Blow That Dough 2026

(this one is a bit esoteric)
I am a life-long numismatist (coin collector) and am pretty deep into several collections/series. One of them is US Proof Sets. Proof sets were first issued in 1936. I currently have every regular-issue set from 1939 to 2025 (the 2026 sets will be released in the coming months).
That leaves the 1936, 1937, and the 1938 sets to acquire. Today, i spent $1850 for the 1938 set. (For collectors who know), each coin is individually graded and encapsulated by NGC and all are proof-65 and proof-66. I have looked for several years for a set this nice.
Two remaining for the complete set!!!!
 
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disneysteve said:
I suppose this qualifies as BTD.

We had our kitchen fully remodeled last year. Overall we’re pleased with the results. Our contractor did a nice job, but painting is not his strong suit. There are spots where he just didn’t do a great job. And in the bathroom, which was part of the job, the paint looks particularly bad.

My wife got the name of a good painter that friends have used. He came by on Sunday to take a look and immediately identified all of the issues we were going to point out as well as some others. We are hiring him to totally redo the bathroom. Sand it down, prep and prime the walls, and repaint. For the kitchen, he needs to prep a couple of particular areas but mainly just needs another coat on the whole room.

He said the kitchen is a one-day job. The bathroom will be maybe 3-4 days because of Spackle and primer needing time to dry.

It's not a huge expense. $1,200 plus the $150 we spent on the paint yesterday. But enough to be a BTD in our minds. The kitchen is beautiful as is but we just want to eliminate the little issues that nobody really notices but us.
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I’ve seen pictures of your kitchen that you have posted and it is really beautiful. The paint being a poor job would really bother me too and it’s great that you’re getting it repainted. My painting days are also behind me although I did so much of it when I was young.
 
Ms Taco and I have a BTD event to report. We are excited to have found a little place down by the river.
 

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disneysteve said:
It's not a huge expense. $1,200 plus the $150 we spent on the paint yesterday. But enough to be a BTD in our minds. The kitchen is beautiful as is but we just want to eliminate the little issues that nobody really notices but us.
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Finding a good contractor to do work you need done is a win! To me, that's usually harder than spending the money.
 
Taco said:
Ms Taco and I have a BTD event to report. We are excited to have found a little place down by the river.
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I think that view would be good for my blood pressure! Enjoy!
 
Taco said:
Ms Taco and I have a BTD event to report. We are excited to have found a little place down by the river.
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Nice to have a place by the water. Enjoy!
I blew some dough yesterday as I bought a Toyota 4Runner. I’ve always liked them but never owned one. Never had a truck like ride and never owned a Toyota. A lot of never’s washed away. 🫤
 
The dough is being blown. After 11 years finally having the house repainted. Tons of stucco, fascia, soffit painted, limestone sealed. A three week project. We will replace the el cheapo sun damaged front door too. And I'd like to buy a golf cart. Why not :)
 
Taco said:
Thanks!! It has what is essentially a tiny home. It's not much, maybe 220 sq ft, but has water, electric, AC. Luxurious compared to our tent camping.
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220 sq ft!!! OMG, that’s smaller than our motorhome was,
 
Spent a lot on a long-delayed upgrade, 16-inch MacBook Pro with Nano Texture display and M5 Pro processor with 64 GB of RAM and 4 TB HDD.

I ordered it two weeks ago when Apple said they would pass on the price increases of RAM and storage components.

I got it this week but I checked it after Apple actually increased prices and the same configuration was now $1200 more.

Still the price was a lot but it will replace an iMac 5K which I got in 2017. Inflation-adjusted, maybe my cost is not that far apart.
 
I have two things worth mentioning here.

First was a home maintenance project. We took the cheaper options, but it still ran about $8K total, because we had stuff growing in the 1-2 feet between our fence and the neighbor's. We had one side of our fence taken down, the junk tree was cut down and the stump graded, all the bamboo cut down, and then the fence put back together, with a thicker post by the corner and quite a few other posts and boards replaced. We opted NOT to pay another $7K for a bamboo barrier (yet), or another $3K for totally new fencing along that one side -- since the fence is about 20 years old, we'll probably replace it in the next 5 years or so anyway, so it only has to last that long.

We also are taking 2 trips to Universal Studios Orlando, one in November and one in December. Long story, but Orlando Informer offered a Meetup including the new park Epic Universe for the first time. Basically, imagine a corporate event where they buy out the park, and food and non-alcoholic drinks are included. Most rides you can walk right on, and the ones that usually have 2-3 hour waits are more like 30 minutes. Anyway, before they announced it, we decided to go to the last meetup in December; then, when it was announced, they offered people who had December tickets pre-sale access to the November meetup. That sold out in 5 minutes, so a few days later they added a day at Epic....to the last December meetup! So those of us who already had tickets were also offered presale access.

Even with a lot of what feels like extravagant spending (compared to our accumulation mode), we're spending maybe 3% of our portfolio, so after almost a year of retirement, we're trying to BTD a little more, at least for now, while we still can appreciate it.
 
Nothing to add to the BTD thread except that there is some really great BTD events. Always enjoy reading them!
 
I went to BTD today. Had a fitting for some new irons. Found some Titleists that felt so pure - like butter! But performance wasn’t any improvement over my 15yo irons (where I did upgrade the shafts a few years back). So just as I was about to buy, the old “value” voice kicked in and said “no” to $1500 clubs. Blowing dough is hard! Tip of the cap to those of you are are successfully doing it!
 
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