Blow that dough!

On another forum there was a thread called "Blow that dough".... where people who no longer had to scrimp and save could spend on whatever they wanted. Iris Lilly gives us a sample occasionally. My problem (if you could call it that) is that I can buy whatever I want but hate shopping and really have few wants. Recently bought a new car and am planning a few vacations. Perhaps I should hire someone to shop for clothes for me. I hate looking and could use some??? My moniker fits me, i guess. I have trouble spending lavishly.

My problem is that I do not like fuss and bother.

Nearly every "thing" I would buy with nearly-infinite resources would require a certain amount of my time, attention, and bother to maintain, store, and use. (And often to license, pay taxes on, yada yada yada).

As a result, as I've been getting older, I've been tapering down buying physical items, even though I could afford basically anything I want. If I was in a position to desire to hire staff to deal with such things, it might be different, but even having employees seems like a terrible bother.

I do spend on travel, but generally not to trendy places, because trendy places are a bother.

I freely buy stupidly-expensive optical gear for photography/astronomy, but most of that is very little bother. I have decided not to get into large telescopes and mounts, because those are an *extreme* bother, and a rather extreme cost, so for that I now just rent time at observatories around the world and remotely operate the instrument and gather data for processing here, which is not much bother at all, though it is $$$. (And all of the Hubble and James Webb data is free, and there's plenty of cool stuff to find in there.)

We constantly discuss this very issue. I always wanted "enough" for a good nursing home with a personal chef. Now we have probably 3X the amount needed and no desire to spend it. We are going to Korea next year but we have done most of our overseas travel in the 80s-90s.

Sometimes as BAE said the aftercare time and attention is just not worth it and I detest the act of shopping.

I blew dough on professional landscaping. The results were mediocre.

I will blow dough on hiring a company to put up and take down exterior Christmas lights this year.

I wish I could blow some dough on hiring someone to finish major projects around here but

1) you can’t really hire anyone to build the stone wall DH is building

2) DH won’t allow me to hire anyone to put up woodwork and paint the remaining rooms here and install the staircase. Besides, it is dastardly hard to hire finish carpenters, ya have to get on a waiting list. By the time we would get someone here DH will b done.

The keeping it simple is a big part of not blowing dough for me. And being genetically frugal in my case. I have a very low tolerance for frustration. Shopping for things can be such a chore - scanning the internet, reading reviews, ordering, returns, etc. And very often it ends up that you have to buy a thing for your thing.

My blow the dough is to simply have the money to buy all the books I want. And since I buy ebooks, they don’t take up physical room.

We have spent a lot of money on badly needed home improvements this year, but also spent a lot on the more discretionary categories of art and plants. Apparently there is no limit to what I could spend on plants if the funds were available.

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Originally Posted by rosarugosa

We have spent a lot of money on badly needed home improvements this year, but also spent a lot on the more discretionary categories of art and plants. Apparently there is no limit to what I could spend on plants if the funds were available.

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Rosa, I worked with a woman who got a very big divorce settlement. She bought $7000 worth of annuals one year. She was truly an icon!

This thread title is funny! Makes me laugh.

oh and Tybee, I probably blew $500 on annuals this year, all for pots. That is a HUGE amount for me since I seldom splurge on annuals. And by gum, next year I'm goonna spend even more.

$7000 on annuals—she is my hero!

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Originally Posted by pinkytoe

The keeping it simple is a big part of not blowing dough for me. And being genetically frugal in my case. I have a very low tolerance for frustration. Shopping for things can be such a chore - scanning the internet, reading reviews, ordering, returns, etc. And very often it ends up that you have to buy a thing for your thing.

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Car shopping is agony for me. That is why I called up our friend who sells Lincoln/Ford cars and said
this, verbatim: “ Ed, I want a Bronco Sport in that weird blue color, and I don't want a lot of junk on it.” He got us that car (not a tall order by any means.)

That is how I “ shopped.” This was after the local Ford dealer suggested I go online and choose the “ packages” I want. Ugh, that would be torture. I chose a Bronco Sport after seeing them around here because it looked like my old car, it was a square SUV.

Also, electronics. Shopping for them. Agony.

I don't really have a lot of dough to blow, but when I do, I also HATE researching bigger/more expensive products/items. Going on the internet to research always ends up being information overload for me! I'll often end up just doing without rather than wade through all the mess.

sweetana3, where in Korea are you going? I've been and it is a beautiful country!

I devoted stupid amounts of time “shopping” for stoves for our recent renovations. You all will remember those boring sagas.

