I have always been a good saver, but I think I never learned how to spend money. Despite making good money off poker, I have lived off a student budget my entire life. Given I am in a position to spend additional money now after graduating, I am looking for input from people more experienced in spending money. Specifically, I would be interested if you think that there are certain aspects in life for which people do not spend enough money because they either misjudge their direct value or underestimate their future payoff.

Some examples could be housing in prime location, personal trainers, expensive watches, sport cars, playing golf, etc.

I heard Tim Ferriss recommend this book on one of his podcasts and it looks like it applies directly to your question:

http://www.amazon.com/Happy-Money-Sc...happy+spending

I went from growing up without much money to having more money than I knew what to do with in my 20s. I learned (the long, slow, and hard way) that >95% of what I began spending my money on was bringing me no increase in happiness or satisfaction. Now I attempt to live much more frugally, but only because I've learned that things like cars, clothes, and jewelry do nothing for me. OTOH, I happily spend freely on things like groceries and eating out because I highly value healthy and delicious food.

As far as I know, the research on spending shows that, in general, people get more longterm satisfaction out of spending money on experiences rather than material possessions. IMO, spending probably isn't even really necessary to attain this kind of longterm satisfaction; what really matters is that you find some way to create lasting memories. For some people, the easiest way to do this is to pay for vacations or expensive evenings of fine dining, concerts, and sporting events. For others, it may suffice to go on a road trip with a close friend, have a picnic with the family, or some other no-cost or low-cost adventure.

I think that one of the biggest traps that comes with following the traditional path of getting a relatively stable job and living paycheck to paycheck through one's adult life is that it becomes excessively difficult to ever gain perspective on one's spending habits. Many of these people spend a portion of their paycheck on those things that bring them some amount of immediate gratification--clothes, electronics, accessories, vehicle payments, etc. This makes the monotony and dullness of their existence temporarily more bearable, but it prevents them from ever breaking out of the underlying trap that is holding them under and blinding them to their own folly.

Buy a good mattress.

Buy better clothes.

Eat better food.

After these things look for other stuff to spend money on but these are easy places to get a ton of value.

BS spot on.

Mattress
Tailored (not more expensive necessarily, just tailored) clothes
Better food (again, not more expensive, just better and more variety)

After that, find your hobby.

yes, totally this

upgrade for best mattress + best pillow, memory foam etc etc..

as for the sheets, also, go for good stuff. study what works for you, depending on the season. I spend a lot of the time of your life in your bed, you can't understand how important is this.

tailored clothes: again, this is nothing fancy, but i see 90% of people dressing with buggy things, like they think they are cool with their overpriced shirt and it's like 3 times larger than expected. you need to dress properly to your size, and make the small adjustment with your tailor, it's like a $150 suit can be made way more similar to a $600 suit with just $50 in adjustment by the tailor.

do not buy things that you don't need.

always search for sales, ask the seller if you can make some sort of deal, master the art of the deal (i know that this make you seem cheap and poor, but your money are more important than your ego).

shop on the internet for things you can find at cheaper price.

presonal trainer is mostly not worth it, educate yourself, as you should do for dressing and eating properly, about bodybuilding and fitness.

expensive watches, then again, educate yourself, i personaly have a $300 hamilton, which is one of the best for its price: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyz-Ks6Uz_M please, don't dress like a 16yo if you are 25. if you want to seem smart and elegant, that is a nice watch imo, and a lot of value.

sports car, golf, those are out of your league, unless you make a consistent amount of money (150k/yr+). if "If it flies, floats, or ****s rent it."

avoid expensive clubs and taking dom perignon and that kind of stuff.. you are not going to get laid anyway... your money are better spent directly on escorts, instead of fooling yourself you are getting girls because you got game while you are pouring thousands of cash to just appear richer than you are.

Absolute highest priority for me is world class coaching or specialist knowledge. From what I've seen it's a staple of all high performance individuals, billionaires, etc..

Done right you will get an immense ROI over time. You can run down the wrong path or approach for years that could be fixed with an hour with the right person. If I have a reasonable chance of learning something in a high value area for me I don't even blink paying $300/hour.

