Learning to spend after years of saving...

[audreyh1]

I find it easy to splurge, I'mma gonna order up half a grand (10 lbs) of colossal king crab legs direct from Alaska next day air.

I haven't done that one yet and it's about time. Fourth of July baby! Like I need an excuse -

I don't have a large freezer to handle bulk purchase of food.

 

[audreyh1]

Where do you order them from? And just wondering, it's been a while since I've had them, but what didn't you like about the ones from Costco? I love king crab and have only bought from Costco or a grocery store, or had it at a restaurant.

I was wondering too, because we've gotten the quite large Red King Crab legs at Costco, and I don't see how you can get better than that. Each leg is usually a pound or more.

Well - I did find some Russian import King Crab legs at a business Costco once. A 2lb box in their freezer section. These were definitely NOT the Alaskan Red King Crab in quality.

 

[audreyh1]

Hmmm - this looks like a place that will suck in a few extra dollars that need spending!!! https://www.fishex.com

 

[W2R]

A few weeks ago I orders some sandals ("slides") from Amazon that I didn't even need. And then, after a fall that I blamed on the Velcro coming undone, I ordered a second pair in a style that doesn't have Velcro.

All of this was just spending for fun. I had absolutely NO need for one, much less two pairs of new slides.

Anyway, I just wanted to say "nyah, nyah!" and thumb my nose at everyone reading this, because no matter what you are planning for dinner, MY feet are more cool and comfie right now than YOUR feet are. This is what I call value for the buck.

 

[hesperus]

...but we still cringe about "overpaying" for seats and continue to "endure" less than ideal conditions in coach/economy.

This is something I'm increasingly unwilling to endure, and much more willing to spend more on - especially with long flights. I never cared for airline travel much after 9/11, and with the way airlines currently stuff passengers into coach/economy class now, those days are over.

 

[RobbieB]

Yup, first class for me. Costs 2 to 3X coach. I like it!

Blow that dough -

 

[Meadbh]

I recently spent over $1000 at the airport to upgrade to business class on a 10 hour flight. This was unplanned, due to an illness. I truly believe that I could not have survived in economy. My budget is now blown. Oh well!

 

[RobbieB]

Where do you order them from? And just wondering, it's been a while since I've had them, but what didn't you like about the ones from Costco? I love king crab and have only bought from Costco or a grocery store, or had it at a restaurant.

I got the Costco ones once and they lacked flavor. It's not that they tasted "off" as in fishy, but they lacked flavor. Really good crab has a rich smooth flavor that is not subtle at all.

I'm ordering from these guys, never tried them before, but they are in Alaska.

 

[W2R]

I recently spent over $1000 at the airport to upgrade to business class on a 10 hour flight. This was unplanned, due to an illness. I truly believe that I could not have survived in economy. My budget is now blown. Oh well!

Hope you are feeling better, and that the illness was not something serious! Traveling is difficult enough under normal conditions, but traveling while ill sounds like a total nightmare.

I think it was SMART to spend the money that way. You can always cut back in other ways to make up for it.

 

[Moemg]

. We have increased our travel (mainly due to death in the family and for family reasons) but still find it difficult to travel first or business class from and back to HI.

but we can't seem to justify nor rationalize paying more than double an economy fare to splurge for first class seats. We keep telling ourselves we deserve it now and we can more than afford it...but we still cringe about "overpaying" for seats and continue to "endure" less than ideal conditions in coach/economy.

Start off slowly by upgrading to premium economy and then slowly work your way into business class for the really long flights . I also am extremely thrifty but my days of coach on long flights are over .

 

[street]

I'm still learning to spend and not to be so frugal any more. It is very hard for me to spend and still just buy what I need and not buying because I can buy. I hope as time goes on my confidence to spend a little more get better.

 

[Scuba]

I got the Costco ones once and they lacked flavor. It's not that they tasted "off" as in fishy, but they lacked flavor. Really good crab has a rich smooth flavor that is not subtle at all.

I'm ordering from these guys, never tried them before, but they are in Alaska.

Yum! Let us know what you think!

 

[Golden sunsets]

Yum! Let us know what you think!

++1. I'd love to know what you think after trying them BCG.