Looking back at it, now, I needed to “shop” for those stoves the same way I shopped for our car which would be going into a high end appliance store and saying: “ I want a red stove. I want a blue stove. I don’t want a lot of junk on them such as glass top/invection/convection. What are my options? “

It’s funny that this is the first time I’ve put the two concepts together, stove shopping and car shopping. Now I realize how wealthy people operate, and why people shop diamonds at Tiffanys. They want a pre-selected high-quality product and they don’t want the bother of learning about 4 C’s of diamond shopping just like they dont want to learn about features of cars and stoves.
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Originally Posted by iris lilies

I devoted stupid amounts of time “shopping” for stoves for our recent renovations. You all will remember those boring sagas.

Looking back at it, now, I needed to “shop”:for those stoves the same way I shopped for our car which would be going into a high end appliance store and saying: I want a red stove. I want a blue stove. I don’t want a lot of junk on them. What are my options?

it’s funny that this is the first time I’ve put the two concept together, stove shopping, and car shopping. Now I realize how wealthy people operate, and why people shop diamonds at Tiffanys. They want a pre-selected high-quality product and they don’t want to learn about the features of stoves and cars, just like they don’t want to bother to learn about the 4 C’s of diamond shopping.

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Good insight, IL.

That's how I got my Prius, too. I was driving home with my kids from watching their dad play the bagpipes in a Memorial Day parade. We were headed to Scotland on a family trip the next day. My daughter had just graduated from college and was going to take sole possession of the VW Beetle we had shared when she was in college. I was driving past a Toyota dealership, and it was one of those impulsive "screeecchh" moments when I just made a fast left hand turn into the dealership. I told the kids to wait in the car, I saw a white Prius (and I wanted white because it doesn't go out of style and doesn't show dirt like darker colors), scanned the features and saw that they were what I wanted. By the time the salesperson had approached me in the lot I already had the deposit written. I told him I was out of the country for 10 days and I'd pick it up when I got home, which I did.

17 years later, it's still going strong! That's the way I like to shop. I can do it because I really don't buy much. I'm not a jewelry person or a new furniture person, or a clothes person or a spa person... so when I want something, I get it.

There is no universe where I can buy whatever I want. That world doesn't exist where money is no object for me. It likely won't ever exist. The only world I know is where I can get *some* of what I want (and sometimes only by shuffling things around, making trade offs in expenses, trading off saving and spending etc. - not always even easily). I feel I compromise on the life I would ideally want because I don't have infinite money. But also kind of so what, world's tiniest violin, that's just life.

But what is the first thing that comes up if I had infinite money? Oh I think maybe I'd get a maid! But you know, maybe I actually wouldn't. Maybe I'd feel too much like I have to clean up my own goshdarn messes, you made the mess you clean it up ANM.

I likely would not live in this apartment. But this apartment isn't that terrible? No, no it's not that terrible, but it leaves some things to be desired.

I'm a furniture person (but it's pretty much all thrifted except fabric stuff), AND a clothes person (when buying clothes but I don't have a large closet AT ALL), AND a spa person (I'll take a massage please) but only in modest quantities and often not at all. So yea I care about all that stuff when I'm buying it, but mostly only until some enough point (but I could see getting a massage weekly with unlimited $). For stuff, no I have trained myself too hard not to want stuff stuff. Because it's a way of life, a practice, and so on (really it's pretty mundane but yea).

The car thing I got a decent used small gas car when unemployed, I might have gone fancier if the car wasn't totaled WHILE I happened to be unemployed and feeling broke, but that's how it went down. My partner is now in endless ruminating on which car to get that seems to go nowhere, I figure you can only think about and research such things so much, eventually you need to just pick a car and get it. Probably gonna be a corolla hybrid sedan. :laff:

Last week, I fell into travel videos and watched videos about hotel stays at Claridge’s, the Plaza, and the Savoy. Those videos pretty much quelled my interest in staying at those high-end classic old hotels. The Plaza did not fare well in its review. Did you know you can’t even get a damn cup of coffee at 6 AM in the morning at the Plaza? My God, what is the world coming to. Haha.

Meanwhile, my frugal husband spent two weeks in Switzerland and spent only a few hundred bucks in doing so. Other than his airfare, there was very little cost because he stayed with relatives and they ferried him around. Switzerland is arguably the most expensive European country to visit.

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Originally Posted by sweetana3

We constantly discuss this very issue. I always wanted "enough" for a good nursing home with a personal chef. Now we have probably 3X the amount needed and no desire to spend it. We are going to Korea next year but we have done most of our overseas travel in the 80s-90s.

Sometimes as BAE said the aftercare time and attention is just not worth it and I detest the act of shopping.

