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There are things we do because they are fun, and things we do because we have to. If I have to do something boring, then I might as well try to make it fun. Like vacuuming the floor. I'm not much of a dancer, but give me a vacuum cleaner and I'll dance across the entire house.

When a Spammer Calls
If I'm sitting at my desk and the phone rings, I will answer it. More often than not, it's a spammer. However, rather than hanging up on them, I turn it into a game and try to achieve certain goals. These might include:
How fast can I get them to hang up on me? (Great when I've got an upcoming meeting.)

How long can I keep them on the line? (Awesome for when I've got some free time. My record is about 45 minutes.)

How long can I go without confirming anything?

What can I learn about them?

What false information can I feed them?
For example, we have these semi-robotic calls where a human presses a button and it plays a prerecorded message. Depending on how the human responds, the caller can select a different prerecorded response. And if they really get you on the hook, then they can have the human scammer pick up the phone and directly interact with you.

I recently received one of these calls. (I wish I recorded it!)
"This is your county Sheriff's Office and we are having our annual fundraising drive." Blah blah blah. Am I interested in their drive?

"Drive? Sure! What size is the drive? Is this a 64 megabyte drive or is it in the terabyte range?"

[Pause and then a different recording played]

"Our drive helps support local law enforcement. Are you interested in our drive?"

"I'm very interested! Is it a USB drive or something older, like SATA?"

[click -- they hung up on me.]
I think it's interesting that they never once mentioned fundraising or money. It was all about "the drive".

Another time, the caller asked for someone else in my office. (Name changed to protect the innocent.)
Caller (with a clear Indian accent): "May I speak with Roberta?"

Me: "It's Robert, not Roberta. 'A' is my middle initial."

Caller: "Sorry about that. Robert, are you interested in ..." blah blah blah.

I got him to hang up after a few seconds. However, a few weeks later we started getting spam calls for "Robert" instead of "Roberta". Although I'm receiving 1-2 scam calls a day, I think most of them are coming from the same scam group.

(I also suspect that I'm one of the few people in the world who eagerly awaits my next spam phone call.)

Money!
Benjamin Franklin once wrote, "in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." Personally, I think he was a little short-sighted since he forgot about inflation; prices will always go up. For example, the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics has an interactive graph that shows price changes over the last 20 years. While there are fluctuations, the only time there are significant drops are when the commodity is regulated. Everything else slowly creeps higher. Everything costs more than four years ago (most categories increased by about 3% since 2020).

Since I can't control prices, I've been trying to gamify my shopping in order to save as much as possible. For example, there are some things that I must buy, like groceries. Milk, eggs, veggies, tortillas, etc. are staples in my diet. Since I can't make the store lower their prices, I went looking for ways to increase any discounts. For example:
Coupons. I do try to use coupons, but often the coupons are not for the items I want, or are for too many items. (Save $0.50 on 3 boxes of cereal that costs $4 each? That's not a great incentive. Forget it!)

Sales. While I do look for sales, often sales prices on named brands are still higher than generic or "the store brand" items. And if they all taste the same, then it's not a bargain. Also, I often can't change my shopping schedule to match "time limited offers".
However, I did find a few ways to really game the system and get some big wins. For example:
Cash back. One of my credit cards offers "5% cash back" on groceries. That's like getting a permanent 5% discount on store prices. And since prices increased on most items by 3%, it means I'm often saving faster than the inflation rate.

Fuel points. My local grocery store chain also has a gas station. They give a $0.10 discount for every $100 you spend in a month. If my car takes 10 gallons, then that's a $1 saving. ($1 in addition to the 5% cash back.)

Special days. My grocery store offers "4x fuel points" if you shop on a Friday. That $1 in fuel savings just became $4.

Gift cards. Normally I think that gift cards for restaurants are a scam. (If someone isn't tampering with the card, then there are funds that can expire over time or other shady practices.) However, if it's for a place that I plan to eat at in the next few days, then gift cards can lead to a bigger discount. For example, I can easily spend $25 at "Fat Food". Or, I can pay $25 for a "Fat Food" gift card at the grocery store. The grocery store regularly offers coupons for 4x fuel points when you purchase a gift card, so that $25 translates into 100 fuel points, or $1 per tank of gas. On top of the gas discount, my credit card thinks it's a purchase at a grocery store, so I get 5% cash back. That's $3.25 in savings, or a 13% discount off my "Fat Food" purchase!

