Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is not a single answer. My husband and I are both GS-14s with the fed. We do very well by our standards, but my husband is a squirrel when it comes to money. He likes to stash it away in our various savings/retirement/investment accounts, and not spend. We'll save up for a vacation, and when I start the planning process he'll point to our checking account and say "With what money???" Even though we have PLENTY of cash in our money market, he just doesn't like to make withdrawals. Even though money is ear marked for certain purchases.

Me . . . I am happy saving about 10% of my income for retirement annually, keeping a savings cushion of 4 months for emergencies, and then I think we should live a little.

My husband . . . not so much.

I know your pain. You must open up a new acct for each earmarked purchase with a nickname on the acct with the name of the goal.

My husband is the EXACT same way! I responded to some of the wealth posts regarding what it feels like and I think the sheer reason I don't feel it is because as soon as I get a work bonus or we have extra money it gets instantly squirreled away into various investments. We also retained a former house which has been a great investment property-but I keep thinking how less stressed I'd feel with all of the $ from the proceeds of that house. I am actually glad he is so disciplined--but he does need to loosen up. I am very frugal too--but I have been trying to get him to take more vacations...he is constantly monitoring accounts and 'growing wealth'.

I had two gym memberships for a year. Neither was particularly expensive on its own and I used both frequently. One was close to work and one was close to home, and my busy work schedule made it difficult to work out if the gym wasn't incredibly convenient. I had a few friends that questioned this "luxury", but the fact was that I made over $100K, had a mortgage that only cost $13K a year and $100/monthly of gym costs was completely reasonable.

These days I have an iphone even though it's $35/month more than a regular phone because it's convenient to be able to check email/facebook or gps a location from anywhere. (I kept my previous cell phone for like 7 years because it kept working.)

I don't buy new cars very often - about every 10 years - but I buy Acuras instead of something cheaper because I like them and they are reliable, but also nicely styled. I could spend $10K less on a car but wouldn't like it as much. I feel that it's worth the extra $1,000/year to drive something I love to drive.

I just use common sense. I really can't think of any other approach. I feel like calling my parents and my husband's parents right now and thanking them for raising us with common sense about money.

depends on what the non necessity is. I need new sunglasses. ie I want Maui Jim sunglasses but dh thinks something that costs about $50 is fine. I think better is a health investment thus more of a necessity than say buying a new cellphone, when the current one works just fine. Sometimes its hard to define something b/c its a spectrum not black and white need vs necessity unless you get down to roof, medical, food, clothes: whereby whatever functions meets the need.

Anonymous wrote:There is not a single answer. My husband and I are both GS-14s with the fed. We do very well by our standards, but my husband is a squirrel when it comes to money. He likes to stash it away in our various savings/retirement/investment accounts, and not spend. We'll save up for a vacation, and when I start the planning process he'll point to our checking account and say "With what money???" Even though we have PLENTY of cash in our money market, he just doesn't like to make withdrawals. Even though money is ear marked for certain purchases.

Me . . . I am happy saving about 10% of my income for retirement annually, keeping a savings cushion of 4 months for emergencies, and then I think we should live a little.

My husband . . . not so much.

I know your pain. You must open up a new acct for each earmarked purchase with a nickname on the acct with the name of the goal.

There is not a single answer. My husband and I are both GS-14s with the fed. We do very well by our standards, but my husband is a squirrel when it comes to money. He likes to stash it away in our various savings/retirement/investment accounts, and not spend. We'll save up for a vacation, and when I start the planning process he'll point to our checking account and say "With what money???" Even though we have PLENTY of cash in our money market, he just doesn't like to make withdrawals. Even though money is ear marked for certain purchases.

Me . . . I am happy saving about 10% of my income for retirement annually, keeping a savings cushion of 4 months for emergencies, and then I think we should live a little.

My husband . . . not so much.

Agree that it's when you can afford it after you pay off your ACTUAL necessities and then for important extras. Necessities to us are housing, electricity, water, healthcare, food, inexpensive but reliable transportation, childcare one cheap phone and in this day probably internet (though if times are tight libraries have internet) clothes when our kids grow. Important extras are saving for retirement, college, emergency fund. To us then you can consider splurges like babysitting so you can go out (pretty impt for health of a marriage), cable, smartphone, highlights, pedicures, entertainment, cleaning service etc.

When deciding if you can add expenses you can do the math to see. If you have to cut retirement to get a housekeeper you can't afford it in my mind. I also agree with the poster who said somethings just dont seem worth it regardless. For example, i have an old car that runs fine. We can afford a new one but until i need it i dont see the point On the other hand i would cut a number of our extras before our cleaning service because that gives me time with my kids on the weekends that I wouldn't have.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eh, do whatever you like as long as you don't hurt anyone or expect or hope someone will bail you out of your mistakes.

Sounds about right. As long as you're saving 5-10% of your income, it's all good IMO.

If you're in your 20s, 10% is probably enough. Any older and if you haven't started saving, you need to be putting away 15 to 20%.

When you have the necessities covered. To us, that means an emergency fund, college money and retirement. Otherwise it's a matter of what you value.

Anonymous wrote:Eh, do whatever you like as long as you don't hurt anyone or expect or hope someone will bail you out of your mistakes.

Sounds about right. As long as you're saving 5-10% of your income, it's all good IMO.

We each have a few non-necessities that are built into our monthly budget. The cleaning service, for example. Not "necessary" but not needing to spend several hours every weekend cleaning enables those hours to be spent with our daughter, our friends, whatever. We also have individual non-necessity expenses. I for example like spending two lunch hours a month getting a pedicure with some friends from work and then grabbing a salad on the way back to the office. That's $50 that I then do not spend on, for example, highlights. DH will drop $50 every couple months on a new video game or something along those lines. My strategy has been to try to think about these things as treats, and differentiate them from the non-necessities we build into the budget, like the cleaning service and the nice coffee and the pricey cell phone plan. If we suddenly needed to scale back our monthly spending, the pedicures and video games would be the first things to go.

There are trade offs. There are always trade offs. We just figured out which trades we felt were worth it ($200 a month on a cleaning service that comes every other week vs. the 8 hours we would otherwise spend scrubbing things) and then stopped spending that money on things that were not worth it to us (for example, a $200 dinner date night occurs MAYBE once a year on our anniversary or a birthday).

For something that isn't a necessity I won't buy it unless I don't have any debt other than mortgage, and have an emergency fund and saving for retirement and college.

We are planning a move to a bigger house, and we decided to figure out if we could afford it by pretending for 6 months that we have the new bigger mortgage (and just saving the extra money). We know from that experience that we can spend the new amount on a montly basis.

When you can afford it, and when you don't confuse them with necessities.

I personally think, even then, there are some things that are just plain stupid to spend money on. But that may be the influences of my overly frugal grandfather and father talking.

Eh, do whatever you like as long as you don't hurt anyone or expect or hope someone will bail you out of your mistakes.

I love the financial posts. Everyone seems to have their opinions about what is spending too much, what is not saving enough. But, how do you determine when you can afford an upgrade of a house, car, cleaning staff, etc. Not a necessity, but truly something you don't need. Is there a limit to the amount of the splurge or is there a consensus of financial guidelines that make sense at any price?