Part Time Lover

Every month I spend $220 on subscriptions, which I have categorized into four categories: digital, entertainment, hosting, and storage, and house. Let’s get into what they are and which ones are truly indispensable!

Digital

Digital could really be renamed “reading” since they are nearly all things that I use to consume things. The real indispensable one is Instapaper ($5), which has been my go-to read later app for years. A recent addition to the process is Readwise ($8) which I got as part of Tiago Forte’s Second Brain system, but frankly, I’m not utilizing enough. In theory, Readwise resurfaces highlights I’ve made in articles, books, and other sources, but if I don’t revisit it regularly, I’m not getting any value out of it. Oops, it just auto-renewed so I guess I’m using it for another year.

I also have 1Password ($3) and Pinboard ($1.50), the former which is an essential, and the latter which is mainly just to keep my bookmarks archived from a former web app that…stored bookmarks. I never look at Pinboard—or make new web bookmarks—but at such a price, it’s a legacy thing to hold on to. [Update: I actually just paid for a lifetime of Anybox ($40), which is just a bookmark storage service. I took one look at it over December and decided I’d find some use for it, if only to archive important bookmarks from Pinboard.]

Technically, a subscription to the New Yorker is more likely “entertainment,” but it’s in the digital category for some reason. For $14 a month, it comes with the paper subscription and access to all their digital stuff. After initially getting lured in by a red tote bag—and a low low introductory price—I now don’t know how I ever lived without the New Yorker. I love the articles, the writers, the (a little too frequent) physical copies, all of it. In theory one could skedaddle from introductory price to introductory price, but I want to support the New Yorker anyway so now just renew every year.

The newest addition to my digital category is a subscription to The Cut ($3), which includes all the digital brands under New York Magazine—including Curbed, Grub Street, Intelligencer, The Strategist, and Vulture. Mainly I found myself frustrated trying to read the few free monthly articles on The Cut and figured it was high time to get a subscription. I don’t regularly read those other sites but I added all of them to my RSS reader so maybe I’ll find some exciting stuff on them soon.

The Ringer—my go-to site—recently went through a redesign and their RSS links all died. People are aghast. If there was a subscription fee for just a RSS feed of the Ringer, I would pay big money for it. Big money!

Entertainment

As for movies and TV, it’s Netflix ($23), Max ($12.50), and until recently, Paramount and sometimes Peacock. Paramount was mostly for old seasons of The Challenge, and Peacock was purely for one show: Poker Face. Now both are gone and we’re down to just Netflix and Max.

Then there’s NBA League Pass ($13), Marvel Unlimited ($6), and Nintendo Online ($3), which are pretty self explanatory. I rarely use Marvel Unlimited actually, despite years of having it, but I just like to have it around. I also added Marvel Snap to the  entertainment list as I’m dedicated to the game and also equally dedicated to not buying more stuff on it save for the ten dollar monthly season pass.

My Spotify($17) supports a family of friends, and obviously, is a must-have. Also, after Stitcher shut down, I moved to Pocket Casts, which has Plus for $1.25 per month. While Pocket Casts has some issues, I do love it and having a podcast app subscription is a must!

YouTube Premium

And the one life changer that I must discuss: YouTube Premium, which at $23 a month—for the family plan, which includes six accounts—has been the best thing ever. Before, I rarely used YouTube unless absolutely necessary, but with the ads removed, YouTube has transformed into an indispensable resource for anything and everything.

You don’t know how much ads hold you back until you don’t have them. Wait, that’s not true, you totally know. But for short form videos like those on YouTube, ads are a killer. So now, freed from even two seconds of ads, I can just surf from video to video, going wherever my mood takes me.

And as I’ve discovered, YouTube has EVERYTHING. That’s obvious but really, it has everything. Besides just content, YouTube has all the how-tos, the explainers, the supercuts, the coming soons, the tier lists, the icebergs, everything. Video creators are making content I never knew I needed, stretching back fifteen years or so.

YouTube has facilitated my deep dives into every subject—recent ones include Modern MBA, Real Science, the history of Godzilla, fourth generation K-pop, Chinese contemporary art, dance tutorials, and on and on. I YouTube how to pronounce things, I YouTube obscure animals, I YouTube history documentaries, a lot of history documentaries. Over time I’ve habituated to put anything into the YouTube search bar, confident that something useful and interesting will surface.

