I used to drop $200 on beauty products without a thought. Shopped at J.Crew all the freaking time. $25 bottles of wine regularly. Expensive dinners in and out. We lived in a prime location downtown. Great vacations. Ah...

Laughed at PP's Meatloaf Wednesdays.

I still wouldn't trade my Target wardrobe and TJs wine for the life we have now. Even though my newborn peed on me twice and I haven't consistently slept well since 2010.

"every night" and not "every now"

Anonymous wrote:I can't for the life of me understand the "food snobs" who insist on this or that restaurant (or anything else, for that matter) after kids. Who has that kind of money? We are very comfortable and I just don't understand that way of thinking.

I can't either. In some other threads eating out every now was used as a reason for not wanting kids (among other reasons). But I can't imagine eating out every night. I'd be morbidly obese! Restaurants add tons of butter and oil and stuff, even to vegetables! So even when you think you are ordering something "healthy," it usually is way more calories than a person should consume in a day. And I don't have the self control (and I don't think it's worth the money) to just eat two bites.

Not to mention, I've been to restaurants in the DC metro area that people rave about, and most of them are okay, but not worth the fuss and expense of going out. Oddly enough, the handful of places where I had a divine meal were actually inexpensive, obscure places.

But different strokes for different folks.

Dining out, movies, plays, concerts, grooming, and electronics.

DH could buy any tool he wanted, when he wanted.

Gave a lot more time and money to charity. A lot.

I'm amazed at how much money we used to spend as DINKs.

We are very close to being back at the same HHI -- DH has been very fortunate at work -- but we still have some big expenses we didn't have before. Preschool, etc.

Oh man... I remember the days.

Bottle of isoceles wine with dinner for $290? Sure, who gives a shit.

Want to fly to Europe for the weekend? Sure, why the hell not.

Ooh look a new cell phone hit the market. I'll buy it.

Different days....

We traveled (a ton - Vegas for a week without a real budget, etc....), ate out, concerts, season tickets to MLB, etc...

We definitely should have had a bigger savings account at that time but I'm so incredibly glad we had those experiences together. It makes our current Meatloaf Wednesdays more bearable knowing we are each capable of playing the hell out of a craps table for 24 hours!

Also, to the PP who mentioned out of town weddings, those invitations start drying up fast as you get older. No need to RSVP no when everybody's already married (and now the divorces are starting!).

Ours was way less when we were single/newly married. We ate out, traveled, went to concerts, etc. Enter grad-school student loan payments and childcare for two kids, and I doubt we'll ever live like that again.

With us it went to travel (3 vacations a year usually somewhere far away), and going to the movies once a week, and gadgets for DH.

I can't for the life of me understand the "food snobs" who insist on this or that restaurant (or anything else, for that matter) after kids. Who has that kind of money? We are very comfortable and I just don't understand that way of thinking.

Drinks and dinner out ALL the time! We're lucky to get an adults only date night once every few months and were certainly not polishing off two bottles of wine while we're out.

We used it to pay down our student loans so that we could afford to make less money and spend more time with our kids now that we have them.

We're still DINKs and I know we will shop and eat out WAY less when we have kids. Also RSVP "no" to a lot of out of town weddings. Those really add up!

My husband and I used to live in the Bay area and both worked in technology. We were making tons of money and life was great. Dinners out, shopping, vacations. Now my husband works here (still in technology, but the salary isn't as good) and I SAH. Aaaahhhh... sometimes I miss the DINC days!

Even though my husbands career has made advancements, I went (very) part time so our HHI is actually less then 5 years ago. Its funny because we are doing fine now but I think about my old bonus checks and what I could do with them now and then I wonder...wtf did I do with them then? Its not like we had a higher standard of living, we actually had a much smaller mortgage! However...we traveled...and went out (to actually nice places; not chiptole) and we drank the good stuff! Funny how times change!