1. Open the egg carton while I'm in the Egg section to make sure none are cracked. I stopped doing this about 15 years ago when I realized I'd never found a damaged egg before purchase.
Counterpoint: The video up top. More? Here's an article laying out in great detail why you should always carefully check each egg in the store.
2. Buy new running shoes every six months. The people at the running shoe store recite this as a mantra, as if failure to do so renders you more liable to injury and slower times as the soles wear out and stiffen. I call baloney on this practice: for one thing, what about the huge popularity of minimalist shoes? Doesn't keeping your expensive kicks forever as the soles thin out create an ever lower and lighter platform, making you more efficient?
Counterpoint: Here's a recent ad masquerading as an article advocating regular running shoe purchases.
Watching the wear patterns can teach you a lot about how your stride and impact zones are changing over time. For example, up until about I was around 50 my typical sole wear pattern showed me supinating [more wear toward the outer edge] with my right foot and markedly pronating [more wear toward the inner edge] with my left. A couple years ago I was startled to see that the wear patterns had reversed: my left foot was now supinating, as witnessed by the wear on the outer edge of the heel, and my right had reversed its former polarity and now showed pronation. The older your shoes, the better you'll be able to follow such things and compare them to prior footwear.
3. Religiously follow my car's suggested maintenance schedule, with various degrees of work and expense recommended at stipulated mileages and/or time intervals. Some of those maintenance ran into 4 figures! I drive so little now that's it's absurd to be taking my car in for Service A or Service B or Service C based on how much time has elapsed: an oil change once a year does nicely.
Counterpoint: Here's an article recommending all prescribed maintenance checks along with a few others.
4. Get my hair cut. It was just something I did until about ten years ago, the stylist who'd been cutting my hair since I moved to Virginia from LA in 1983 got into a big fight with the woman who ran her two-person salon and quit and the salon shut down. As my hair got longer I thought about what an increasing pain in the butt getting my hair cut had been in recent years: having to drive into the heart of UVA in heavy traffic both ways; time sitting reading outdated fashion magazines in crummy chairs and sofas while waiting because she was always running behind; never having my hair look exactly like I wanted it to... and don't get me started on the expense.
I estimate I've spent at least $10,000 on haircuts since I started paying for them myself at age 18: that's a very lowball number, it could be as much at $20,000-$25,000. For what?
Since I started cutting my own hair after the salon kerfuffle I've liked the results as much as I did when the pro did it, not to mention my stylist is always ready and total elapsed time with the scissors is about 15 minutes. Plus it's fun! I use specialized scissors I bought on Amazon and reserve them solely for cutting hair.
Counterpoint: Here's an ad masquerading as an article telling you why you shouldn't cut your own hair.
