Save. Spend. Splurge.

How does money bring you pleasure?

If you had $10,000 given to you today, with these rules attached:

  • Cannot use it to pay bills
  • Cannot save it
  • Cannot use it to buy anything practical (e.g. your car or water heater is about to die)

..what would you do with it?

How would you use that money, the tool that it really is, to bring you pleasure?

Would you give it away?

Travel?

Start that business on Etsy you needed the cash for?

Take your entire family to Disneyland?

Take a sabbatical from work?

If something IMMEDIATELY popped in your head, then what is holding you back from doing that very thing, today?

For me, I’d use the money to travel.

I’d go to more countries in Europe and worry less about a budget (not that I worry a lot to begin with, but I’d be more liberal with the snacking on macarons and so on).

How does money bring you satisfaction and pleasure?

(Okay, don’t get smart and tell me you’d use it to buy financial independence which would just mean you’d save it.)

22 Comments

  • Dean

    amazing philospichal question, i took it into my list!
    p.s. don’t have an answer right now – im contentment with my current life 🙂

  • Corianne

    Trip to Japan! I hope to go next year – need to save up money and vacation days ha! (Got the money part covered, now just the time off…)

  • Heidi

    I would split it 50/50 with my hubby. With my half I would probably go crazy on buying some much sought after pieces of antique jewelry, which is my main obsession that I feel guilty about spending money on since it’s just for me (unlike traveling, which is for both me & hubby). I consider travel a necessity and already have it planned and paid for regardless. We’re planning a 2-week trip to Europe at the end of Sept. We have a 4 yr old and have done even more traveling since having him, it’s been such fun! I can’t hold off on traveling he remembers the trips – pictures will have to do it for him on his earlier trips – ha!

  • SarahN

    I’d use it to travel first class on airlines, and first class, five star hotels. Which is what my ‘dream’ savings fund is for!! Cause it’s important to work and save towards something

  • Cayley

    Well last month I was given 10,000 so I booked a 22 day trip to China/Thailand. So looking forward to this trip.

  • Ika

    I will trow a backyard party and invite whole village to come over in my house, I will hire local musician to play music and all street vendor and give away some of the money to poor people in my neighborhood.

  • Leigh

    I would probably use it to take a sabbatical from work and travel for a few months. I loved our month long trip last year but it’s hard to find the vacation time for that!

  • Anne

    I’d take leave of absence from work and travel to some place that’s at least 4 time zones away, which I usually cannot do during my vacations because I suffer badly of jetlag.

  • Jen @ Jen Spends Less

    Travel, absolutely. If we had more money I think we’d almost never be at home. My 7-year-old son did a project on Machu Picchu and now we both want to go…but I’d want to splurge on the Orient Express train.

    BTW, we just returned from a family trip to Montreal. Loved it! We’re about a five hour’s drive away, so it was easy and very affordable. It’s awesome being so close to a city that feels foreign. It was cheaper to stay right in the city and eat awesome food than spending a couple nights at an indoor water park near home.

  • ArianaAuburn

    I would give that to my mom so that SHE can travel. She needs a break from taking care of my grandma (who has Alzheimer’s).

  • Kathy

    Ooh, not being able to save it or use if for something practical would almost be painful for me.. But under your criteria, I’d probably use it for some short trips like driving to the mountains or maybe Disney World. Would a new lawn tractor for hubby count?

  • Ramona @ Personal Finance Today

    We’d travel some more. We are already in-check with money: no debt, we earn well, so we’d probably organize some loooong travels. 10k would really bring us many weeks of joy 🙂

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