Hello again Lemmy! I have another question.
Context: I took a motorcycle safety class, was nervous but enjoyed it, researched motorcycles, found a few I liked, talked to a dealer about them but ultimately, I couldn’t finalize a deal, talked myself out of it basically
I was curious how others might justify a purchase that has no purpose other than wanting something.
For clarity, I don’t need anyone to justify me buying a motorcycle. I want to read about your thought processes for buying something you want 🙂
As always thanks for replying and have an awesome day/night!!
I want it and I have money for it. That’s all the justification I need.
🙂 right to point! I like it!! Thanks!!
All the other details are ultimately just calculating how much you want it and how much you can afford it.
How much want is a good comment / thought. I wish I could quantify want, in the context of a purchase.
Although that would probably just make it worse 🙂
As long as my bills are paid and I have a steady income, if I want something, I’ll usually buy it. If its something more frivolous or expensive, like the e-scooter I bought myself last year, I’ll just wait for a good sale/deal. But if its something relatively cheap (like under $100), I usually just get it.
I don’t want kids and I have no hope to ever owning a home where I live. Probably unlikely to retire unless I keep pushing at this job I have and hate but has a great pension. Might as well use my money while I can.
I have been trying to tighten up my finances though since, y’know, everything. But it’s tough when I’ve become accustomed to spoiling myself.
I’m in a similar situation, meaning, it’s just me. I have no one to answer to or take care of. If I want to do frivolous stuff I am free to do it.
Understood about both the job and finances. I would agree that the current state of things makes both a necessary evil to an extent.
I put most of those types of “wants” on a timer. As in I put the link on a wishlist. If a week or two later I still actively want it and think about it and it’s within my fun money budget then I get it. More often than not I have the impulse just in the moment and forget about it again 1-2 days later.
Great approach, others have mentioned this as well. Impulse buys can be a slippery slope for sure!!
Thank you!
I have high hopes the boardgames I’ve been buying lately will see the light of a game table at least once
If you create a rule that doesn’t require actually playing the games you could just put them on a table… 😁
I have a fun budget. A % of my monthly surplus goes I to it, and everything (excluding food) that I want rather than need come out of that pot.
I then have no guilt over spending my fun money, unless I think I could have more fun using it for something else.
This makes sense for sure. It’s always easier to spend when there are no other pressing issues or needs.
Absolutely no guilt if that’s what you intended the money for. Great way to look at it!!
Appreciate this!!
I give myself some amount per month to spend no questions asked, so I don’t have to feel guilty about it. If it’s more than what I give myself in a month then I either save for a while or if I have the money upfront and it needs to be bought now I diminish the amount I give myself for the next X months to compensate.
I was thinking about this as well. For this item I can buy it outright. Then I start thinking about what is the impact in the coming months.
Do I save more to recoup faster… do I not care, haha.
Thank you for responding!!
I make a wishlist. In Excel. With a due date. For small things, six weeks wait.
For something like a motorcycle, six months wait.
Then if I still want it when that day comes I buy it
I’ve been doing this with a guitar I want. Gotta put 100 hours in on my current guitar to earn it! Got a nice little progress bar to help gamify it lol.
This is a really great approach! I’m a little stuck since I don’t already have one to ride.
Thanks for this! Something to keep in mind for the future!!
This is solid advice! The discipline or cooling off period is definitely a good strategy.
Appreciate your response!!
At one point I had a change jar. At the end of my day all my pocket change went in the jar and I forgot about it. This had multiple benefits: any purchase I made during the day took at least five bucks out of my pocket (no $1 or $2 notes in my country), so I had to think about it carefully. I always had money in the house, but in a form that made it inconvenient to spend. And after a couple years of ignoring the jar, I had about $200 that was outside my normal budget. I could spend it how I wanted! If I felt like buying a couple hundred bucks worth of jellybeans, I could do it without guilt.
Now I’m no longer single. My wife steals my change to buy leftover fabric swatches at car boot sales. That makes it harder but man, I deserve a Lego pirate ship.
Aww man, I think you deserve a Lego pirate ship too!! Maybe you need to have a hidden change jar!!
I don’t. I get things I want if they will not jepordize things I need. So there needs to be excess slack in the budget.
For you, is it specifically just financial aspects? I often look at the graveyard of hobbies and say… I just can’t do it again 🙂
I enjoy food and shelter and environmental temperature controls than pretty much anything else. My first level and most common splurge is a hot bath. I want to have these things till I die. That is the foremost priority. Many splurges I have, many folk would consider not to be wants.
