Blow That Dough! -2021

[Time2]

Drove 400 miles to visit my daughter over Thanksgiving and the weekend.
We bought everything, meals, alcohol, etc, and the big thing, we filled up her gas tank!

 

[MBAustin]

Finally was able to get my new iPhone 13 mini to replace my 4-year-old 8, which had been getting flakier and flakier over the past few months. The Apple store here was out of stock every time I could get there over the past month, but had it available yesterday. It's nice - I like the face id and having 128gb of storage as I'm a terrible packrat with photos, etc.

 

[Teacher Terry]

After 9 years my tv is making static noises. It started with only the news but yesterday expanded to most shows. Decided to buy a smart LG tv for 900. It arrives on the 10th.

 

[Sunset]

I was watching our building maintenance folks putting up the lights at our building. One guy was standing on the next to top rung of his 10 foot step ladder (on one foot) bending over the top of a tree to set the lights. Scared me. NOT what I want to do in my retirement. Just on our lanai, I too would pay someone else if DW would let me - heh, heh, or, better yet, skip the whole thing! YMMV

DW has stopped me from putting ours along the roof since last year. Now I just throw the lights onto the bushes.
Done in 20 minutes, and I really love the look of lights buried under a few inches of snow (a glowing area).

 

[BOBOT]

DW has stopped me from putting ours along the roof since last year. Now I just throw the lights onto the bushes.
Done in 20 minutes, and I really love the look of lights buried under a few inches of snow (a glowing area).

Check out today's (12/04) Pickles comic:
https://www.gocomics.com/pickles/2021/12/04

 

[goingtotravel]

Latest purchase was a new Christmas tree (artificial) with LED lighting to replace one that we had for over 15 years. $850 for a 9' tall extra wide model. Hoping this one lasts as long as the one we replaced.

 

[DrRoy]

We started taking a month long trip out west (with the dog) after RE in 2017. As I accumulate more photography gear, the car is hard to pack with everything that we want to carry for that long. We have a 2018 Honda CR-V with fairly good cargo capacity. We also get quite good gas mileage; ~35 mpg highway on these trips. We don't really need a different car, it just would be nice to have more space, but we're not willing to give up the good fuel efficiency that we get.

Earlier in the year I took a look at the vehicles out there, and could only find one that was bigger than ours, but had about the same gas mileage. The problem was, you can't get one in just the configuration and color that we wanted, and the company doesn't accept orders at present either. We waited a couple months to see if orders might open up again, but no. We are getting within a few months of our next trip, too. Realizing this, we loosened up a little on the configuration that we would accept, and yesterday I called around to 8 dealers in our area to see what they might have coming in their vehicle allocations.

I thought that we would still have to wait for something to come up, but one of them had a car coming in a few weeks that was really close, just a few extra things that we didn't need. DW and I talked it over, and that afternoon we called this dealer back and put a deposit on a 2022 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited.

It is a lot to spend just to have some more room, but part of the thinking is that in the current used car market, we can get almost 80% of what we spent on the CR-V four years ago. That definitely helps.

 

[MBAustin]

DW and I talked it over, and that afternoon we called this dealer back and put a deposit on a 2022 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited.

My sister got a 2021 Highlander Hybrid (slightly lower trim line) and absolutely loves it. Pro tip: check out online forums for hybrids to learn the techniques to get the best mileage in different driving situations. (I'm a Prius driver and use PriusChat, but I'm sure there are others.) Enjoy!

 

[RetireRay]

Having new windows put into the house! Blowing that dough!

 

[cat4ever]

Same here, on day 3 of the install. $22K for the whole house, the contractor windows installed when the house was built were awful.

 

[ugeauxgirl]

I wrote charity checks today. Big ones. [emoji16]

 

[Koolau]

I wrote charity checks today. Big ones. [emoji16]

Yeah, same here. End-of-year is always big for us. We must get 50 requests in the mail, but always have our old standbys that we double up on in December - check book permitting. Biggest BTD category by far. YMMV

 

[old medic]

It might not be a lot for some, but it is a BTD event for me.....
A group of our friends are beer connoisseurs, and a couple have had the chance to sample Sam Adams Utopias.... so in celebration my retirement I have been hunting a bottle to share with them at our next gathering. After 2 months of asking, a bottle has been located. Never had I ever thought I would spend nearly $300 on a bottle of beer...

 

[cat4ever]

$300 for a bottle of beer? I believe that could be the poster child for BTD.

 

[braumeister]

Utopias would be placed at the very extreme end of any spectrum that contains "beer" so it's not at all what anyone would expect. But for a beer lover, I would agree that it's worth doing once. I've had it a number of times, although I've never actually paid for it.

