Early Retirement Extreme Forums

@palmera--And you were worried about $80 in books

^LOL! I KNOW, RIGHT? *sheepish*

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Here's another one, although it's not quite mine: I recently paid $150 (which will be reimbursed by landlord) to get a furnace blower capacitor replaced. The part can be had for around $15, and installation takes 10min. When the guy said the cap was out, I was thinking "good, that'll be like $10" and when he said $150 I almost choked. Still, I called the landlord to confirm and he said OK. I could personally live without heat (40-60 degree weather) while trying to find the part, but I think the landlord recognized that he has a duty to get it fixed as soon as possible (plus it's probably tax deductible... and it's not just me). So while I don't think he made the wrong decision, the whole ordeal was slightly embarrassing.

You lot make me feel so much better about my embarrassing expenditure. Mine is taking the dog to the dog park 5 km away in the car!. Locally we cannot walk the dog without her being on the lead and she really doesn't like that. In the dog park she can run free and get much more exercise than I would ever give her in a 40 minute lead led walk. Also its a much nicer walk through the park and trees on grass than through the suburbs full of houses on the pavement. She is well behaved and sleeps a lot during the day when she is well exercised vs somewhat depressed and yet manic when she doesn't get it. Its also good for my health to stretch my legs. Well that's my rationale.
I would love to live closer to nice surroundings for walking, but that would drive the cost of the house up $300K and we just don't have that. Alternatively we could live in the country, but this house is just 7 minutes by M/C to DH work and we can afford it.
The other extravagance is my volunteer work. They sort of expect you to have your own transport to get to where you are needed and I really enjoy both getting together with the others and the access to resources/skills I want.

I now have 5 ereaders and think this is logical and can't get rid of any :\
*PRS-950 x2: Still my favorite for technical reading. Since 7" screen might be a thing of the past have an extra for redundancy. Paid $180 at launch, and $120 for extra.

*PRS-350: Really like reading fiction with this little guy. Also, fits in pants pocket like a wallet. $30 from cowboom.

*Kindle 3 w/ 3g: This would be the ereader I would get rid off... But the 3g is pretty fantastic when traveling. $50 off ebay.

*NookSimpleTouch: Just got a refurb for $40. Once rooted this thing is pretty amazing... Am using dropbox to keep it synced with my ebook library... Liking it so much I might start shopping for a deal on the backlit one. Think this might become my primary straight text reader along with PRS350.

I bought a pizza from Papa John's over the weekend. It was 50% off. I almost had it delivered, but it was enough of a splurge already.

Roulette - can easily turn 20 dollars into tenfold....

My brokerage-account fees make me feel like a rube: $100/yr plus god knows what commissions on transactions. But so far the overall returns are at least as good as my Vanguard account, and I will move everything into Vanguard before I retire. I will. I will. (Firecalc really scared the bejeesus out of me when I plugged in my actual average expense ratio.)

Had a $18 credit coupon from a store that I did not use for almost a year...finally decided to use it and get rid of an extra piece of paper stuffing up my wallet...spent and hour plus in the store and found nothing of interest. Having invested so much time (what happened to sunk costs ?).. I had to walk out with something..so ended up buying a $80 Swiss Army knife.
I totally did not need it right now but am now justifying it to myself as something I would use when I go RVing and camping on an extended basis (something I do plan to do). Probably could have gotten it cheaper off of CL etc.
Beware of store credit!

Oh, y'all have nothing to be embarassed about...
My most ridiculous purchase ever was a high end kidskin white leather three piece outfit (jacket, pants, skirt) in 1986. Yes, at $800 this was a crazy amount of money to spend for a high school student. I wore that outfit probably ten times before it retired to a box in the garage to be carted from place to place over a period of twenty years. I finally donated it.
Wonder how much that $800 would have turned into if only I knew then what I know now

This weekend I took the BF to NYC for this birthday. In all the weekend probably set me back $1K. The dinner alone was $275 (ouch, can't remember the last time I spent so much on a single dinner).
I definitely splurged on dinner but am I embarrassingly cheap in other parts?
* broadway tickets were $92/each (but that's 50% off cause we stood in line the day-of at the TKTS booth).
* we had a very nice hotel room very near Times Square for $170/night (but we had to sit through a 1.5 hour time share presentation to get the good deal).