Initially, I had only gotten YouTube Red—which then became Premium—because my friend was getting it and asked if I wanted to split it. I used the no-ad experience for my at-home karaoke. (Which is great btw, and I still have this account open for your use, if you want to scream into microphones at your own house.) As I started to search more things, YouTube slowly morphed into my most utilized consumption app. It was taking over my time spent with podcast, with television and movies, with Googling random stuff, with books even.

Wherever your mind wants to go, YouTube can take you. That’s what YouTube Premium does, and all for the low low price of $15.

“When I meet fellow YouTube Premium people, we are so proud that we’re in this club. This is the one streaming service we’d never give up. YouTube just has everything.” Tim Heidecker Favorite Things 2024

“This is the best money you’ll spend. I love movies, I love television, but that world is kind of shifting its shape a little bit. So in the meantime, I’m devouring so much YouTube content. I have a crew of friends on YouTube that don’t even know me.” Andrew Kuo’s11 Favorite Things 2023

Hosting ($35)

Ah, all the holdovers of an internet life once lived. I have Bluehost for my web hosting, GoDaddy for my various URLs (just four these days), and Soundcloud Pro to store all my past, and past past, podcast episodes. All of these could probably go but it’s important that I maintain my own archives for future generations, don’t you think?

Storage ($18)

This one is easy: storage for Google and storage for Apple. I’m paying three dollars a month for 200GB of Google storage on my main account. There’s also a mystery twenty dollars I’m paying--as recorded on my spreadsheet—but that may be outdated. Seeing as I use Google Docs as my go-to for everything, this is a must-have item. Also I back up my photos on Google Photo here, but that’s low-res and free, I think.

As for iCloud, that most essential of services, I upgraded to 2TB awhile ago and now have four friends on my family plan. After backing up all our phones—and photos—we are still using barely half of the space. It feels luxurious to have so much room for everyone. It’s like I tacked on ADUs to my mansion. Also, I’m paying for my friend’s iCloud storage in Brazil still apparently. So it’s like a second home for me.

House ($9)

I used to pay for an alarm system for my house but after I got over my paranoia of strangers coming in, I decided to cancel it. Now there’s just two camera subscriptions—one of my house, one for my mom’s. I don’t understand the people who don’t have cameras set up at the house. Outside at least, if not inside. Don’t you want to see what’s going on?! Strangely, I don’t have a doorbell camera, but one in my kitchen and living room, covering the front door. Also, my physical door bell fell off a year ago and I never bothered replacing it because my rationale was that anyone needing to find me at home wouldn’t be using my doorbell anyway. So far, no regrets and a lot more quiet.

Shopping: 2024 Review and 2025 Budgeting

After going through and finishing Ways and Means 2024, I decided I needed to get a closer look at shopping and see what that was all about. I thought I had done a pretty decent job of not buying as much this year but the tale of the tape said I didn’t. So what went into that $10,500 of shopping category?

The previous year's “shopping” was only $8,800, even with lots of big ticket items and hobbies not even separated out. So what in the world was 2024’s shopping all about? And what lessons can I learn to cut down on the number of trips to consumerism—and late night Amazon?

Setting aside $1,800 on a tattoo in October, $1,250 for Taiwan shopping that had to be done—we will never need socks again, until our next trip…—and then $1,000 on MacBook Air and a replacement Pencil, there was $2,500 left over in the mysterious “shopping” tag.

But before I get to that, let’s clear out the other tags first with books, games, and house things. In 2024, I spent $750 on forty-five books, with twenty three digital ones at $11 each, and physical at $23. Digital games was $650 for twenty-seven instances, at an average of $24 each. Physical games cost $400 for eleven, at $36 each. That’s about a thousand dollars spent on games—minus LOL and Snap which was $1,600 combined,if you’ll recall.

House stuff cost $1,500 between needed things, new decorative stuff and furniture, and some small supplies like batteries and Swiffer replacements. House is house stuff, that can’t really be changed or cut down.

