Blow That Dough 2025

We've realized we need to spend even more. So we're going to spend more on
  • Dining Out even though we already spend more than most, and
  • Travel mostly even better hotels/restaurants/etc. versus more trips, though a few.
That still leaves us with excess passive income, but we just can't bring ourselves to spend more on most things...yes, nice problem.

Well - you have to plan a nice Parisian/ European vacation for your DW!
 
We've realized we need to spend even more. So we're going to spend more on
  • Dining Out even though we already spend more than most, and
  • Travel mostly even better hotels/restaurants/etc. versus more trips, though a few.
That still leaves us with excess passive income, but we just can't bring ourselves to spend more on most things...yes, nice problem.
Dining out at nicer restaurants is a good idea. However, it is tough on my healthy diet and the old waist line. I need to find a balance with that. Some of the "nice" restaurants seem to feature very calorific food. And then there are those deserts. :) :eek:

I notice that a lot of wealthy people can be overweight and covered up by nicely fitting clothes. Several of the older guys I meet are carrying around basketballs just above the belt. There is a reason why guys shirts are not tucked in much anymore, ha ha.

One partial solution is exercise. The other is portion control but good luck with that ... not so easy for me.
 
Dining out at nicer restaurants is a good idea. However, it is tough on my healthy diet and the old waist line. I need to find a balance with that. Some of the "nice" restaurants seem to feature very calorific food. And then there are those deserts. :) :eek:

I notice that a lot of wealthy people can be overweight and covered up by nicely fitting clothes. Several of the older guys I meet are carrying around basketballs just above the belt. There is a reason why guys shirts are not tucked in much anymore, ha ha.

One partial solution is exercise. The other is portion control but good luck with that ... not so easy for me.
How true!

Two of my wealthy ROMEO friends (both mid 70's in age), 10X my NW, easily, eat out in "nice" places, have fun Euro and other vacations, belong to the very expensive CC (Carlton Woods), and have diabetes, heart issues and are obese. Seems like it goes with the wealth disbursement and lifestyle if you are not concerned with your overall health.
 
Will be closing on our new old (built in 1958) home in a few weeks. It is mostly "original condition" so there is much to do. We will be doing much BTD this year. The facelift and remodel will take up most of those funds along with adding 800 sq ft plus an 800 sq ft ADU. The finishes on the remodel will be interesting, too.
 
Dining out at nicer restaurants is a good idea. However, it is tough on my healthy diet and the old waist line.
This is the problem DW and I have with eating out. I'd like to go to a nicer restaurant but we eat a pretty healthy diet. It's just very hard to pay "nice" restaurant prices for meat and quality vegetables (our basic diet). One of our splurges is going out for Prime Rib. That's something I can't really replicate easily at home. The beef and a nice salad and we're good to go.
 
One of our splurges is going out for Prime Rib. That's something I can't really replicate easily at home.
That's one of my top favorites as well, and I also used to think it was beyond my simple home skills. But you would be surprised at how easy it is. Pick up a nice rib roast at Costco and you can eat like a king. I generally do mine on the Big Green Egg, but have often simplified things even more by just using the kitchen oven.

Here's what I consider an excellent tutorial, although there are many variations:

Roasted and Reverse Seared Prime Rib
 
We've realized we need to spend even more. So we're going to spend more on
  • Dining Out even though we already spend more than most, and
  • Travel mostly even better hotels/restaurants/etc. versus more trips, though a few.
That still leaves us with excess passive income, but we just can't bring ourselves to spend more on most things...yes, nice problem.
We don’t dine out when at home. We don’t have enough places that do great dining experiences and frankly our cooking at home rivals them. We do spend a lot on groceries and buy top notch stuff.

So really travel is where we blow that dough. We are both avid travelers so that’s good. And we have consistently upgraded the travel experience over the years.

We also gift a lot. This has an advantage of reducing our recurring taxable investment income somewhat . :cool:
 
^^ Hampton Inn, or an equivalent, has been our go to. And while I think they’re a good value, we probably won’t stay at another HI anytime soon. We have a domestic trip in May for a wedding, and we’re looking at upscale accommodations - places we’ve always driven/cruised by and thought ‘that sure looks nice…’

We’ve never been bashful about nice restaurants, travel or at home. We also cook from scratch with great ingredients 4 nights/week.
 
^^ Hampton Inn, or an equivalent, has been our go to. And while I think they’re a good value, we probably won’t stay at another HI anytime soon. We have a domestic trip in May for a wedding, and we’re looking at upscale accommodations - places we’ve always driven/cruised by and thought ‘that sure looks nice…’

We’ve never been bashful about nice restaurants, travel or at home. We also cook from scratch with great ingredients 4 nights/week.
We stayed at the best places in Grand Teton National Park and South Rim of the Grand Canyon last year. That was some serious dough blowing but we enjoyed it immensely and loved being right there.

We also stayed a couple of days at the Marriott Starr Pass Resort on the outskirts of Tucson on our way to the Grand Canyon. That was very nice and great location and food.

These days Hampton Inn is our fall back position rather than first choice. We tend to get larger upgraded rooms if available. At major US destinations outside of national parks we go with a nice vacation rental and they tend to be expensive in popular destinations like Sedona. We also stay many nights up to a week.