I happen to know the guy who originally developed it and he had some great stories about the process, some of them quite funny.

 

[old medic]

Utopias would be placed at the very extreme end of any spectrum that contains "beer" so it's not at all what anyone would expect. But for a beer lover, I would agree that it's worth doing once. I've had it a number of times, although I've never actually paid for it.

I happen to know the guy who originally developed it and he had some great stories about the process, some of them quite funny.

As a Homebrewer myself I have loved reading about the history behind Utopias, And the aging process behind it... At our last gathering we opened an Imperial stout from 2013.... DELICIOUS

 

[finnski1]

$300 for a bottle of beer? I believe that could be the poster child for BTD.

Yeah but... It is 28% alcohol!

 

[Luvtoride]

It might not be a lot for some, but it is a BTD event for me.....
A group of our friends are beer connoisseurs, and a couple have had the chance to sample Sam Adams Utopias.... so in celebration my retirement I have been hunting a bottle to share with them at our next gathering. After 2 months of asking, a bottle has been located. Never had I ever thought I would spend nearly $300 on a bottle of beer...

$300 for ONE bottle of beer? REALLY? That's insane! I hope its as good as its supposed to be for that price. Why so expensive? Obviously they didn't make much of it and it was sold out quickly. ENJOY!

That almost makes my BTD spend seem tame in comparison. I'm a big luxury watch fan (as I think I've stated here before) and like a hard to find beer, I'm always on the look for Rolex watches from an AUTHORIZED DEALER where you actually pay MSRP vs. inflated secondary market prices.
A few weeks ago I walked into a Jewelry Store in NJ that we have NOT dealt with before but is a Rolex AD. As in most Rolex jewelers the cases were bascially bare of any watches. We were speaking to the owner about which Rolex watches we were interested in. When I mentioned the model I was looking for he left momentarily and came back with a Watch box. It had the model I was looking for (for those who care, a SeaDweller two tone gold and stainless). I tried it on and it fit perfectly and looked great! I asked him if it was AVAILABLE for sale (as most of these are spoken for by customers waiting for months) and he said, YES, it was available. I was in shock!

I purchased the watch and we put in an order for a watch for my wife (yes, we're crazy) which he said might be months before it would arrive.

Yesterday, I went to a local jewelry store that we've been dealing with for a long time that sells pre-owned Rolex watches. I showed the owner my watch and he immediately offered me $5,000 above the price I paid to buy the watch from me (that's how HOT the resale secondary market is for these watches). I turned him down, but I know that I could sell this watch anytime for more than I paid (and probably more than this premium was time goes on).

I guess this purchase could go into "Alternative Investments" as luxury watches are a HOT asset class right now.

 

[Cassius King]

It might not be a lot for some, but it is a BTD event for me.....
A group of our friends are beer connoisseurs, and a couple have had the chance to sample Sam Adams Utopias.... so in celebration my retirement I have been hunting a bottle to share with them at our next gathering. After 2 months of asking, a bottle has been located. Never had I ever thought I would spend nearly $300 on a bottle of beer...

Dogfish Head just released their World Wide Stout aged in Utopias Barrels as well. $40/4pack here, worth a pickup as well.

 

[corn18]

Bought my DW a cuckoo clock. A really expensive cuckoo clock.

 

[RunningBum]

Booked a trip to Big Sky for my son and I. 5 days of skiing, a Snow coach day trip in Yellowstone, and a dog sled trip. I was all set to pay about $3500 for slope side lodging at Big Sky for the 4 nights we'd be up there, but that place was taken while we were deciding. Settled for a 2BR condo on the shuttle line with ski access back in for about $2500. Not many choices up there. A few hotel style rooms, and we'd rather have some space so we aren't on top of each other all week, and a couple of extravagant huge houses, that are not ski in/out.

 

[Cobra59]

Continued to feed my obsession for two seat sports cars with the purchase of a 2021 Corvette HTC (hard top convertible). It goes with the Cobra replica that we built a few years ago, a Miata at our house in Florida and a 1988 Alfa Romeo Spider. Just about finished the 1953 Chevy truck, but it has three seats and is not a sports car LOL

 

[street]

Cobra59, a great hobby and what beautiful autos!

RunningBum, not sure when you are booked for your trip but no new snow the few days. Ten inches in the last week thou.

 

[RunningBum]

End of February, first week in March. Hopefully plenty of snow by then. If the double black chutes are closed, I won't even notice!

 

[street]

^ should be good by then.