Help me spend money

[2177V]

Wife and I have lived a fairly frugal life. Have always saved maximum for retirement. Well, we are there and now with pension, SS, dividends, company stock, and multiple IRAs and 401k’s. I am overwhelmed with the nest egg and how to spend it. I feel stuck in this frugality mindset and can’t seem to spend more. I know it is a silly problem but for me it is real. Anyone else have this issue or ideas?

Spend your money "efficiently"....which helps your frugel mindset. Examples:
1. Buy prime cut steak and lobsters at Costco.
2. Fly economy but upgrade to special economy with more legroom near the exits.
3. Lease or rent an expensive sports car.
4. Stay at an Airbnb million dollar house for a week near a beach.
5. Hire a maid for a few days a week to clean your house and cook some meals for you.
6. Buy a small RV trailer and travel all over the USA.
7. There are some low cost hobbies...hiking, exploring, fishing, hunting, bird watching, dancing, learning a new language, become an unpaid volunteer or tutor.
8. Remodel your kitchen, your bathroom, your back yard. Buying new indoor or outdoor furniture and new carpets can make a difference without buying a new house.
9. Get rid of your clutter by building a shed or renting a space.
10. Find new friends and buy them dinner.

 

[SecondCor521]

I'm familiar with the "disdainful of over-worry about the future" -- the whole lilies of the field speech -- but disdainful over "miserliness leading to relatives enjoying the fruits of your labor?" Where does that come from? I'm just curious. I'm trying to recall a passage, but I'm coming up blank.

Also, "he thought excess money should be focused on increasing your friendships"? Can you share a quote? Thanks.

I was wondering the same thing.

 

[jkern]

Very nice room. Recently, I paid close to that for an Airbnb apartment in a Waikiki highrise, which was nowhere that nice, but it was for 5 people.

Out of curiosity, I looked on the Web, and across the Carmel Bay, there are a couple of lodges that are more expensive, and the rooms do not look as nice. I guess their higher prices are because of the golf courses. I'd rather take your TicklePink Inn.

One of my favorite places to stay in Carmel is Quail Lodge. Very nice accommodations at a reasonable price.

 

[JJpop]

OP good question. We'll be in a similar situation in Jan. 2023. It is very hard to change life long spending habits. As of today, our beneficiaries will inherit our entire portfolio, outside bonds and cash, house, car (new 2019). All in living trust. No debts. If they inherit 1/2 that, they'll be grateful. I have charitable beneficiaries too.

We just don't get that much pleasure out of 1st class or driving a Lexus. Maybe a 1st class vacation or travel will be considered. We rarely buy new clothes and have downsized and have very little useless junk.

You kind of sound like my wife. We are in a similar situation.Things like flying first class seem like a waste of money to us and if you have that mindset,it will not change.
I convinced my wife to feel much better about spending when I laid it out on paper. I showed her we had enough money to do the travel and whatever just by spending the interest off of our safe investments and using our SS. Our total portfolio would not go down in value and we could leave it to the kids.You can enjoy all the savings from your hard work and sacrifice, spend the money, and you still have what you had saved. Worked for her.

 

[2177V]

Very nice room. Recently, I paid close to that for an Airbnb apartment in a Waikiki highrise, which was nowhere that nice, but it was for 5 people.

Out of curiosity, I looked on the Web, and across the Carmel Bay, there are a couple of lodges that are more expensive, and the rooms do not look as nice. I guess their higher prices are because of the golf courses. I'd rather take your TicklePink Inn.

I also stayed at an Airbnb Highrise in Waikiki for 30 nights for $2800 total which is less than $100 a night. Best investment I ever made because I was going to buy some property in Waikiki but I changed my mind.

Only by living in Waikiki long term, I discovered the negatives: (1) Weather is hot and humid. I did not noticed this previously because I only stayed 10 nights or less and I was having too much fun. (2) Cost of living is 50% more. (3) Hawaii is too small and have too many tourists.

Instead of buying a property in Waikiki, I decided to travel the world using Airbnb: 6 months in Paris, 6 months home. Repeat this cycle but for different cities and places: New York, Amsterdam, Florence, Southern California beach, Thailand, etc You really do not know a place until you actually live there long term. This is better than moving because moving is a huge financial commitment. If 6 months is too long, try a 3 months vacation and 9 months home cycle.

 

[omni550]

Women can spend every dime you make.

So can men. Ask me about my spendy ex-BF.

omni

 

[NW-Bound]

So can men. Ask me about my spendy ex-BF.

omni

Particularly men who like fast cars.

Recently, I found Youtube videos by a guy who buys wrecked fancy cars to fix them. I binge-watched them, because I wanted to know about these fancy Lambos and Ferraris that I only heard about, and I found their engine construction interesting.

And then, out of curiosity in order to know the price range of a clean used car to compare to what this guy paid for a wrecked car, I looked on Autotrader to see what they go for. Saw quite a few with a new price of $250-300K depreciated to 1/5 of that price with only 20K miles. Apparently, people buy them just to look at, and do not drive them much.

The maintenance of these cars is horrendously expensive. With one car, the manufacturer recommends that the timing belts being changed every 2 to 3 years, and that required dropping the engine. And cars with just 20K miles would develop oil or gas leaks, and many are lost due to fire.

 

[nels52]

one idea for spending

We have 2 grown children, one single and one married with 2 young kids. Besides our own travel we have decided to put money towards the grandkids education funds AND we give each of our grown kids $5000 a year towards their ROTH accounts. That will give them a big leg up on their own TAX FREE retirements! I wish we had had more opportunity to invest in our own ROTH accounts instead of traditional IRA's --- the future tax bills for our IRA's are discouraging. BTW I do have a pension and my wife is taking her SS and I'm grandfathered into to getting 1/2 of hers while my SS grows until age 70 so our monthly income comes close to covering most of our spending and only touch retirement funds once in awhile.