And fate also delivered a Celtics title this year—finally!—so I had to splurge on some championship stuff after they won the title: Celtics wearable gear ($120), Funko Pop series for the starting lineup ($110), Panini cards ($45), SLAM and SI magazine covers ($45 combined). That’s a total of $300 spent on a Finals win. 

The wise man would just invest $200 now in a Celtics title bet and see if they can pull it off again for a back-to-back. A now even wiser man says that betting on the Celtics is never a good idea so I’ll just budget out some more money for the inevitable nineteenth title in 2025. Screw the luxury tax, we’re going all in!

Shopping

So what went into the broad shopping tag anyway? A wetsuit was the only thing over a hundred dollars—it was one-fifty--and then it was death by sixty-four cuts as $2,000 was spent under “shopping.” 

Note: Once again, we’ll disregard everything we bought in Taiwan as that was just pure value and joy from my partner's first time to Taiwan—for the record it was $500 of shopping stuff from Taiwan.

I went through and labeled each purchase as one, two, or three, with one being “had to get,” two as “maybe not needed”, and three “nope, bad decision.”

Of those three categories, $800 on twenty-nine items were a great decision.  A lot of that was essentials like the wetsuit, some surf grass, compact travel chargers, two pairs of Loop earplugs (amazing!), and some phone lanyards, art markers, and a Glocusent book light that may change my life by allowing me to read physical books again.

Also, there was a stuffie or two in there. Did you know that forty percent of US adults sleep with a stuffie? "The Case for Sleeping With Stuffed Animals as an Adult"

Looking at the list, there was more surf and pool stuff too. Actually, all the essential items I looked at fall into three or four broad categories: water use related things, electronics, stuff for phones, and art or pen stationary.

Shopping section two was twenty-eight items of questionable buying, which totaled about $900. All of these items could probably have been not bought and not missed, so we’ll keep that in mind. And at the end of the list, eight things totaling $250 could have definitely gone. They were literally all bags or cute things, as will be examined below.

So of the 2024 non-Taiwan, non-Big Ticket Item stuff, it was a tad under two thousand and I think I can cut that exactly in half to one thousand dollars. We can do it!

Clothing

There was $350 spent on clothing in Taiwan, on twelve occurrences. A lot of those were sock related. The standout expensive item was a Zara jacket ($90) that I’ve actually yet to wear, as this other green one ($30) has been far more versatile. Clothes shopping in Taiwan is a must, and for those prices, no issues at all!

The rest of my seventeen clothing purchases aren’t that exciting at all, as I’ve largely found my wardrobe—I wear the same thing ninety percent of the time—and most of it was just basic items like thermals, baggier sweatpants, very long basketball shorts, and replacement items. Somehow all that added up to $1,000 spent on clothes. Shrug?

I did go look around for Nineties styled denim shorts and jeans this summer and I found them at Zumiez, for about $40 each. As you can sense in the stuff I bought this year: loose is back and we gotta look the part.

Speaking of looking the part, I got an extra-thick Coke logo-ed white shirt from PacSun around the same time, on the heels of New Jeans’ “So Sweet” video, which was basically a giant ad for Coca-Cola. I subsequently wore my new baggy outfit to a k-pop party—the best of the many in 2024 I went to—and think it was probably my best sartorial decision of the year. “New Jeans never die!”

I could easily half clothes shopping to $500, so that’ll be the goal.

Gifts

A category broken into three sets: friends, family, and partner. For friends, there was very minimal spent since I only gifted absolute essentials, which cost $200 and I have no regrets. I would’ve gifted someone a white Simple Human trash can but they refused refused refused.

As for family, a total of $1,100 was gifted, which was mostly to the nieces--and one or two things for the nephew now that he is of age to remember me—and some to George. Of those thirty five items, nine were from Taiwan ($250), thirteen given with no regrets ($300), six given that probably wasn’t necessary ($150), and seven that were perhaps outright not needed at all ($450) and likely gave me as much joy as the receivers.

So, I could likely save $600 on not impulse buying stuff for the kids and instead funnel say, $300 into valuable things for them. Maybe I should just tell them their annual budget for things from me and they can start a pre-budget club budget club?

