Spinoff: What Expensive Items DO You Buy?

[Ladyandthepuppies]

Oh, everything! My favorite luxuries that we treat ourselves to are vacations, new tech, and eating out. We have a weekly cleaning service but honestly with 3 little kids it’s more of a necessity than a luxury. If money was no object I would happily spend it on clothes, purses, shoes, hair, makeup, time at the spa, home goods, and gifts for others but since we have a budget, those are “only sometimes” purchases. I didn’t have a response in the other thread though, because if I could afford it, I can’t think of anything I wouldn’t spend money on. Apparently I would burn right through my billions

 

[Cubbiecakes]

Yard service
Good food & drink
Comfortable travel
Vacations

 

[mousefan73]

coffee machine: we have a Jura automatic. Costs as much as a major kitchen appliance.

Bike helmets for the kids. They are really in serious mountain biking. So we go to a bike shop, get fitted. Not the let‘s run to Target thing. Spent 140 last week on a new one.

 

[monarchsfan16]

Maui Jim sunglasses. You can't put a price on protecting your eyes.
Disney Cruises and Disney tickets.
Good tires. I live in New England. It snows. End of story.
Columbia omni heat winter clothing. I buy it at the outlets so I get good deals, but the stuff isn't cheap. Worth every penny though.
We eat out a lot. We don't necessarily eat at expensive places and we have cut way back, but we still spend more on eating out than most of my colleagues. That being said, we don't have kids so eating out isn't a nuisance, and I'm the primary cook in the house and neither one of us really likes that fact.

 

[RangerPooh]

DVC ownership
Wyndam Bonnet Creek ownership (purchased resale a decade ago)
Starbucks daily (too lazy to set the coffee pot ourselves)

DH is thinking of having a housekeeper come in 2x a month, I'm up for that!

 

[tasha99]

Excellent food-- not usually restaurants anymore except on vacation because I can out cook most restaurants in my city ( the older I get, the more serious I've been taking cooking as a hobby). We get what we want and don't skimp on ingredients.

Cooking equipment-- I have an amazing array of cooking tools built up one at a time over the years. Much more functional than a set, too, since they're all pans I thought I would use. Sadly, knives are not included in this. I have midlevel knives because I know my family. My one wusthof disappeared, and since my I know knives WILL end up in the dishwasher, the rest are Victorinox and Mercer.

Footwear-- I have lots of shearling boots and slippers, which I wear except at work. My work shoes are plain sneakers because custom orthotics turn them into excellent ones for my feet.

DVC-- We can afford to stay at Grand Californian because we bought resale at a good price years ago. It's still a luxury because I refuse to sell. Oddly, I won't splurge on high end hotels, because the more you pay and the fancier they are, the less you get. I like business class hotels for non Disney travel.

Airfare-- Won't fly more than 3 hours without upgraded seats. Economy plus is fine for cross country, but I'm saving points for a business or first class international trip. One way--we will take a repositioning cruise back.

 

[AndreaDM]

Wine
Cheese
Other quality food items, especially meats
Travel - I'm guessing that goes for most of us on this board. I still look for deals though, I don't like paying more than I have to for the same exact thing.
Better seats at shows and concerts - used to buy the cheapest just to be able to go, don't buy front row now either, but spend the $$ to be able to see well and have a good experience.
Quality handbags

I clean my own house though and probably always will until no longer physically able to.

 

[soccerdad72]

Schooling for our kids

 

[Moliphino]

Name brand ketchup and mayo. Cheap and/or generic brands just aren't as good.

Trader Sam's mugs

 

[gtpoohbear]

Gosh I feel like we splurge on everything these days, a product of getting older I guess. The main ones that come to mind:

Outdoor adventure gear - whether it's a new mountain bike or skis, or a $90 pair of snow gloves for 9yo DS (last weekend, lol!), we don't buy cheap when it comes to our gear. We need to know that we can trust it, and are not willing to waste money on things that will only last a few outings.

Food - especially eating out. We do it a lot. Like, 4-5 times/week. And almost never fast food. When I do grocery shop, DH never wants anything frozen, boxed or canned. Everything has to be fresh, homemade. Our total food budget is probably insane. I don't even want to know.

Entertainment - we have season tickets for all of the touring Broadway shows that come to town, season ski passes (for multiple ski resorts), and season water-park passes. And if we want to go to a movie, museum, amusement park etc. we just go, cost is never really a thought.

Travel - this has definitely creeped upwards over the years. We used to make a point to only take one vacation per year. Then we started slipping in a few long weekend trips too. Now, we pretty much just go where we want, when we want.

That said, we really do cut back in ways that other families may not. We own far less house than we could afford, and have no car payments. I own no jewelry, and our household electronics are all many years old (and were not "good" even when we bought them). We don't really get into decorating at home, and all of our furniture/appliances are very basic.