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

 

[pacergal]

I have a quote, I think I read it from someone here on the forum:

"You are no longer in a saving mode, you are in a slow spend down mode"

It has helped me remember that this time in my life is what we worked and saved for, and its OK to spend. Our budget has some wiggle room.

 

[sengsational]

...but we still cringe about "overpaying" for seats and continue to "endure" less than ideal conditions in coach/economy.

When you spend your travel dollar, spending more will buy you not only a more comfortable product, but it also buys you a different social situation. In other words, you'll be sitting with people that don't mind spending three times the price to get to the same place as those in the cattle section. But the purpose of this post was to explore the "other than air travel" things. For instance, if you go on a fancy package tour, you're not just getting all of the hotels, transfers, meals, and air-tight logistics, you're also getting people that don't want to deal with those travel details. Maybe they don't have time to manage the travel logistics. Or the patience.

Could it be that there's not only a reluctance to spend the money, but also a bit of discomfort in being in a social setting with people who spend money in a way that you've never done (until now)? Generalizing here, but my BIL's working class neighborhood is "way more fun" than my white collar neighborhood could ever imagine to be

 

[Throwdownmyaceinthehole]

I guess I need to look at spending just like I did when I was looking at OMY earnings. So using the 4% SWR - everything I spend I won't have that much going forward. So if I spend blow 10k on whatever, that's only $400 bucks a year. That's still hard for me to wrap my head around!

 

[Nature Lover]

I have a quote, I think I read it from someone here on the forum:

"You are no longer in a saving mode, you are in a slow spend down mode"

It has helped me remember that this time in my life is what we worked and saved for, and its OK to spend.

This spoke to me, too.

 

[audreyh1]

I guess I need to look at spending just like I did when I was looking at OMY earnings. So using the 4% SWR - everything I spend I won't have that much going forward. So if I spend blow 10k on whatever, that's only $400 bucks a year. That's still hard for me to wrap my head around!

Yes. I look at things that way too.

And that's one of the reasons I don't reinvest unspent funds back into my investment portfolio. Say I had $10,000 left over after a year of spending. If I reinvest it in my portfolio, then it only increases my future annual income by a measly $400 a year. Instead I can boost the next year's travel by $10,000amd plan an extra trip or whatever.

 

[Van-Guard23]

Start off slowly by upgrading to premium economy and then slowly work your way into business class for the really long flights . I also am extremely thrifty but my days of coach on long flights are over .

Maybe this would be the way to go...baby steps. I was thinking of upgrading DW's seats for her flight from the mainland back to HI next month, until I almost choked on the price of first class seats - 3x the price of her economy/coach seats (over $1000). I told DW about the price of first class seats and how it almost knocked me over...and she agreed we could better spend that money on something else. This is how we've always gone about things during the accumulation phase and it's downright difficult to shed that habit...but baby steps perhaps might be in our near future.

 

[Van-Guard23]

When you spend your travel dollar, spending more will buy you not only a more comfortable product, but it also buys you a different social situation. In other words, you'll be sitting with people that don't mind spending three times the price to get to the same place as those in the cattle section. But the purpose of this post was to explore the "other than air travel" things. For instance, if you go on a fancy package tour, you're not just getting all of the hotels, transfers, meals, and air-tight logistics, you're also getting people that don't want to deal with those travel details. Maybe they don't have time to manage the travel logistics. Or the patience.

Well, I actually don't mind planning our trips down to the smallest detail, hence we try to avoid group travel as much as possible. It requires quite a bit of homework but I don't mind that at all. But I get it...we are considering a package tour for our future international trips.

Could it be that there's not only a reluctance to spend the money, but also a bit of discomfort in being in a social setting with people who spend money in a way that you've never done (until now)?

There might be some of that, but I don't think it's something we consciously think about. More than anything, we often feel we can spend that money we would spend on upgraded seats or for a fancy tour on something else we might value more.
But as we get older and less tolerant of inconveniences and get more comfortable in splurging on ourselves during retirement, we we would undoubtedly spend a lot more on ourselves...just don't know when that would be.

 

[audreyh1]

Well, I actually don't mind planning our trips down to the smallest detail, hence we try to avoid group travel as much as possible. It requires quite a bit of homework but I don't mind that at all. But I get it...we are considering a package tour for our future international trips.

Yeah, it's an absolutely enormous amount of work - and the inspiration for my sig line!