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egad, I hadn’t thought about a nursing home with good chef staff. That would be nice.

I don’t think muchly like that is available around here anyway. There might be one place in St Louis, but…it doesn’t fit my desire for aesthetically pleasing.i probably won’t get those aesthetics anyway.

And yes, like bae says. Stuff that requires care and licensing and etc. can be a bother,

The topic makes me think I am pretty much satisfied with what I have. However, if/when we move to another house, there is no doubt that we will need to spend more dough since prices have gone up so much. That's OK though because I am more than ready to find the house to grow old in (and this ain't the one.)

When I retired 6 years ago, I did so because I thought a couple of things pointed to it being the right time. I was old enough and had worked long enough I figured it was about time to transition, and I had enough money in retirement accounts to convince myself that I'd never have to eat cat food.

I've never been particularly frugal although I've also never been one to deny myself whatever I may want. Luckily my wants have never been too extreme once I reached the point where basic comforts were guaranteed. During that first year of retirement, we just maintained our lifestyle and I don't believe we splurged on anything out of the ordinary. During the second year we decided to treat ourselves to an upgrade to our old falling apart motorhome and spent about $60K (after trade-ins) on a new small camper and light duty truck to haul it around with. It was at that point that we realized we still had appreciably more money left in the bank of us than we had when I retired so we began to think that anything over that retirement day balance was available for splurging purposes.

During years 3 and 4 post retirement we spent several months each year wandering around the country and spent $60 or $70K upgrading a few things around the house and realized that afterwards, we still had a pretty decent buffer zone between our day 1 balance and the current one so, in year 5 we spent a little over $80K upgrading our pool and landscaping in the back yard. And, we're still significantly above that comfort zone in our balances so we're contemplating next year's splurges. Probably a bigger camper and heavy duty truck to take on a 3 to 4 month trip to Alaska and back next summer, that is after our annual couple of month warm weather wander about beginning in November.

I guess we mostly 'blow dough' on experiences and whatever accoutrements necessary to enhance those experiences.

I would buy a small horse farm, a Kubota tractor for my husband, a new ford truck for my husband, a horse trailer, and breed marsh tackys. And lots and lots of perennials and roses, and a few endangered sheep, and feel I was contributing something to the world when I was gone.

If I had untold riches I would buy us a new president. One that's kind and admirable.

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Originally Posted by bae

Nearly every "thing" I would buy with nearly-infinite resources would require a certain amount of my time, attention, and bother to maintain, store, and use.

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I was trying to think on an inverse term for this, or at least something that connotes a positive version of those effects, but everything I thought of failed to capture the essence of what I was looking for. I spend a lot, by a layman's standards, on bicycles. But the knock on effect for me is the effort it triggers is I think positive in that it gets me out riding more than more pedestrian (ha, pun intended) equipment would. And it gives meaning to some of the less touristy places we go just to ride up some geologic landmark, or healthy transportation to remote areas with less crowds given the lack of access by powered modes. And I enjoy the effort of upkeep and tinkering, Zen and the Art of Bicycle Maintenance if you will. So even though they do require a lot out of me, I rationalize my expenditure on bikes as a catalyst for a bunch of positives.

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Originally Posted by Yossarian

I was trying to think on an inverse term for this, or at least something that connotes a positive version of those effects, but everything I thought of failed to capture the essence of what I was looking for. I spend a lot, by a layman's standards, on bicycles. But the knock on effect for me is the effort it triggers is I think positive in that it gets me out riding more than more pedestrian (ha, pun intended) equipment would. And it gives meaning to some of the less touristy places we go just to ride up some geologic landmark, or healthy transportation to remote areas with less crowds given the lack of access by powered modes. And I enjoy the effort of upkeep and tinkering, Zen and the Art of Bicycle Maintenance if you will. So even though they do require a lot out of me, I rationalize my expenditure on bikes as a catalyst for a bunch of positives.

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I like this! I try to do it in some areas of my life, but I think I will try to do it more often... look for more positives. Thanks!

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Originally Posted by HappyHiker

If I had untold riches I would buy us a new president. One that's kind and admirable.

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Probably couldn’t be bought!

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Originally Posted by HappyHiker

If I had untold riches I would buy us a new president. One that's kind and admirable.

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Wouldn't we be calling her Soros, Or a Koch relative, Musk, Gates, or anyone of some other billionaire?

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Originally Posted by frugal-one

Probably couldn’t be bought!

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Seems that running a campaign costs countless bucks these day - a big-part of the problem with getting a "person of the people" elected without them being beholden to big money contributors/supporters... Look at our current situation.