I just read an article about a woman who can’t afford to eat because her son’s medical equipment uses so much energy. And it mentioned too that she goes round turning the lights off.
That broke my heart because the average lightbulb costs about £3 a *year* to run.
No matter how bad things get please don’t make it worse by sitting in the dark.
It seems a common misconception that lights use a lot more energy than they do.
What other misconceptions do people possibly waste time and peace on?
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Some people seem to think that poor people have taken all their money, whereas actually, it’s the rich people.
That putting yourself first makes you a bad person
You are not stuck in traffic.
You are traffic.
PCPing or leasing a car isn’t some hack that poor people do just to impress strangers. Most people who have a car on finance or a lease could afford to buy it outright but choose not to.
If something “increases the risk of cancer by 200%” it isn’t actually that scary. If the average person has a 1% risk of developing cancer, it increasing by 200% means the risk is now 3%
I’ve heard people say that they’d turn down pay rises as it puts them into the higher income tax bracket and they believe they would be worse off due to the taxes.
It’s 20% from £12.5k – £50k then the 40% tax is applied to only the earnings from £50k – £125k. You don’t start paying 40% on everything once you go above £50k.
Many people believe that leaving the heating on low throughout winter saves more energy than putting it on when needed. This just simply isn’t true for most households. Your heating continuously firing to maintain that constant temperature uses more energy than only turning it on when it starts to get uncomfortably cold.
The only exception is homes with heat pumps, which only about 2% of homes have.
I often had flatmates not wanting to use a dishwasher because they presume it uses loads of water, or not wanting to run it until it’s absolutely overloaded with stuff to the point of not cleaning properly.
Once you have more than 5~ items to wash, a modern dishwasher is usually more efficient than hand washing
Marmite can be just alright as a flavour
I work as a bus driver. A lot of passengers seem to think that we run late just to piss them off, or because we simply don’t care. 99% of the time it’s because the running times for that route or time of day aren’t sufficient, or that we’ve encountered severe traffic / roadworks somewhere. I get the frustration but believe me, I want to be on time as much as you do!
Health doesn’t equal being conventionally attractive.
Some people you think are “fit” really aren’t. Some you think are unfit are actually healthier
Using AC vs open window when on the motorway – above around 50mph you may end up losing more mileage to aerodynamic inefficiency from an open window than you save from not using AC
I think the turning the lights off is a bit historic as the old incandescent light bulbs used to take 7 to 10 times the power of an LED one that most people have these day, so ten years ago it made more sense than today to turn the lights off.
Other poor people arent the reason you’re poor.
Tax brackets. Unless you are losing some means tested benefits you won’t lose money by earning more. Being in the 40% tax bracket does not mean your whole salary is taxed at 40%
From a consumer point of view – big brands aren’t always better value, nor are they always better quality. In fact, you could argue they’re very rarely better value or quality.
Store brands are nearly always better, from table sauces to “staples” like baked beans, to cleaning products.
If people shopped around, you could cut half the price of shopping for these items, if not more.
This ties in with something else – you don’t owe big brands your loyalty, because it’s a one-way street and they certainly won’t give you theirs, which is probably the biggest misconception of all.
That watching the news and staying up to date with current affairs is important and indeed your civic duty. Whereas in reality it’s simply depressing, scaremongering, and your life if better without it.
People that think air-conditioning is for when it’s hot so turn it off during the winter.
It’s also a dehumidifier, so stops your windows from misting up when it’s cold and wet.
People selling religion don’t have your best interests at heart.
People often think they will take home less money if they earn enough to go into the next tax bracket. I have had colleagues say there is no point trying to earn more because they’ll end up with less anyway.
Relevant at the moment, but it’s not high temperature that burns you on sunny days but high UV.
UV is usually higher on a 15c sunny day in late May than a 40c sunny day in August. The main difference is you’re more likely to have more skin exposed if it’s hotter.