I spend too much on television and internet expenses. I bought the new TiVo with 4 simultaneous tuners, along with a lifetime subscription, and the bluetooth remote. I subscribe to premium cable channels, including HBO and expensive sports packages. I have 3 different interent service providers (cable, cell phone, and iPad)

My embarrassing splurge of this month:

Something called 'restaurant week' in the Netherlands. It's a week in which you can eat a 3-course menu at whatever participating restaurant for 27.50 Euros (drinks not included) The trick is to pick a more fancy restaurant at which you would normally not eat due to the costs involved. It's an ideal way to try a new restaurant at a relatively 'reasonable' price here.
Still, after having cooked quite a neat 3-course meal for 3 persons yesterday (both wine and coffee afterwards included) at about 30 euros total the day before, it was not what we expected. First of all, due to drinks (here in the Netherlands especially, drinks can be pretty pricey and there's no such thing as a free refill) you will always spend more. However, this time, whilst the food was 'nice', it was nothing special. That is, nothing I could not have made myself.
Until two or three years ago, I was never much of a cook. And without a doubt, I still have (very) much to learn and yet, I found myself thinking 'hm, I could have done this myself. And cheaper at that.'

It's funny because I feel like something of a spoiled brat on one hand, whilst on the other, I am amused by the fact that nowadays, I actually take pride in the stuff I cook myself. (Or could cook).
So whilst I still had a really nice evening, I could not help but to think 'next time, it'll be at my own 'restaurant' '.

So thanks ERE - for inspiring me to learn how to cook and become more picky even about pricey dinners

When I was two months pregnant, I was too sick to cook. My husband was in charge of getting food, and we spent $1100 eating out that month, all take out. There was more money spent on groceries on top of this and I bet half were thrown out.
I feel sick just proof reading what I wrote.

As I live in Germany, mine is the fantastic beer.

I pay way too much for a premium Bavarian bottle of wheat beer.

Tried wine, tried scotch but for me it´s beer.
There was one expensive vice which I get rid about 10 years ago: smoking.
The motorbike riding hobby I've discontinued this month by selling it.

I was looking for the thread on 'justifiable quality purchases' - you know where we can admit 'I buy quality tool x because ' ... or 'I own a quality fleece jacket for my environment'. Is there such a thread?
So to continue this particular thread .. it is a little difficult to detail my Embarrassing ERE expense because that changes over time, but is currently perhaps ..
- Alcohol ; down to about $80/month now ..

- probably electronic gadgets - 1 or more a year (Computer monitor or tablet computer or other) probably around $300/year now ..
hmm that's pretty boring ...

for me it's food...it's really difficult for me to get food slashed a lot because I enjoy going out to some restaurants and I buy food sometimes from expensive places like Whole Foods.
Also, I love buying black ice coffees when I'm out in the city...Don't ask me why. I just love drinking a plain ice coffee when I'm out doing stuff.
I'm working on this one more than anything....

I don't think any of ours are really embarrasing but then again I don't care overmuch what people think of how we spend or don't spend out $. However ours that might make my ERE peers cringe is eating out once a week for dh and I. Usually between $15 and $25. This one is all my fault. I just get super sick of cooking 3 meals 7 days a week.
Also travel. We usually spend $2000-$3000 a year on two big family trips. We have managed some sweet exotic trips for the 4 of us and and managed to so enjoy our 4 weeks of vacation broken into two sweet trips a year. I think that likely goes against ERE.Our kids are almost grown and we sure have had a blast with these experiences.
I will say though we really didn't do much of the two things I listed above until we were already pretty financially stable. We were pretty backbelt years back when we had debt.

My hair... $70 every two months. It hurts to look at it in Mint. I do it because I work in a corporate office and need to look nice, and have wavy-curly hair that every other cheap place has screwed up horribly. When I used to work in a hospital kitchen, I got $6 buzz cuts at the local hairdressing school.
Also, my boyfriend and I budget a combined $7000/year for travel. We love international travel and go to several countries per year, many of them expensive places like western Europe.