As another example, we have a chain restaurant that offers discounts on gift cards as graduation gifts. $20 for a $25 card. And every year, I order one with a personal message: "Congradulations to me!"

Birthdays! Many stores and restaurants ask you to sign up and provide a birthday. They often send you a birthday discount every year. (I don't think they care about the date; they just don't want to send you more than one discount a year.) I've been giving every restaurant a different birthday! This way, I don't get flooded with a bunch of discounts all at once. Instead, they are spread out around the year. (I also give each one of them a different email address. This way, I can easily filter their spam out of my regular work email.)
Basically, if I'm going to be spending the same amount anyway, I can still try to maximize my other benefits.

There are some people who try to seriously game the entire coupon, discount, and cash back system. They usually end up saving much more than me. However, I'm not convinced the return on savings matches the effort involved. One of my "expert-level savings" friends spends hours doing price comparisons in order to save a dollar.

If it's what you enjoy, then this becomes a game worth playing. But even at my low-effort amateur level, those little savings add up! I've saved over $300 so far this year. That isn't me buying less. It's me using simple ways to spend less for the same thing. Moreover, it takes very little effort and no extra time.

Efficient Shopping
It's not just price that I'm trying to game. How about shopping at the grocery store? I start with a list that's loosely organized based on how the store is ordered. (Fruits and veggies at the top of the list, then meats, bakery, etc. and ending with frozen items -- just like the flow at the grocery store.)

I try to shop during off hours, when it isn't crowded and when the staff has had time to restock the shelves. How did I figure this out? *drum roll* I asked. The folks who work at the grocery store are friendly and know the best times to shop.

Second, I keep an eye out for people who are constantly standing where I want to shop. (We call them 'Visas' after the 1985 VISA credit card commercials: "VISA, it's everywhere you want to be." They keep standing where I want to shop; they are everywhere I want to be.) Usually there's only one or two Visas in the store. So, I change up my shopping. If the Visa is in aisle 10, then I'll shop aisle 11 and then go back to aisle 10. This way, I'm not waiting on someone else. The same works for crowded aisles. Skip the crowd and come back a few minutes later; the crowd is probably gone.

Being a little flexible makes it much easier to shop. Easier makes me happier, and that results in a more entertaining game.

(I was at a big box grocery store in California where they only had one route that meandered through the entire store. Sheesh, it was slow, frustrating, and inefficient. Glad I don't shop there regularly.)

Power Hungry
I've even tried to gamify my energy use. Around here, the power company has "surge pricing". On weekdays from 2pm to 7pm, the cost of electricity nearly quadruples. ($20 of electricity during normal hours becomes $80 during surge pricing.) My solution? Only run the air conditioning (summer) and furnace (winter) during non-surge hours. During the summer, this means running the AC a little more in the morning and much more in the evening, but it's much cheaper than running it during the surge hours.

I ended up spending $20 on a smart thermostat. I programmed it to avoid running during surge pricing hours. The savings paid it off in the first month.

My next power plan is to setup a small solar panel to charge my server rack. I already have a fail-over power transfer switch with 5ms delay. The idea: if the panel is charging a battery, then run off the battery. If the battery is drained, then run off the grid.

I'm not planning on being completely self-sufficient for electricity. I just want to reduce my utility bill by 20%. Why 20%? I can pay off all of the equipment in about 4 years. (Also, 20% will drop me below the "you're using too much power" surcharge, which is a huge savings.)

What about more power? I keep running the numbers and it just doesn't make financial sense for me. The cost for solar panels, batteries, inverters, etc. is basically a wash for higher power needs. For example, the solar infrastructure to power the entire office during the day is a lot of money. I estimate that it would pay itself off in 7 years. But the batteries last 7 years, so it would really be 10 years to pay itself off (original cost + replacement batteries). Except that the solar panels generate less power over time. They drop to about 80% efficiency in 10 years, so the "break even in 10 years" is really more like 12 years, and that's assuming no weather damage. And for all I know, the equipment prices will drop and efficiency will improve in 12 years, so that's a lot of investment for a temporary solution that doesn't break even.

Ready Player 2
These are just some of the easy games I've been playing to get the same thing for less. Less money, less effort, and less stress. These simple wins pay off big in happiness, if not dollars.
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