Spending Series Part 3: Purposeful Spending on Non-Essential Items
With frugality so ingrained in most of us here in the FI community, it’s sometimes hard to even think about spending money, let alone actually spend it. When our main goal is to save money wherever possible, our instinct is to spend only on completely necessary items; who could imagine spending on non-essentials? Well, both of us acknowledge that there are certain non-essentials we spend money on whether it’s out of convenience, comfort, or just plain inaction. We could easily cut these things out of our lives to tighten up our finances, but have chosen not to for one reason or another.
Scout
If you read the Spending Series Part 1 or Part 2 you know how prominent frugality is in my life, so it may shock you that there are some areas of spending where I’m a little more loose. During my career this spending was driven mostly by convenience – since I didn’t have much free time I didn’t want to waste precious hours performing tasks that I either didn’t want to do or just didn’t have time for. Now that I’m retired and actually have the time, I’m honestly just too lazy; I’d rather pay for convenience instead. While it’s still been a struggle for me to spend money on non-essentials, it’s also nice to reflect on the fact that I can simply outsource something and save my own time & energy (not to mention the stress & headaches that come along with many projects). I may even try spending a little more on non-essentials in the future, all in an effort to further streamline my life, knowing that paying for little things here & there shouldn’t derail my finances yet could drastically improve my life through convenience and reduction of stress.
- I don’t mow my own lawn. When my wife and I bought our house a decade ago, I was actually excited to have a yard and to start maintaining it myself (since we had previously owned a condo). I bought a brand new lawnmower along with other yard-maintenance essentials such as an edger, weed whacker, etc. Well, after a couple years of mowing my own lawn I quickly grew tired of it – I was annoyed with having to constantly fill the mower with gas, mowing half the time in rainy weather, and having to mow in the evening or a weekend when I could’ve been spending time with my family instead. I finally gave in and hired someone to mow my lawn for me. At $40 per mow (now increased to $45), it’s been a no-brainer to let someone else do this for me to free up my time and reduce hassle.
- I perform light home maintenance, but leave larger projects to professionals. I wouldn’t call myself particularly handy, but I don’t mind tackling smaller projects by myself (both indoor & outdoor). I’ve performed light maintenance such as replacing a garbage disposal, installing bathroom faucets, fixing a mailbox lock, and routine weeding & trimming of the yard. However, I’ve decided to delegate any larger projects to professionals mostly because I don’t feel like spending an entire day(s) at Home Depot trying to find the correct replacement part or buying specialty hardware/tools that might be standard for professionals. Some examples of projects I’ve outsourced are pest control (I don’t feel like crawling around under my house looking for dead mice), trimming or removal of larger trees (I don’t have my own chainsaw or stump grinder), cleaning my roof (I don’t have a tall ladder and don’t feel like standing on a steep-angled roof), and outdoor drainage/plumbing (I don’t have the proper pipe inspection/pipe cleaning equipment).
- I don’t change my own oil. Similar to not mowing my lawn, I elect to have someone change the oil in my cars. I’ve actually been doing this my entire life because my parents have done the same thing. From what I understand, changing oil is not a hard task, however I just don’t feel like crawling under a car, getting dirty, and dealing with disposal of used oil all in an effort to save $35 a few times each year.
- I pay a bridge toll to get out of town. Although I live in a rather small town, most essential services are already nearby; Costco, Target, multiple grocery stores, doctors/dentists, etc. When I do need to head elsewhere the only realistic option is to cross a $5 toll bridge (the other options are to take a more costly ferry or take a 90-minute alternate route). For anyone who is remotely familiar with me, you know that besides paying for parking, I also hate paying tolls. To be fair, the toll was in place when my family moved to the area, so I acknowledge that there is nobody to blame but ourselves, so I’m not really complaining. It’s just something we have to be conscious of and plan for in order to reduce the amount we pay (i.e. we won’t cross the bridge willy-nilly, but instead we’ll try to group as many activities as we can together to get the most from the $5 toll). On a positive note, the toll acts as a good deterrent to keep crowds down in our area (I jokingly call it “keeping away the riff-raff”).