 

[chicagodisneyfan]

Concert tickets - I see two to three shows a month. And I like to fest!
Lollapalooza, Riot Fest, Jazz Fest. I VIP at fests.

 

[Uncle Coaster]

On the sports and concert front: if I am going solo I often buy an aisle seat and the one next to it to ensure that nobody sits next to me. I’ve even bought a non-aisle seat I wanted and the seat on each side of it for the same reason.

Sometimes, I’ll buy an extra seat in a different section in case I don’t like my seat when I get there I can have a backup plan.

 

[mousefanmichelle]

I never not splurge on my hair when I get it done. I am willing to pay for what I like and who I trust to do it (cut and color). I like quality make-up. My dd has gotten me into that. Vacations, I will look for a deal but basically I want what I want and how I want it.

This thread has me thinking though. I am not a techy person so my cell phone is a couple yrs old and our tv is about 10 yrs old (plasma screen) and I don't have a PC at home, I use my Ipad - those are things I probably won't spend money on upgrading and if they crap out then I will replace but only then and not with the best new thing out there. We don't put our money into our house to be a show place. Its comfortable for us though - we like it enough but it doesn't have granite this or that. We have friends who will drive old crappy cars but their house is a showplace so when people come over they ohhhh and ahhhhh. It just makes me realize everyone's priorities are different. Our priorities are not to impress but to be comfortable with what we have. Our friends is def to impress you with their vacations, their home, their newest TV or newest addition to their home.

To each their own I say! Taken me a long time to be that adult and not jealous and petty about what they have and we don't or whatever. Different strokes for different folks

 

[Erzengel]

A lot of the high end stuff I have is purchased from the Outlets. Probably still more expensive but it's not like going to the anchor store.

 

[Yoshi]

Pay to skip the line programs at amusement parks if it is a park I don’t get to often or know I won’t return to and the park is crowded.

I also buy the all season Fast Lane at my closest amusement park/water park combo. On a hot and humid 90+ degree day it’s well worth the cost to skip a 20 - 30 minute line and have instant or almost instant access to the water slides as many times as I want.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

We don't really buy expensive things but I'll say tech-y stuff because my husband loves to get those things.

On average they aren't expensive but because we just keep adding it's the collection that starts to add up.

We have 3 laptops now with 2 being brand new as in purchased within 3 months ago one being several hundred the other being $650 (though manufactured in 2018 and 2019 respectively) and one being old (manufactured in 2014).

We have 3 tablets now--one is too old to work (can't update the software and would be consider obsolete anyways these days), 1 that is a few years old, then a fire tablet bought last year.

An echo (though it was $90 when we purchased it on sale 2 years ago), an echo auto (for the car) though that was like $20, husband just got new bluetooth ear buds (though they weren't too expensive), I'm looking into getting bluetooth headphones (about $60 which is cheap in the wireless headphone market but way more than I would normally spend), and numerous other random gadgets.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

We have friends who will drive old crappy cars but their house is a showplace so when people come over they ohhhh and ahhhhh. It just makes me realize everyone's priorities are different. Our priorities are not to impress but to be comfortable with what we have.

Based on my sister-in-law's experience with vehicles..she thinks brand=awesome car=people will drool over it...yeah ok but your cadillac stc had numerous issues and her mercedes (don't know the model but it's an suv) now has had multiple issues including not being able to open her driver door due to a malfunction just last week.

On the other hand just because your friends drive crappy cars but have a nice house doesn't mean they value impressing over comfort..otherwise why have crappy cars out driving around--you'd be more likely to have flashy cars if you're in it to impress lol. I drive around in a crappy car because I don't want to buy a new one right now and have car payments, my husband drives around a 2010 Mazda for the same reasons. When we have to replace we won't go for flashy but they will for sure be considered upgrades to our current vehicles.

 

[Searc]

Some things we feel are worth the extra money, now that we can afford them ~

Top shelf alcohol
Local craft beer
Cheese
Quality food
Good meat from local meat market
Travel
We buy vehicles new and keep them for 8-10 years, typically
I have a pair of Ray Bans I got as a gift years ago and I love them.
I have a Michael Kors purse that I love and I've had it for 7 or 8 years. I got a great deal on it from Macy's. Including the matching wallet, it was $130. It's a classic style and matches everything and you'd never know it wasn't brand new by looking at it.

 

[Erzengel]

Oh, when we went to Ireland I bought Jameson that was only available there.

 

[VAfamily1998]

--travel; for the past several years I've taken at least 3-4 international trips per year.
--theater tickets; I don't go often, but when I do I splurge for the very best seats available
--college for my kids (most expensive thing I buy!)