(I hate clickbait titles but it’s appropriate.)
Nearly every blog I read is making a resolution. I subscribe to the Bill Murray line of thinking that it’s best to wait a couple of weeks. However, there is one resolution that I’ll share now.
I resolve to spend money. I want people to call me Spendy McSpendington.
This is difficult for me, because I’ve been Frugal McFrugalface for a long time. It was nearly a decade ago that I put together hundreds of tips on how to save money… and I was frugal long before that.
Things changed in the last month. It was kind of a chain reaction of events:
- It was time to replace our couch which lead to this conundrum.
- Our carpets were in worse shape than the couch. Between the standard amount of mess that a 3 and 4 year old make and my dog sitting gig, it was time for a change. Once one dog pees on the rug another will follow and it’s almost impossible to keep up with it, no matter how much Nature’s Miracle Urine Destroyer we use. (It’s a great product, but sometimes there’s simply too much especially when you have 500+ dog day stays in a year like we had.)
- My Subaru Forrester was a mess for the same reason the carpets were. It’s not just the dog and the kids, but it’s the beach car as well. I shouldn’t throw the kids and dogs completely under the bus, I probably generated most of the trash.
So here’s what we did after Christmas to close out the year:
- We bought a new couch! (I might have more to say on that next week. It wasn’t very eventful.)
- We put in some new waterproof vinyl plank flooring (more on that in the future too).
- Finally, my wife gave me a gift card for a local car detailer who made the Forrester look almost new again. I couldn’t recognize my car.
That’s a lot to do in the span of a week or so. In total it was about $4000. Of course the flooring and the couch should last for years and years, so I think of it as being amortized over a long time. Still, that’s quite a spending spree for a few days. We’re not done as we’re looking to make other improvements throughout the house.
There’s a method to the spending. We got some great deals on the flooring and couch. More importantly, they’ll be easier to clean in the future which saves me time and energy.
We’re making 2017 the year of comfort. This means that we’re going to try to be spend more to live more comfortably. Many personal finance bloggers focus on fighting lifestyle inflation. We’ve been winning that war for 10 years and it’s time to judicially spend to improve our quality of life.
A car detailing does wooonders for the emotional well-being of the car.
And the car owner too ;-)
Know what you mean about time to spend. Just sold my 1998 trans am on Craigslist and it was time to buy an 2 year old truck. What a difference in the ride!
Inflation here is crazy. Rent just shot up 15% over the past quarter, in areas I rent out. At the same time, labor costs more when you need it. Otoh, we are planning a mini renovation of sorts for our place including floors, furniture and hardscape. I haven’t begun to cost it yet.
I don’t think spending money and frugality are mutually exclusive. If you had used your money to buy a Porsche, it would be one thing, but keeping a hygienic and comfortable home sound like frugal purchases to me. If you didn’t replace them I think you would be borderline cheap. ;)
We just had such a conundrum. We’ve been using the dishwasher that came with our house for the last four months. Frugal, right? Well, that sucker makes a loud WHIRRRING sound every time it runs. It was so loud that we could only run the dishwasher when we were out of the house. It was horrible.
We finally shelled out $600 for a new dishwasher and hoooly crap life has been awesome since then. It was included in our house budget, so it’s not like it was an impulse buy. But spending that money made our lives easier and more comfortable–and it was planned for and budgeted. So why the hell not?