In 2021 when we'd been dating just over a month, my future husband bought us a pair of low-end mountain bikes. These were impulse purchases for him, but he has a steady retirement pension and doesn't do much consumer spending. I was startled that he'd spend $1200 on bikes when we barely knew each other. Turns out we enjoyed each other and the mountain biking tremendously! A couple of years later, we went to Sedona and rented a pair of $4000 bikes. Turns out high-performance bikes can handle more terrain and are more comfortable. We had a blast in Sedona, and we got engaged that trip, too!
When we got married in 2024, we decided that we would get better bikes to celebrate my retirement. We started looking a mountain bikes at our local bike shop, seeing what was a good value. We could get bikes with the features we wanted, on sale, for $2150 each. We were willing to wait, but my mom and I flipped a house last year and made a profit. Some went to taxes, most got plowed into retirement savings, and the only splurge was getting those new bikes a year and a half early. Those bikes have been a great source of fun for us.
I've been saving like a fiend for retirement and using YNAB to refine my budgeting. YNAB nudges me to better define my priorities, weighing the tradeoffs. What are our expenses and what retirement "income" will we need to enjoy life fully? Because I can accurately predict what we'll need to live comfortably, my financial advisor says that I have enough to retire this year at age 64. We aren't getting any younger, and now is the time for these seniors to play!
In 2015 I got annoyed that the McDonald’s ice cream machine was broken, pulled out of the drive through, and bought a $1500 (Canadian!) MacBook to cheer myself up. It was the biggest impulse purchase I ever made, and even though I got my cost per use out of it (it’s still working quite well for being more than a decade old!) I’m sure there were trade-offs that year that I couldn’t see clearly because I wasn’t tracking my spending. It just went on my credit card and I figured it out afterwards.
Last weekend I bought myself a new MacBook, after saving for more than eight months, giving the purchase its own category, waiting until the one I wanted went on sale, and paying cash for it without disturbing my credit card balance (which has been consistently paid off since I started using YNAB in 2023). The mindset between the two purchases is completely different in ways that have nothing to do with me being older and wiser! It’s all down to YNAB - the app has genuinely changed everything about how I relate to spending, debt, future planning, and financial responsibility. I still struggle with guilt… I definitely could have used that money elsewhere, but at least I know I’m not taking food off my table to pay for it! I’m looking forward to my next savings project… travel, hopefully, since I should be good to go on the laptop front for at least another decade ;)
The Tale of Two Laptops, Carolyn! Such a great story. I can imagine someone thinking, well, the first purchase post-McDonald's worked out fine in the end (which it did, and that's good). But the second time you bought a laptop didn't have any of that worrying or credit card stress afterward. Thanks for sharing, and hope you take yourself out for an ice cream to celebrate!
In 2021 when we'd been dating just over a month, my future husband bought us a pair of low-end mountain bikes. These were impulse purchases for him, but he has a steady retirement pension and doesn't do much consumer spending. I was startled that he'd spend $1200 on bikes when we barely knew each other. Turns out we enjoyed each other and the mountain biking tremendously! A couple of years later, we went to Sedona and rented a pair of $4000 bikes. Turns out high-performance bikes can handle more terrain and are more comfortable. We had a blast in Sedona, and we got engaged that trip, too!
When we got married in 2024, we decided that we would get better bikes to celebrate my retirement. We started looking a mountain bikes at our local bike shop, seeing what was a good value. We could get bikes with the features we wanted, on sale, for $2150 each. We were willing to wait, but my mom and I flipped a house last year and made a profit. Some went to taxes, most got plowed into retirement savings, and the only splurge was getting those new bikes a year and a half early. Those bikes have been a great source of fun for us.
I've been saving like a fiend for retirement and using YNAB to refine my budgeting. YNAB nudges me to better define my priorities, weighing the tradeoffs. What are our expenses and what retirement "income" will we need to enjoy life fully? Because I can accurately predict what we'll need to live comfortably, my financial advisor says that I have enough to retire this year at age 64. We aren't getting any younger, and now is the time for these seniors to play!
In 2015 I got annoyed that the McDonald’s ice cream machine was broken, pulled out of the drive through, and bought a $1500 (Canadian!) MacBook to cheer myself up. It was the biggest impulse purchase I ever made, and even though I got my cost per use out of it (it’s still working quite well for being more than a decade old!) I’m sure there were trade-offs that year that I couldn’t see clearly because I wasn’t tracking my spending. It just went on my credit card and I figured it out afterwards.
Last weekend I bought myself a new MacBook, after saving for more than eight months, giving the purchase its own category, waiting until the one I wanted went on sale, and paying cash for it without disturbing my credit card balance (which has been consistently paid off since I started using YNAB in 2023). The mindset between the two purchases is completely different in ways that have nothing to do with me being older and wiser! It’s all down to YNAB - the app has genuinely changed everything about how I relate to spending, debt, future planning, and financial responsibility. I still struggle with guilt… I definitely could have used that money elsewhere, but at least I know I’m not taking food off my table to pay for it! I’m looking forward to my next savings project… travel, hopefully, since I should be good to go on the laptop front for at least another decade ;)
The Tale of Two Laptops, Carolyn! Such a great story. I can imagine someone thinking, well, the first purchase post-McDonald's worked out fine in the end (which it did, and that's good). But the second time you bought a laptop didn't have any of that worrying or credit card stress afterward. Thanks for sharing, and hope you take yourself out for an ice cream to celebrate!