Same with Europe hotels - we look for great walkable locations and opt for one of the nicer more spacious rooms. I really enjoy the nicer hotels in Europe because they aren’t so cookie cutter, they can be very unique plus the hotel service tends to be definitely a notch higher than the US. The Art Deco Imperial Hotel in Prague and the Taschenberg Palais hotel in Dresden were absolutely fabulous. We also usually have breakfast included at the European hotels. That’s one of our two main meals for the day (breakfast and late lunch or early dinner).
 
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Booked business class to Rio for April, and paid for lodging and a small group (5 people) adventure guide for 10 days.
 
Just dropped $4500 on the kids' insurance for the year (life and/or disability.) It's something they seem reluctant to purchase for themselves so we do it for them. Gotta protect them AND the Grands. (What do they call that? I'm calling it "designated early inheritance.")
 
Pre-paid some future bills to get DW Platinum status for AA travel for the next year.

Now talking about Portugal and Barcelona for this year. Also about to drop the 529 transfer for the kiddos.
 
So far for January-
Quarterly taxes
GK 529 contributions (times 3)
New gas fireplace for basement
Paid remaining balance for February Florida rental. (Wife and I can't go this year but the kids will be styling).
Basement surround sound receiver started overheating so new one coming today.
 
In our 70 year old house the registers are in the floor in the slab. Unfortunately here in Florida at the beach when it rains hard the ducts get flooded from ground water rising and comes within an inch of flooding the house. All we could do is get the house re-ducted in the ceiling. Since we have a vaulted ceiling an industrial metal duct had to go through the living room to get to the back half of the house. Now all the registers are in the ceiling. If those flood that would mean we are about 15 feet underwater. 😁 They are almost finished except for installing a couple of special registers and the return register. I figure it was $11k well spent. Now all I have to do is pour concrete in all the floor ducts. It's always something. If it isn't one thing-- it's another.
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Working on a River Cruise (Europe) with Sister and BIL. Not sure of the dates/cost yet, but I know won't be cheap. We lost our Dad a year and a half ago and during the process, Sister and I realized how much (little) time we have and that we need to do some things together. She and her husband have much more than us due to inheritance on his side, but have been VERY frugal. I have sent as a gift some reading, and also a chart that I found somewhere (maybe on here? See below) that shows graphically the timeline of life in generality. They both decided to start "Blowing that Dough", a little at a time. We did Alaska Cruise last year, was great!

Flieger

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Just bought a new $2,000 snowblower. Not so much a BTD as my 56 (yes 56) year old Ariens (aka The Beast) finally gave up the ghost and repairs cost almost the same as new. New one is 1000 times easier to handle though and takes up a lot less space!
Did I read the thread title wrong? Is this a Blow that Snow thread? :ROFLMAO:

Flieger
 
Mini BTD--just made reservations for two nights at the coast for Valentines for DH and I, and two nights lodging at the "doggie play and stay" for pup. He is treated like a king there, all the snacks/kong treats during the day and at bedtime, plus he has all day to play with other dogs, so he is pooped when he comes home.
 
I miss RobbieB! We BTD to stay at his favorite waterfront hotel in Monterrey two years ago, and when I booked it I sent him a private message letting him know we were going there from his recommendation. Unfortunately that was just about the time he had disappeared from the forum so I never heard back.
 
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Long live RobbieB! BTD is a worthy goal for me this year and I will do it (at least partially) in honor of RobbieB.
 
Getting ready to drop around 8K on a 10 day trip to Costa Rica. It will be our first time there. After much back & forth, decided no rental car. Private drivers for the entire trip.
 
Small BTD, sold a 2004 Ford F-150 extended cab, bought a 2004 Cadillac Escalade EXT. Mainly to be able to haul 4 adults at my snowbird place. I tow my Jeep Wrangler, but it's lifted and big tires. So harder to get into back seat for older adults. Having 2 vehicles is nice if me and DW want to go different places at same time.

Here's a crazy BTD part. On the Caddy, insurance in Ohio is $213 for 6 months. In FL it's $688 for same coverage, same company. So looks like few months of FL tags, then I will be taking the Caddy back home after winter, and registering in OH. I guess I now officially have an old man truck.

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Pics of the two trucks.
 
I noticed a Men's wedding band on Marketplace with 8 small stones. Implied, but not stated to be diamond. I thought it might be good for nice occasions, dinner on a cruise, etc. I showed that to DW and she reminded me that I had a ring that used to be my Dad's. It's way too big, so we took it to a jewelry store for sizing. We had a thought that the stones may not be diamonds, and it was confirmed that they were CZ. The store said they could replace the stones with natural diamonds for $1600, plus the resizing, but that lab diamonds would be much cheaper. They did not do that, however, and the price was not worth it to me. We went to another store and got the same story but a price of $1300. There was one more store just across the street, so we gave it a final try. This 3rd store would do the lab stones, plus the resizing, for $685. It's on order.
 
Amish furniture is beautiful! We BTD before retirement on a new bedroom set, bookcase, rocking chair and TV stand. The pieces are gorgeous.
We were shopping for a table with 14(!) chairs at an Amish furniture seller. They had panels of 8 kinds of wood choose from. I liked the Cherry the best while my wife liked Maple.

The sales women leaned over to me and whispered "The Cherry costs 30% more". After a 6 month wait we know have a beautiful Amish Maple table set.
 
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