Got it, thank you for the follow up!! This makes sense!!
Always have an internal dialogue argument with myself.
I want it.
That justification enough for me. If I can afford said thing, I’ll buy it. Having it live rent free in my head is way more annoying than just forking out the dough for whatever dumb thing I currently am obsessing over.
That’s fair! The rent free in the brain thought wasn’t something I had considered. This current situation there’s a lot of that happening.
Appreciate the response!!
I make a simple calculation:
I divide X money over Y time.
I enjoy photography, and bough a fancy camera with a bonus at my last job.
In total I have probably spent 30k SEK on the camera and lenses, I bought it in early 2023, so let’s say that I have had a year and a half to enjoy it, that is 18 months
30k/18months is about 1.7k/month so far, and in return I got thousands of photos, some of which can be found here:
That’s still quite an investment. Not many people have 1.7k/month to spend on a hobby.
I don’t mean this as a criticism, of course, if you can afford it and it brings you joy then it’s worth it.
1.7K SEK is about 154€ EUR or 180$ USD.
So its not insane money. Still a bit, but not as bad as it may seem.
Ah, sorry, I did a default $£€ assumption! My bad!
Easy mistake to make, I debated doing a quick conversion to EUR or USD, but was tired and could not really be bothered, sorry for the confusion.
Going to spend some time on your site! I so admire photographers. Skill I never tried to master, happy to see your work.
That is quite interesting. I didn’t do any long term calculations to see if I could identify a monthly spend.
I may do that for this situation and future projects. Thanks for bringing this up.
Also, your photos are great!! Is the metapixl instance federated in Pixelfed? I tried to look you up directly in the app I use and didn’t find anything.
Thank you for posting!!
Thank you for your kind words, I have used the “cost-per-time-index” for several years now, and it really helps to make up my mind.
Metapixl is indeed a pixelfed instance, I even use the standard pixelfed app on iOS…
Got it, I’ll take another look. It may be the instance I am in that is having the issue. If I find you, I’ll definitely follow you!
Thank you again!
I have actually found valid reasons to own a motorcycle:
-
any trip on the bike is 60 % less gas than by car
-
my occasional commute from rural to city: car needs to be put in a garage for 25 € / 8 hrs. Bike rides up the elevator to the office, free.
-
riding saves up the car for the winter, when it’s most needed.
-
bike maintenance is cheap and diy-able.
-
the pleasure of riding: priceless.
This is great! Thank you for sharing!
Sadly, for me, it would just be pleasure riding. I was looking for ways to make it more valid but, I can’t find any.
-
If I buy it I’ll forget about it.
If I don’t buy it, I’ll spend the next twenty years thinking about that cool think I didn’t buy when I had the chance.
It was a stupid little statue of a fairy sitting next to a mirror and I still wish I’d brought it.
This!! The one thing I think about is if I will regret not doing something.
I hope you find the statue again and get the chance to buy it!!
Entertainment is valuable, it’s what helps us get through the stuff we don’t want to do. Looking forward to, or fondly remembering back on, the stuff we did/do for fun.
Budget for it. If what you want fits in that budget, and there is no other downside preventing you, then go for it.
True there is definite value in the experience of getting and using things you want. I’m always fearful of having another hobby that I don’t really commit to.
Thank you so much!!
You can either embrace the ADHD, or fight it. Ultimately which you prefer is up to you and your individual situation. The downside of embracing it is for sure gonna be financial, the downside of fighting it is gonna be emotional/mental anguish.
Having a new hobby every month can be fine if you know it’s gonna be the thing. Don’t invest too heavily even if it “really feels like this is finally the one”. Or, you can focus on a hobby that does constantly change, videogaming is of course one example. The other thing is, you may develop the ability to steer your interest back to previous hobbies. Just know that there is a bit of a wall to climb to get back into a hobby you dropped, it’s gonna feel a whole lot taller of a wall than it really is but a little push can be enough to clear it without burning out.
Edit: joining a social community for each hobby is a good way to naturally swing your interest back to it every now and then.
Thanks for this!! Not sure which side of the ADHD I am on right now.
You bring up a great point about the social aspects of hobbies. It would probably help a lot.
Now if I could just get past the social anxiety 😥 🙃