- I have an Amazon Prime membership… but I don’t use the benefits frequently. I see delivery trucks driving through my neighborhood seemingly non-stop throughout the day, EVERY day. I assume that the majority of packages being delivered are from Amazon due to its prominence in online sales. I’ve been an Amazon Prime member myself for a LONG time and used to order items frequently but that has subsequently slowed to once, maybe twice per month. Prime Video used to be my main source for streaming, but over the years I’ve added other streaming services and actually started watching less tv, so I may now only watch a movie once a month if I’m lucky. To top it all off, I know that Amazon Prime comes with many other benefits such as free Grubhub membership, unlimited photo storage, an ebook library, etc, but of course I don’t even pay attention, let alone use many of these. From a strictly financial perspective, the logical choice would be to cancel my membership, but at the same time it feels like one of those “necessary” subscriptions since I always want to have access to free shipping and I just might get around to watching more movies someday.
- I have a cell phone plan with unlimited data. This one is rather new to me. I’ve traditionally used cell phone plans that provide a minimal-level of service in order to keep costs down, which has mainly meant a low amount of allowable data per month. Also, to keep data usage low I would primarily use my phone while on Wi-Fi only and in all other circumstances try not to use my phone much at all while in public. This changed when my wife wanted us to buy new phones before a big trip last year, so that we’d have better cameras for capturing family photos. When we started looking into this we quickly realized that in order to purchase a phone at a heavily-discounted price we had to upgrade to a plan that included unlimited data. Of course this made me very anxious and I instinctively wanted to shut down the idea immediately & stick with our current phones. However, after going home and running the numbers again, we determined that because the phones were being subsidized, it was actually cheaper to purchase new phones with unlimited data plans (5G) than it was to pay full-price for the exact same phones while keeping our minimal data plans (4G). So of course being the optimizer/maximizer that I am, ironically I’m trying my best to use as much data as possible each month in order to get the most out of what I’m paying for!
- I board my dog when we’re on vacation. There are so many low-price, creative options these days for pet care such as TrustedHousesitters, Rover, or even relying on neighbors/family/friends. Of course I have chosen to bypass all of these options in the name of convenience and have my dog stay at an established pet boarding facility. Growing up my parents would drop our dogs off at a “kennel” that from my viewpoint was really just the glorified name for a semi-rundown warehouse with large cages/fences that dogs would be stuck in until their owners returned. Fast-forward to present-day and the modern pet boarding facilities (at least in our area) are pretty darn fancy – each dog gets their own little “room” complete with bed, there is a huge outdoor play area, optional grooming, and some facilities even have webcams or ways to connect with pets from afar. My dog is VERY social and LOVES being around other people and dogs, so it’s always a treat for him as well. I know $45 per day seems fairly costly (and it does add up quickly for longer stays), but for my convenience and the joy it brings my dog, I think this has been a decent option to utilize.
The Squire
Scout and others in the FI movement have started to talk about not having to be frugal for every aspect in their lives. Well, I used to spend my entire paycheck, and I’m still slowly trying to cut down on spending. I never did try to go all out in saving and investing every dollar I could, and I still have a number of items that I am still paying for. Whether for convenience, saving time and energy, or just frivolous, these are not money savers.
- Cable TV. Yep, we’ve thought about cutting the cord, but haven’t done it yet. We enjoy watching sports, but do we really watch every game? No way. But is it convenient to be able to watch the game and have others over when we want? Yes. I could see us moving to just an Internet service and subscribing to one of those sports packages, but we haven’t done it yet.
- Subscriptions. Speaking of TV, we also have several subscriptions for additional shows and movies that we rarely have time to watch. It is fun to have access to these, but also probably a little silly to subscribe to more than one at a time with the little amount of time we spend watching television.
- Home Improvements. In an era where you can learn how to do just about anything on your own for so much cheaper than paying a professional, my default is to take the more expensive route and hire a professional. This goes for new appliances, fixing leaks, electrical work, roof work, a new fence, and replacing a deck… to name a few.
- Car maintenance. I hire someone else to put new tires on, change the battery, change the oil, etc. I’m not a car expert and would rather have someone with the proper training diagnose the problem and apply the correct solution.
While Part 1, Part 2, & Part 3 of this Spending Series focused on frugality and some lighter areas of spending, stay tuned for Part 4 where we discuss those instances when we actually like to spend a LOT of money.
Links/Resources
Reader Questions
- Are there any non-essentials in your life that you spend money on? If so, how would you categorize these items – spending for convenience, frivolous spending, etc? If you are consciously aware of these non-essential items, are you planning to keep them or would you like to remove them from your life?
Leave your answers or comments below – or email us directly at info@epicfinancialjourney.com