Spending

The thought came into my mind the other morning when drinking coffee in the sunroom. Over the years have you ever prevaricated or had doubts about spending money on specific things, then with the gift of hindsight realised it was a great use of your hard earned cash?
The sunroom in question very nearly didn’t happen. My wife Suzie and I had closed on an old two bedroom house. We could see past the surface state and knew the plot had massive potential for refurbishment and expansion into a great home.

Why oh why is it so hard for people to put shopping carts where they belong after use or at least not put them where they don’t belong?
Three times in the last week I have pulled into a handicap parking space only to see a cart left right in the middle of the space – a handicap space‼️   Of course, in addition, numerous carts are left in regular spaces, alongside cars and in some cases at the end of a parking lot nowhere near the store they came from. 

Three fat peas with a few fine slices of beetroot and two strategically placed dabs of flavoured foam. “Interesting” was my one-word comment. I’m a reluctant guest at a high-end Michelin-starred restaurant. By the fifth course I’m wishing for some real food—I think my metabolism is burning through the calories quicker than I’m consuming them. The restaurant is called OX and I’d happily wrap my chops around an ox steak if one happened to wander past.

I’m not a doom monger, in fact, I’m pretty much a techno-optimist. That said, it seems to me the internet isn’t as stable as it used to be. I keep hearing reports of data centers going down and chunks of the web having issues, which knocks out various consumer-facing applications. Some outages are trivial, social media going dark for a few hours, but others are more serious, like payment system failures.
In my day-to-day life, I simply don’t use cash.

My electric utility is using AI analysis of my usage patterns to determine how my home uses electricity. For example, identifying various appliances by their energy signature. For several months it has been providing me with a summary.
Is this useful?  Well, knowing this implies I can make changes if I choose to exercise some control.  For example, altering my cooling thermostat setting.  Of course, ambient, outdoor temperatures and amount of sunlight are a factor.  Or,

While I am not too worried about arranging a maximally productive schedule in retirement, I am curious about what readers’ daily schedule looks like in retirement.
Mine so far is wake up when I wake up, sit outside with a hot cup of coffee as I run through my gratitudes, respond to emails, blog and do research for fun, eat lunch, do any household chores/projects, hike a few miles with my wife, read, eat supper, and then read/watch British mysteries on TV.  

My ten-year-old grandson and I have developed what I like to think of as a moderately foolish competition: we put on our socks and shoes while balancing on one leg like a pair of demented flamingos. It makes us laugh, which is really the point, and so far I can hold my own, even with my eyes closed, which I mention not to boast but because it seems like the sort of detail that might become relevant later when I’m lying in a heap on the bedroom floor.

It occurs to me that we are all, thankfully, rather different in how we approach the world. Otherwise life would be tediously uniform. That said, there are certain character traits that prove useful when it comes to building wealth over the long haul, and chief among them is the ability to delay gratification.
Delayed gratification is basically the art of not buying the thing you want right now because Future You will probably need that money more than Present You needs that thing.

I recently flew to Spain to meet a friend who was coming from London. We enjoyed a few lovely days together until disaster struck. After spending an hour at the pool, my friend went to check his phone for the time—only to realize he’d forgotten to take his phone out of his swimming shorts pocket. By then, it was too late: the phone had slipped out and been sitting at the bottom of the pool the entire time.

I just read a wonderful article about someone who quit drinking at the age of 70.
https://www.wsj.com/health/wellness/its-never-too-late-to-quit-drinking-alcohol-i-should-know-cbaf6aea?st=tG27gv&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
I have been reading more and more articles about how dangerous even moderate  drinking is and I have been considering quitting completely.
I wanted to know how readers of HD handle drinking and if it has affected their life and finances.  I look forward to your comments.

I became a connoisseur of fine wine 55 years ago, when I was 18 years old. If you’re wondering if a kid that age could legally buy wine, the answer would be heck no. However, by virtue of my job in the beverage department at the local supermarket, I had juice to get my juice. The wine salesman was happy to bring me a case of their finest, and I would pay the wholesale price in cash.

My husband and I are big fans of Broadway Theatre. We went to see a show recently and decided to buy tickets for a future performance while we were in town. The last time we did this, the box office saved us the fees typically charged online.
Imagine our surprise when, thanks to dynamic pricing, we actually paid more at the box office.
We were in the city with close friends on Thursday, September 4th, and decided to buy tickets for &Juliet on October 19th.

I can never decide if I’m tight, frugal or a spendthrift. I seem to have developed characteristics of all the spending groups. In a nutshell I’m a bit of a consumer paradox. Take the other week.
My wife Suzie and I were out shopping for a pair of trainers for my grandson. I happened to spot a t-shirt that caught my eye, and the best part was the price: it was discounted by a whopping 70%.

This will be difficult to make come across as intended, but here goes.
What is the point of being financially secure, of having adequate assets and income and not having a comparable standard of living?
No, it doesn’t mean buying a Vacheron Constantin watch for $195,000, but it also doesn’t mean driving a ten year old junker. 
We can claim to enjoy living modestly, “comfortably”, but is it true? Wouldn’t we rather live a bit, just a little bit,

Well, what can I say? When I wasn’t paying attention, I seemed to have turned into a responsible adult. That’s the thought running through my mind as I signed the consent form for my grandkids’ school, allowing them to contact me with any issues during the school day. I’m second on the list after my much more sensible wife, Suzie, so I’m moving up in the world!
Getting elevated to the contact form is a direct result of retirement.