara

    Well knowing that he’d made a comment about wasting money prior to this makes a HUGE difference to the context of the whole conversation. :)

    But even so … I wonder if the comment about not knowing how much the tickets cost is also being taken a little too seriously. If someone were to ask me “how much are movie tickets nowadays” my response would also be something along the lines of “I dunno … it doesn’t really matter”. Because it doesn’t. I know that they’re somewhere between $8 (a matinee) and $15 (if I go to the downtown theater) and really within that range, it actually doesn’t matter to me. It’s something that I choose to splurge on, and I’d choose to do so even if the tickets were $25 each. Maybe if it started costing me $50 a pop to go, I’d start reconsidering it. :)

    Anyway … just another perspective here.

  • http://www.joyoffrugalliving.blogspot.com Jennifer @ Joy of Frugal Living

    I agree that the confusing part is him not being aware of what he is spending. We are fortunate to have a larger income, but the only way that will ever turn into lasting financial success is to know what we are spending.

    So if movies are a worthwhile treat in his mind, that’s great. But I’m with you – no matter how much money we make, I want to know what I am spending!

    (I agree with you too that with rare exceptions, movies are more fun at home anyway.)

  • http://www.grovesfamilyhappenings.blogspot.com/ Kelly

    For the past two Christmases, my husband and I have each received movie theater tickets (for a movie of our choice, just not in the first two weeks of release) from my Grandma. That is a total of 4 movie dates for us. But since we have a one year old, and don’t generally go to the movies that often anyway, we still have three movie dates ahead of us at some point. We, like you, tend to only do things that involve our little one now. The exception is going out to dinner every now and then. We are fortunate that our babysitters are free and usually available for us to go out. We don’t get much time alone, so when we do have a date, we like to be able to talk, not sit next to each other quietly. We do watch a lot of movies at home, either on HBO or Starz (free promotion, I would never pay for a movie channel!). We record them and then watch them after our daughter goes to bed. We can watch in our jammies, make our own snacks, enjoy a glass of wine, and pause when we want to.
    I actually have no idea how much a movie ticket costs in our area right now. Doesn’t matter…because we don’t go to movies. However, if going to movies was our preferred entertainment, it might not matter either. Everyone has an area where cost isn’t a prohibitive factor, and for some people it is movies. For others, it is organic food, or concerts, or a morning Starbucks. To some people, it seems silly to pay more in these areas, but to each their own.

  • http://radioventirloquist.blogspot.com GC

    movies are 6 bucks at my local theater on Sundays before noon so if I just HAVE to see it on the big screen, it’s a good deal

  • ginger

    I have cut back in a lot of ways and consider myself frugal, but I absolutely will keep going to the movies. There really is nothing like seeing a great movie in the theater. I do free redbox mondays (and wednesdays occasionally) but to me, going to the movies is worth it. There are caveats–not all theaters are the same and it’s worth it to drive a little further to a nicer theater. The key is to get movie tickets for cheap or free. I redeem my credit card rewards for theater gift cards. Costco also sells discount tickets

  • FrugalBabe

    All right, all right! Uncle! :) I suppose I should have titled this post “it matters to me” – because as a lot of readers have pointed out, it’s a matter of opinion. For me, a movie ticket is a waste of money. But if you were to use the example of buying organic food, and asked me how much it costs, I would say that it doesn’t matter. I do know how much it costs, but it’s worth it to me, and the price doesn’t deter me from buying it. As Kara pointed out, if organic beets were all of a sudden $50 a bunch, I might reconsider. But for now, I don’t care at all if they are more expensive than the conventional ones.
    And I promise not to rip on movie tickets again, as I can see that for a lot of people they are are really important and definitely worth the price :)

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