(Psst.. buy the calendar here)
#TRUTH
I got a question the other day asking:
I’d love if you could talk more about the car you’re getting and your evolution from “cheap/gets me places” to “niiiiiiice”. It’s been interesting reading you over the years and seeing you spend money on more luxury items, because you can actually afford to treat yo’self now.
We are a bit in the same boat – making more money because of a company my husband started and sometimes I think it’s ridiculous that he wants to buy a Maserati (WHY? SO OBNOXIOUS) but also recognizing he worked really really hard to get to this point. (Also I just want a mini van bc 3 kids and never want to open doors again)
I had to really think about this.
See, I’m pretty cheap for a lot of things….
I cut my own hair, I can’t bring myself to pay for a taxi, I still don’t own a dish washer, and have waxed poetic about how a car is a non-essential luxury , but I totally acknowledge that some things are just non-negotiable once you upgrade.
I can’t walk past even a nickel (I’d say penny but we don’t have those here any more in Canada), without bending down to pick it up. I can’t stride on by like some princess and ignore MONEY ON THE GROUND, no matter how small. NO SHAME in picking up money.
…and I find some things still to be too luxurious / non-essential to pay for
…aside from the above of course, I’d also like to include the following of things people have commented about numerous times in real-life and on the blog:
CELLPHONES & A DATA / TEXTING PLAN
I have one, singular cellphone and I share it with my partner on a $40 plan. It’s basically a home phone. It leaves with me sometimes when he doesn’t need it, but we rarely use it. We just don’t.
I also just very recently “upgraded” to a free texting, 1GB data plan (didn’t have any of that before, for the past 10+ years), and I didn’t have a choice to not have it, as it came with the plan for free calls across Canada (something we finally decided we needed as my partner works from home a lot more often now).
And yet, I was shamed the other day because I have an old iPhone 4S and even worse, I SHARE IT with my partner.
Mate Poacher (thankfully he has finally given up and ignores me now): What phone is that? I don’t recognize it?
Me: Oh. .I don’t know. iPhone something. *checks* 4S.
MP: Who has an iPhone 4S!? Don’t you have at least something in this year?
Me: Umm no. Why would I need another cellphone? It’s just a phone. It makes calls and that’s about all I need.
MP: That’s pathetic. I’m getting the iPhone X
Me: Do you need a new phone?
MP: No I just want it. And it’s super expensive. I’m going to pay someone to wait in line for me.
Me: Well. [left it at that, as he could see I thought he was an idiot and rather obnoxious by the look on my face]
I won’t upgrade to a new cellphone because I don’t need a new one. *shrug*
OUR HOME IS NOT THAT SMALL NOR THAT BIG
I won’t pay for cleaning services because my place isn’t that big. Yes, I’m tired. Yes I could stand to have my place a bit cleaner, but I just do it once a month rather than once a week.
My place is only 1200* square feet which I find to be a comfortable size in the sense that we use EVERY SINGLE ROOM on a daily basis. The bedroom, both bathrooms, laundry room, kitchen, and living room.
*I thought it was 2000. It’s 1200!
The only unused room at this point is Little Bun’s future bedroom which he will want eventually as he gets older. It’s empty. The rest of my house is here.
I do a massive clean-up once a month and my partner is not too picky about being ridiculously clean, which is a good thing, so it works out for us.
It takes me very little time to vacuum the entire place, less than 30 minutes, and dark wood floors are very hard to keep clean, so there’s no need to kill yourself trying to keep the place showroom worthy.
The only thing I want to be clean at almost all times is the kitchen and the dishes. This is what it mostly looks like all the time:
I actually sort of feel bad thinking about a dishwasher and frankly don’t think that I need or want it in the end, no matter how much I complain.
It just seems like more work for me to soak dishes, load it, run it, unload it and/or let it air dry rather than use energy to dry it via heat (I also hate the feeling of heat-dried dishes from the dishwasher, they feel very squeaky and it grates on my nerves like nails on a chalkboard).