Healthcare appointments are running late because the staff are – slow, lazy, having a break etc etc
Usually it’s because they don’t have long enough slots to do a good job with each patient. Some patients take 5 minutes, some take 45. Wouldn’t you rather we take the time when we should, rather than saying “sorry, times up.”
That buying a lottery ticket doesn’t significantly increase your chances of winning the lottery. The only notable improvement is that you go from 0% chance to infinitely higher (because any number higher than 0 is an infinite increase) but your actual chance remains so close to zero that you can assume it remains zero.
I’d even argue that it’s so massively unlikely that you’re not really starting at zero. The chances of a glitch accidentally awarding you the top prize or finding a lost lottery ticket that goes on to win are possibly enough to make buying a ticket a modest increase in your chances.
People think there are a fixed number of jobs in the economy so that a job can be “stolen”. People working earn money which they spend on stuff largely created/delivered/traded/retailed/served by other people.
People on Reddit don’t always know what they are talking about and are often spouting complete crap.
Or not. I don’t know any more.
That cash payments = tax dodging and electronic payments are legit.
I can assure you (because I am one) that 95% of the time you paid someone who had a Sumup device or similar with your phone/card, it was a tax dodge.
There is a limit to what you can do with cash and stay under the radar. That is yet to be the case with electronic payments, although the avenues do seem to be closing following the new ecommerce laws last year.
More expensive ≠ better quality, probably less so than it used to be in the past. A lot of things are made in the same factory with different labels slapped on, for food and other goods.
Trans people aren’t your enemy.
People have really poor understandings of traffic, especially on motorways.
Even when smart motorways say “traffic ahead” and show a lower speed limit, people still race toward the traffic, only to end up coming to a standstill. Which actually makes the traffic worse!
One of the key factors in traffic jams on a motorway is that once people slow/stop, they need to wait for a gap to build in front before they can safely get back up to speed.
If people actually slowed down well in advance, and approached the traffic at 40 instead of 70, fewer cars would be added to the back of the traffic snake, and it could clear more quickly. It’s made worse by everyone all piling in. (It’s also more dangerous to do this).
I’ve had this argument about lightbulbs with my parents so many times now. They’re elderly and have both had falls, yet walk around practically in the dark to save money. Even though they’ve had leaflets from the hospital telling them to put the lights on because it’s a major cause of falls!
My biggest one would be benefits, PIP, Universal credit.
UC, MP’s talk about how many are now on UC and the increased costs but they fail to say its because a lot of claimants have been forced onto UC because they made everyone claiming child tax credits move onto the “new” universal credit system when they phased it out and now a lot of those claimants are getting extra help because the UC system included multiple benefits in a single claim, for us we struggled for years on the child tax credit system, but when we were forced over to UC we were entitled to extra help we never knew we were entitled to even though we work.
PIP, It is there to help with the extra costs of living with a disability no one seams to realise this, they go by their own experiences, they fail to realise the extra costs involved, one example most wash bedding once a week (if that in some cases) but for some they are having to wash bedding daily so right off the bat they have increase water, electric and washing powder usage add to that this is the UK, hanging washing out isn’t something you can do daily so tumble dryer going for 1-2 hours daily isn’t cheap. oh and the motability claimants, MP’s stopped the “luxury cars” everyone was pleased, what they failed to understand is the cost to the tax payer never changed, as claimants get a set amount per week to pay for the vehicle, you can have a BMW or a fiesta, both claimants get the same amount per week however the guy that chose the BMW had to pay over £2k out of his own pocket towards the car he/she will never get back where as the fiesta guy had to pay £500 out of his own pocket again, he wont get back.
People understand very little yet get excited/happy when fed cr*p because they didn’t understand it in the first place.
My biggest one would be benefits, PIP, Universal credit.
