Ask HN: What do you spend your money on?

I have a fundamental philosophy about spending money -- identify the few things that really, genuinely, make your life better and spend on those. For everything else, be a total cheapskate.

So, for example, I drive a cheap used car because a nice expensive car doesn't actually make my life better, but I won't think twice about buying an expensive tool that I'll use every day, or going out for a lavish meal every so often, etc. There is nothing I want to do but I can't because of a lack of funds.

I make six figures, and I'm not in SV or NY, so that can provide a very comfortable standard of living. I actually spend about 25% of that and put the rest into charitable donations, savings, investments, etc.

I make almost all purchasing decisions using one simple metric, will I use it? More precisely, the question is will I use it an amount that justifies the expense?

This applies for small purchases like a tempting snack at the grocery store. Am I going to eat it? Will I really enjoy this? If so, ok. If it will sit in the cabinet and be passed over for other snacks, no.

It applies to large purchases as well. Should I buy this very expensive bicycle? Yes, I will ride it. And as it turns out, I did. It’s almost 10 years old, and I still ride it a lot.

I’m also regularly going through my belongings and donating, selling, and trashing things I don’t use. This helps me to learn over time and make better purchasing decisions. It also helps me reduce the amount of crap I have. Best of all it’s really nice when I can give something to someone who appreciates it much more and will make better use of it.

The result is that other than the regular essential things to maintain life such as food, household goods, etc. I buy things extremely rarely. The thing I spend the most disposable income on is probably tickets to shows, sports, and other experiences. If you ask me if I’ll use them and enjoy them, the answer is almost always yes.

The only thing I want, but can’t afford, is real estate. I could afford real estate in a place with lower property value, but I only want NYC real estate. It’s not happening.

I make ~$220k with my bonus. I live in a rural area and work remotely so that money goes a long way. I also don't really have expensive hobbies. Well, my hobbies could be expensive but I don't go down the road some people do. I have a wife and two kids. A decent portion of my money goes to the normal family expenses including retirement savings. Outside of that, my biggest expenses, in order-ish, are:

- Concerts. My wife and I love going to see music so it's maybe $100 bucks for a concert or two per month.

- Once or twice a year I'll buy myself a new guitar pedal. They tend to be higher quality ones so that will run you $300 - $400 easy.

- Pokemon cards. My son got into and I got hooked. It's a deep strategy game and it's tons of fun. We probably spend ~$50 a month on this. We go to a game store to play on the weekends so we always buy a pack or two to help support the store.

- The usual drugs. Alcohol. Weed. The less usual but still good drugs, mushrooms and molly (pure MDMA) a few times a year.

If I had a billion dollars I would probably have things like a personal driver and chef, and maybe a few nicer guitars and some sweet-ass pokemon cards, but overall I want for nothing. As you can see, I tend to spend money on experiences instead of things. The physical things I do buy, pedals and cards, are for things I do with other people. My biggest restriction is having two kids, 4 and 7. I would love to travel more but it's not a money issue.

My salary is $96,000, which comes to about $5700/month after taxes and everything. I spend about $1300 a month in recurring expenses (rent, gym, etc.). I'm 36, I live with roommates in Brooklyn, and I saved $1200 last month. That means on average, I spent about $100 a day on everything else (food, fun, travel). It's a life that works for me.

IMHO, income is logarithmic [0], so in terms of things I might like to have but don't (an apartment with a shared pool?) it would probably be a big jump up in income to get them. If I got a $10K raise tomorrow, it wouldn't really make a difference.

If I ever have kids, I'll either have to give some things up or climb the income ladder.

[0] https://ofdollarsanddata.com/climbing-the-wealth-ladder/

Food and (international) travel almost exclusively.

Currently on the third $10k+ trip with my wife in 18 months but don’t have a car and am still using my laptop from 2014. Main reason is that I feel like I have my whole life to buy X or Y but only have the time and energy to travel long distances while young.

23m, 2 YoE software engineer, live in Louisiana. I take home around $1100 weekly after tax. My monthly bills total ~$2500. I put ~$600 into my personal IRA, being a contractor. What remains either sits in savings, put towards to developing another source of income, or spent on games and beer.

I am fairly lucky in that I can do most things I want to. I can buy things that I want with a little saving. I can eat out with the family. I can't travel too much, though I'd like to. The only "normal life" expense I can't afford is buying a home. It seems a long way off.

I think the path forward will be moving states or working remote, as there are few jobs in software near me. At least at my experience level. For now I cannot complain. My quality of life is higher than most I know. Off topic, but I think about this a lot.

Paying for grad school out of pocket (around 700 USD per month, I'm going slowly). Paying for a large tattoo out of pocket, actually the same price as grad school (700 USD). Member of a few different clubs (BJJ, Muay Thai, local spa gym) which is maybe 300 USD all in.

Those are my regular monthly bills outside of house, food, etc...

Won't say salary but in a high percentile of income in EU country.

If I had no job and unlimited money (and no responsibilities) I'd go to Phuket and train Muay Thai for a year, then go to the Wudang mountains and train Kung Fu at some probably quite Westernised temple for another year. Afterwards I'd start a company in the defence or space sector.

I built a side project during COVID and after. I started recording videos explaining everything that's happening in the world for my kids to watch in 20 years.

Then I wanted to capture my parents life story. I thought it might be a good little project and others might find it valuable. So I built viography.co

The problem is that I'm not really promoting it and not getting customers. So I'm spending a few hundred dollars a month to record videos, save them for later and of course fix bugs that I find.

Travel - $20K - $30K per year. Not extravagant trips, just a lot of them and months long “nomadding” in different cities and starting next year a couple of months in the winter in Costa Rica. Part of our long stays are offset by income by renting our home out. We live in a unit of a condetel (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/condotel.asp) that we own.

We are 51/49, grown kids, and I work remotely

I make in the low $200s in cloud consulting and another $7500 in rental income offsets to pay its own expenses when we aren’t there

Our household contains 3 kids, 2 dogs and 2 working parents. Not counting pre-tax deductions (retirement contributions and health insurance), our spending divides roughly into quarters:

25% - mortgage + property taxes

25% - household

25% - activities

25% - variable

Household: food, drugstore, clothing, utilities, insurance

Activities: gym memberships, sports, school programs, summer camps

Variable: savings, vacations/weekend trips and other high ticket items. (car repair, home repair, new refrigerator, medical/vet bills, etc.)

We take a "serious vacation" (air travel, 1wk+) ~1x/2yr. Weekend trips within driving distance, ~2x/3mo.

Our household income is high, around the top-10% mark for our high-cost-of-living state. We are incredibly fortunate and want for nothing.

Large expenses we cannot afford without careful planning:

- major home renovations

- sending children to private university/college