I think it’s actually easier and faster to just wash all the dishes quickly by hand, dry them, and put them away. My only gripe is my partner uses 5 bowls to boil water. If he could just rinse out not-so-dirty things and use them again rather than grabbing a fresh bowl, life would be easier and less wasteful in my opinion.
I also feel very strange with a dishwasher. I feel (mentally) like there is a block there because I think it is for “rich people” and cannot get over the idea that it can be more efficient than doing it by hand.
Anyway. Those are my issues to work out with a therapist 😛
Upgrading for the sake of upgrading is not in my DNA
Maybe Mate Poacher finds a phone essential to his life, but I don’t. I like my shared cellphone at $40 a month ($20 cost to me), with my partner, and use my iPod Touch for organizing my life which I find way more important.
I also won’t upgrade… just to have the latest toy just because I can then say I have the latest toy.
I refuse to be shamed into showing off my money
I may not have the latest iPhone X, or whatever, but my house is paid… and I don’t owe anyone anything.
I know what my financial situation is, and I (currently) drive a crappy car because I never really cared about a car before (same old, same old), and don’t have subscriptions to country clubs or go on vacations and spend thousands on some weekend because.. I DON’T CARE.
I don’t need to prove to anyone anything, and if I want something super expensive, be it a $2000 trench coat, or whatever, I’ll buy it and be happy with it because I wanted it, not because someone shamed me into buying it to show that I have money.
I KNOW I HAVE MONEY.
Why would I need to prove to anyone that I have it, by buying something I don’t want just because they want me to prove that I have money?
It’s just idiotic.
What I will do however, is upgrade on what matters.
UPGRADE ON WHAT MATTERS TO YOU
So back to what we were talking about.
The main heart of the matter is — I am now going to upgrade on what matters to me.
WHY I AM GOING TO GO FROM “MEH” CARS TO A LUXURY ONE
I have purchased crappy secondhand cars my whole life. Junkers, $2000 – $10,000 (oh fancy!).
I haven’t cared (and still sort of don’t care) about cars.
I don’t want a fancy, fast sports car, I don’t need something going at the speed of light, but I do want something nicer now.
I have never driven or own a very nice car in my life. Ever. Now that I can afford one, I’m curious. I’d like to see if it is worth it.
I want to try, for once in my life, something where I don’t fiddle with the buttons and dials to try and get the heat to come on during winter by some complex algorithm and a whispered prayer because the wires are all messed up in the back.
I want to not have to wear a winter coat in the car to stay warm (see above).
I want to step into a car that feels nice to sit in.
I want real buttons and dials that work.
I want to not use a key again because the key fob died and I can’t get it to work any more, so I am struggling with gloves and a child in the middle of winter, trying to force a physical key into a frozen car door lock to get it to open.
I want a car that doesn’t bounce and rattle to give me a full body massage even when driving on a flat road.
I want something quieter that isn’t so loud.
I want to not have to wear headphones with my iPod in the car to listen to MY music because the car only takes cassettes.
I want to have a warmed bum in the winter with heated seats because that is luxurious.
…and that is why I am now looking at a luxury car instead of something that is crappy and secondhand again.
I sort of want to compare between the two and see if I am any happier with a super nice high-end car versus a crappy cheap one.
Once in my life, I’d like to try it and see but the car has to still be practical and useful for me. I don’t want something too low to the ground, hard to get into, so I am looking at least to an SUV at this point.
At the very least, I will know the difference and then decide afterwards whether it was worth it or not.
Conclusion: I JUST WANT IT
If you can afford it, go for it.
Sometimes you just want it. The heart wants what it wants.
As for your husband, if you can both comfortably afford it and aren’t going into debt for it, then.. go for it. Get that Maserati. Enjoy it. Life is too short to work like a dog, save all your pennies and then leave it to all your kids who will probably end up driving that Maserati.