Perspective and awareness are interestingly one of those things pure intelligence doesn't solve very well. There are many weird pieces of knowledge that make life so much easier, happier, healthier, profitable that don't market well so you can't find them in books / content easily.

A corollary of this is being willing to buy your own time when you have important things to learn/improve. Most high value improvements you can make to your life require more time than money.

Other stuff that's good:
-Weight lifting coach I'd estimate 95% of humans could significantly change their life with <1 hour a week of lifting done well. Don't skimp, buy the best for a short period of time to meet your goals, learn the forms and build a balanced routine then you can go on your own.
-Downtown high rise apartment, people underestimate the impact of a predictable walking commute. Reducing 20 mins commute per work day = 3 weeks vacation. I find the life value is far greater than even that.
-Highest quality food I can buy, really doesn't cost that much more and there are likely health benefits here. Eating greens every day and reducing your PUFA (poly unsaturated fat) intake will significantly improve your skin / reduce inflammation and pain.

And it goes without saying any time you can buy your time back near your (true) hourly rate, snap buy it. Allowing your mind to specialize is a very powerful way to improve your capacity so I'm willing to pay over my hourly rate to reduce the regular activities I have to think about.

funny I still have a PS watch they gave at that VIP program and for me it trumps every other in any price range....experiences >>>>>>>>> items

Wake Up Light Alarm Clocks

they are absolutely awesome.....

Very interesting so far, thanks everyone!

Mattresses: Interesting that so many people mention this. Is there any straightforward way to find a "good" mattress?

World class coaching: This is very interesting to hear from you, cwar. I always thought that coaching could be a great way to enhance certain aspects of life/thinking but I never really considered it for myself. How do you identify "world class" coaches in any area?

What's the opinion on spending money to help socializing/networking? E.g. a nice central apartment might make it easier to invite people after work and a Porsche might make it easier to get invited to certain social events.

how much money do you have, where do you live, what is your income?

if you need to make debt (i.e. leasing or mortgage) to have a return through networking, you are making a mistake. those are fine until your expected salary is growing at higher rate than your spending+interests, but be aware that it's most often a bad idea to take debt for seems rich, because once you are in debt, your employer owns your soul.

as for the coach 1on1 for $300, depends on the level of OP, if he is pretty bad, i'd search for some good book about psychology, networking, self-help before investing that amount of money.

Great thread. I've wanted to start one like this for a while. I've gotten better but I used to be such a fkn nit. I've learned the more freely you let money run through you, the easier it is to come by.

Things I have no problem spending money on: Experiences (festivals, vacations etc), books, good wine, upgrades on my house.

Very interesting. Where does one start with this?

The hardest part is actually figuring out which question you should be asking, this requires a lot of speculative reading / research generally and understanding the area that you're operating in. I solve this generally by reading everything and then organizing which approaches/methods/ideologies appear to be the highest probability to be accurate / effective.

Then you find content producers / discussion forums around the quality information and there's often people offering consulting within the groups. I'll also contact the authors directly and either work with them or get a recommendation.

I also expect to at least have a 10-15 min conversation for free (or the equivalent of this publicly available) where I grill them, understand the general approach, why it's effective, make sure the whole story makes sense.

I only work with people who believe they can get noticeable results/ideas through within 1 session. Anything else I've found is too hard to assess if it's effective and tends to be scammy.

You could learn it all on your own but generally speaking getting an expert saves you money (assuming you value your time at >$10/hour). Personally I find reading research methodologies very boring and that's what it's going to take to really be effective in many areas.

A quality professional will generally at least charge $150/hour for their time for a one off. A highly defined method that get results leans $250/hour+. You might get the basics from the books but you're leaving an immense amount of learning on the table.

There's just way too much to understand about modern life to learn it all strictly on your own (health, nutrition, effective exercise, preventative medicine, appropriate clothing/fashion, effective communication, how to manage a career, how to build a business, effective time management, how to be persuasive, body language, delegation/management...).

Highly overrated....

If you have the talent you'll just blew through. F.e. I've manage to do HF board member presentations, portfolio manager lunches etc. with just raw cold calling (in hindsight it was so butchered it's amazing how bad common people are).

Nb. 1. rule: Just ****ing assume it...*

And those network events are so populated with parasites (you probably) if you have any value to bring it's amazing how you can skip everything.