UC, MP’s talk about how many are now on UC and the increased costs but they fail to say its because a lot of claimants have been forced onto UC because they made everyone claiming child tax credits move onto the “new” universal credit system when they phased it out and now a lot of those claimants are getting extra help because the UC system included multiple benefits in a single claim, for us we struggled for years on the child tax credit system, but when we were forced over to UC we were entitled to extra help we never knew we were entitled to even though we work.
PIP, It is there to help with the extra costs of living with a disability no one seams to realise this, they go by their own experiences, they fail to realise the extra costs involved, one example most wash bedding once a week (if that in some cases) but for some they are having to wash bedding daily so right off the bat they have increase water, electric and washing powder usage add to that this is the UK, hanging washing out isn’t something you can do daily so tumble dryer going for 1-2 hours daily isn’t cheap. oh and the motability claimants, MP’s stopped the “luxury cars” everyone was pleased, what they failed to understand is the cost to the tax payer never changed, as claimants get a set amount per week to pay for the vehicle, you can have a BMW or a fiesta, both claimants get the same amount per week however the guy that chose the BMW had to pay over £2k out of his own pocket towards the car he/she will never get back where as the fiesta guy had to pay £500 out of his own pocket again, he wont get back.
People understand very little yet get excited/happy when fed cr*p because they didn’t understand it in the first place.
A lot of people in the UK seem to think AC is a waste because “it will sit unused for 45 weeks a year”.
Completely unaware that, at a press of a button, hot, dry air comes out of the unit.
A lot of the sort of folk knowledge about lighting comes from the days of incandescent lightbulbs, which used 10x the electricity, needed replacing more often and generated enough heat to be a legitimate fire hazard.
Like I know the advantages of LED bulbs but my lizard brain grew up in the 80s and still associates Christmas lights with houses burning down.
HS2 isn’t about getting to Birmingham 20 minutes faster, it’s about freeing up capacity on the West Coast Mainline, Europe’s most congested mainline railway, so that we can run more freight trains along there, take lorries off the M1 as a result, as well as taking coaches off because now there’s capacity to run more frequent and higher quality intercity and local trains along each line respectively. All of this will drastically improve environmental concerns, as well as improve service significantly on the most important transport corridor in the country. The 20 mins faster is just a bonus.
Waiting to be seen in A&E can suck some serious arse, but it beats not being the person who’s being rushed to be seen as quickly as possible.
That self-confidence = arrogance, especially in sport.
Parenting is easier if you don’t introduce your kids to tablets/mobiles when they’re young.
You’re not using them strategically to get some peace, quiet and respite. You’re facilitating a reliance for dopamine release and eroding your child’s interest in the world around them and ability play and self sooth whilst stunting their emotional development. In practical terms, turning them into a way bigger nightmare than they need to be.
Ambulatory wheelchair users exist (people who can walk short distances, often with difficulty, but still use wheelchairs as a mobility tool)
Ditto mobility scooters.
So many still think that seeing somebody leave their wheelchair is a “gotcha!” moment.
Also invisible disability exists!! You can’t always tell from looking at somebody. I need a mobility scooter for any proper distance but if I was to walk across a room my gait is pretty normal and I don’t look like I’m struggling. But walking just 50M can leave me bedbound.
Thermostats – setting higher or lower than necessary doesn’t make it heat up or cool down quicker the vast majority of the time, it just means that you will get used to the temperature and waste energy.
Construction, roadworks, planning permission, etc. – they don’t [typically] take so long because people are lazy and want to make things difficult.
There are genuinely so many decisions to be made, rules to follow (necessary ones! Health & safety is important!), and many more people/parties involved than most people realise and it’s frustrating for everyone involved.
E.g. roadworks site where nothing appears to be happening… Yes nothing might be happening before your eyes, but something might be drying/setting (concrete, tarmac), unexpected emergency, needing a second opinion, getting a replacement tool or more materials etc.
The internet seems to think that life ends at 30 especially from a physically fitness point of view. You do not suddenly get the body of a 90 year old the moment you turn 30. I am 32 and I am fitter, healthier and far more mobile than my 18 year old self.