But I mainly do it because we prefer to travel independently when practical.

We've been upgrading though. Nicer hotels and better rooms, first class train travel, taxis if we have luggage, the occasional private tour day trip when needed.

And for certain types of more specialized travel or in visiting areas I am completely unfamiliar with, I have no problem with an organized tour, as long as it is small group oriented. I'm not going to try to organize my own African Safari or Galapagos trip, etc., for example.

And sometimes I just neeed a break!

 

[bmcgonig]

Maybe this would be the way to go...baby steps. I was thinking of upgrading DW's seats for her flight from the mainland back to HI next month, until I almost choked on the price of first class seats - 3x the price of her economy/coach seats (over $1000). I told DW about the price of first class seats and how it almost knocked me over...and she agreed we could better spend that money on something else. This is how we've always gone about things during the accumulation phase and it's downright difficult to shed that habit...but baby steps perhaps might be in our near future.

This is something I'm increasingly unwilling to endure, and much more willing to spend more on - especially with long flights. I never cared for airline travel much after 9/11, and with the way airlines currently stuff passengers into coach/economy class now, those days are over.

That's what I started to do. Baby steps. I fly back and forth to Ireland a lot and always buy the exit row for a mere 80$. I can stretch my legs forever. United to London charges about 200$ for the same seat which is still worth it. Paying maybe a 1000 more for business isn't worth it to me as long as I get the legroom. Regular coach is suffocating at this age. So if I couldn't get these seats I feel I would have to pay up for business, but not like it

 

[FI_RElater]

Not quite as crabby...

I got the Costco ones once and they lacked flavor. It's not that they tasted "off" as in fishy, but they lacked flavor. Really good crab has a rich smooth flavor that is not subtle at all.

I'm ordering from these guys, never tried them before, but they are in Alaska.

Since retiring and moving out west, now in second year, I've gotten the local caught Dungeness crab -- it's been as low as $5/lb!! and enjoyed them (although spouse can't because of shellfish allergy).

Since retirement I also get the porterhouse rather than the cheap cuts--- we've earned our dinners .

AFA spending- - the bad news: we're spending more than the first year; the good news-- we're still under 2% SWR!! (and that's after new heat pump and A/C units and outsourcing the deck refurbishing and staining)
We did buy a pellet grill-- we both love it, much better than the gas or charcoal version. I can just start it up, prep the meat, and enjoy my mountain view while it cooks-- with the obligatory vino or brew, of course

( still in early 60's, although with pension and a few mil, so not opening up too much yet)

 

[FI_RElater]

very interesting...

When you spend your travel dollar, spending more will buy you not only a more comfortable product, but it also buys you a different social situation. In other words, you'll be sitting with people that don't mind spending three times the price to get to the same place as those in the cattle section. But the purpose of this post was to explore the "other than air travel" things. For instance, if you go on a fancy package tour, you're not just getting all of the hotels, transfers, meals, and air-tight logistics, you're also getting people that don't want to deal with those travel details. Maybe they don't have time to manage the travel logistics. Or the patience.

Could it be that there's not only a reluctance to spend the money, but also a bit of discomfort in being in a social setting with people who spend money in a way that you've never done (until now)? Generalizing here, but my BIL's working class neighborhood is "way more fun" than my white collar neighborhood could ever imagine to be

I remember when in Monte Carlo / Monaco on a business junket while staying at the local hotel with its private beach and looking over at the public beach next door. I was thinking "I wonder what they think of this?".... so I walked into the public beach and looked over to where we were staying. (We also had had a private reception in the casino gardens-- and observed the gawking tourists looking at us in our, shall we say, more formal attire .... quite memorable, and showed the long road we've traveled). {so, yes, I can definitely see the potential awkwardness in being with those that have... hmmmm,.....plenty. (We're doing good but not quite to that level )}

 

[audreyh1]

That's what I started to do. Baby steps. I fly back and forth to Ireland a lot and always buy the exit row for a mere 80$. I can stretch my legs forever. United to London charges about 200$ for the same seat which is still worth it. Paying maybe a 1000 more for business isn't worth it to me as long as I get the legroom. Regular coach is suffocating at this age. So if I couldn't get these seats I feel I would have to pay up for business, but not like it

If you fly United a lot have you checked out the economy plus annual subscription?