Lastly I spent $500 on gifts for my now partner. Of that, it was mostly replacement iPods, Xmas stuff, some clothing such as two Forever 21 jackets that looked absolutely amazing, and our tour de resistance: "Taipei Tennis Club" clothes that we designed, which is really a gift for us both. If anything, I need to shower her with more gifts in 2025.

So the new budget for gifts in 2025 is as follows:

• Friends: $100
• Family: $400 ($100 per child, and Georgemeer)
• Partner: Unlimited!!!

Bags

So the two things I was supposed to cut back on this year was cute stuff and bags—owing to my declaration to “give up X” if the Celtics win a championship in 2024.

The Celtics won their eighteenth title on June 18 and yet after that date, I still bought twelve bags. Four of them were Ape and Bird fanny backs, which can be excused, but that left eight still to be accounted. Mark another one off since it was just a plain old black duffel for travel, and we’re still left with seven bags bought that were done in violation of my vow. Note: Does this mean the Celtics won’t win title nineteen back-to-back?!

Hello Kitty duffle, a backup white Miffy bag for one I bought a few weeks proper, a gift bag that wasn’t used, two Elecbae Candy Bags that were so cool but likely unnecessary, a bag shaped like a pizza the was truly me and also truly on sale. And then somehow I got a Carhartt waist bag that I’ve yet to use. And lastly, I bought a Cotopaxi Allpa 20L ($140) to replace my Allpa 28L but as it turned out, the 20L was too small and will likely be used as more of a daily travel backpack.

In sum, I spent $225 on seven bags pre-vow and $425 on twelve bags post-vow. Of those nineteen purchased bags, I could’ve likely cut thirteen of them. So new rule: I can only get three bags in 2025, totaling two hundred dollars. T-H-R-E-E. And that’s only to leave room in case we see something great in Asia when we go there in the spring.

Cute

Okay, and looking at things labeled “cute,” I spent $850 on cute things—minus some for family gifts, which don’t count here—encompassing forty-three items. Of those forty-plus items, I likely only needed ten of them as must-haves, most of them digital stuff like LINE stickers or these wonderful iOS apps by Euihyung Jung that are just illustrated bears. (I bought all four of them—at about a dollar each—just to have the icons on my phone. Zero regrets!)

Of all those cute things, I could’ve spent under a hundred dollars on just the essentials--plus a hundred spent in Taiwan—which would mean that I could’ve trimmed $150 of “definitely didn’t need” and then $500 of “probably didn’t need.”

Things that fall into the “probably didn’t need” was a CIVIVI Baby Banter knife, a JBL Go Speaker, Logitech Pebble Keyboard, Care Bears x Hello Kitty collaboration, and little pink and yellow chubby stars that I got two packs of to give to guests. Like I said, prooooobably don’t need but wasn’t terrible to have.

Things I definitely didn’t need was a Hello Kitty necklace ($40) that says “Jace” on it, a Peach Fuzz Sardine lighter, Sanrio watches for the kids, some Hello Kitty stickers, and the aforementioned pizza bag.

So new rule for 2025: I can spend $100 on cute things, and then $50ish on one single item like a knife or little speaker type thing. Oh yeah, and no more stuffies, Care Bears, or Sanrio items—for me.

To summarize my new shopping budget and rules for 2025:

• Shopping: $5,000
• Clothing: $500
• Gifts: $500 + partner stuff
• Bags: $200, three max bags allowed
• Cute: $100 and one single $50+ item, with no Care Bears and etc allowed!
• Books: $500, but no real max, as needed
• Games, Digital: $400
• Games, Physical: $200
• No computers, phones, or large electronics needed this year
• A few little tattoos, with exceptions for Asia based artists if available

Last year, all the things I mentioned above totaled $12,000 give or take. Assuming the same amount for house and beauty stuff ($2,000), we can trim that remaining $10,000 from 2024 down to $4,000 for 2025.

There is an Asia and Europe trip for later this year, so that’ll have to be accounted for, but perhaps at max that non-house and beauty number will be pushed to $5,000 for “shopping” overall—budgeting a thousand dollars for big trip shopping. Okay, we can do this right? Where there’s a goal, there’s a way!