The best sales pitch:

1. Get in front of the person
2. Tell them in few sentences what you offer
3. Ask for 10-15 min if they are interested. And use a take it or leave it attitude (witch somehow makes everyone interested).
4. Over-deliver and end on high note
5. BFF with everyone

*Tho for closing it takes some social finesse...

This thread has motivated me to upgrade my mattress. Assuming budget was something like 5-10k, where would you start on the research of finding the right fit?

You can spend $2-5k and get the best out there IMO.

Tempurpedic for me:
http://www.tempurpedic.com/

Definitely travel if you haven't done that before.

Food, mattress and a conveniently located condo are high on my lists of things people have already mentioned.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is a high quality internet connection. For the amount of time that people of our generation spend browsing the net, to shave even a second off the wait time for every link you click on is a huge benefit.


Things i disagree with,

Nice clothes are important to some but not a universal priority. There're way, way more people who spend too much on clothes than there are people who spend not enough imo. Looking like a slob has more to do with not thinking enough than it does with not spending enough.

"Definitely travel if you haven't done that before."

I've found world travel it to be some of the worst value around, or at least for trips that required international airfare and hotels. For practically every western country there's a long list of domestic options that cost a small fraction and will provide a comparable experience. There's just no reason why you have to see all corners of the world while you're young, and you'd probably actually enjoy it more later in life because you'll have a greater knowledge base wrt the relevance of historical sites and other things on peoples' bucket lists.

+1 to cwar.

Especially agree on personal training, being physically fit makes a huge difference to your quality of life. Trainers push you harder than you push yourself, plus they hold you accountable.

sure there is.
you can physically do a lot more when you're young. i mean if you're just gonna sit on your ass at a beach and get hammered then whatever do that when you're old. but if you're gonna be doing a lot of walking hiking etc it's much better to be young. plus young girls are a lot more likely to **** you on your travels when you aren't old.

most people also get ****ty vacation time once they get into their real careers.so they'll bust their ass for 40 years before they finally get real time off in their 60s if they live that long . **** that. if you can get the time when you're young do it.

Sorry but this is terrible advice. The point of international travel isn't just to provide a comparable experience but to provide not only pleasure, but a new experience, broaden your horizons and gain understanding of other cultures, architecture, cuisine and humankind.

There's nothing wrong with vacations within your comfort zone (domestic options) but world travel is enlightening in ways that domestic travel can't hold a candle to.

Owning a passport and filling it with with stamps is one of the best ways you can spend your money.

ETA: To agree w/ Borg

When I was circumnavigating I met A LOT of retirees doing the same thing I was. They all had way more $ and nicer boats than I did but every single person I met said they wish they had done it sooner.

It's much easier to travel and explore when you are young and poor than when you are old and rich.

All previous responses are hogwash!

You are who you are. If ALLAH gave you frugalitee go with it. Have it in your will that all goes to your cat or St Judes Medical center, whatever.


Spending on things people tell you to spend on wont enhance your life- unless you are them.....lol.

agree completely



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I found living in a great world city is a big quality of life plus over living somewhere in the sticks. much better quality and diversity of people, you have better networks and more things to do, better restaurants bars, more cultural stuff, etc.

Agree completely on quality clothing. Also agree on the importance of physical fitness although getting a trainer is completely unnecessary.

Disagree slightly on night clubs. If OP is a single male, it would be a strong +EV life investment to take a year of his life going out and learning how to pick up women. Having good "game" stays with you for life and impacts all of your social interactions.

In my early twenties, I was the "douchey guy" at the club scoring with chicks out of my league all because I had a lot of charisma, along with being well-dressed and in good shape. As I got in my mid-twenties, I realized that confidence alone wouldn't be sustainable to get these girls, not to mention MAINTAIN a relationship with a high quality lady. I started to realize the importance of making money. But, if ALL you have going for you is money, you seriously stand a HUGE risk of getting cheated on and/ or divorced later in life.

By pushing yourself to go out, you can build a lot of confidence and social skills that stay with you for life. Doesn't mean you have to make a club rat your gf. It just means you will have the confidence to make women attracted to you for something other than the fact that you have money.