The Art of Worth It

Like I’ve said before, I’m not par­tic­u­lar­ly fru­gal. I have my splurges that add up to equal some­where around $36k in spend­ing a year. How­ev­er, there are some things that are total­ly worth spend­ing more on, and some that are def­i­nite­ly NOT worth spend­ing on.

*this is total­ly my opin­ion. If I offend some­one with my dis­like for Boy Scout pop­corn, I’m going to act sor­ry but I’m real­ly not.

Worth It

Pop­corn: Whether it’s at the movie the­ater or at home, no movie watch­ing expe­ri­ence is com­plete with­out pop­corn. I love the but­tery gooey­ness, the bite of the salt, and the crunch of the popcorn.

(not real­ly a huge fan of pick­ing the brown shells out of my teeth for what seems like days or the calo­ries of said but­tery good­ness though)

Sev­er­al years ago, I came into drill one chilly week­end to dis­cov­er a case of pop­corn in my lock­er. For a cheap bas­tard like me, it was like the gods descend­ed and bequeathed me with their heav­en­ly snack. Some very kind per­son had donat­ed a pal­let (or two?) of Boy Scout pop­corn. It’d been too expen­sive in the past to buy, so I’d always crushed the dreams of the cute lit­tle boys in their sash­es and said no.

But then I get a case, a whole CASE of pop­corn to expe­ri­ence for myself. I was so happy.

Until I actu­al­ly ate a bag. It does­n’t pop well (insert a joke about old maids here), there’s no salt, and no but­ter. I need my arti­fi­cial yel­low fla­vor­ing dammit!

Then I real­ized I had a whole case to eat and got sad. I’m pret­ty sure my room­mate dumped part of his case on me as well, because I’m STILL EATING THE POPCORN. I final­ly made it to the last box in my pantry and I’m nev­er buy­ing any­thing but But­ter Lovers Act II pop­corn again.

In this case, spend­ing more on the fan­cy brand name pop­corn is total­ly worth it.

Fem­i­nine Items: Sor­ry boys, I’m going there. The dif­fer­ences between the cheap tam­pons and my Play­tex Sport Tam­pons are night and day. It’s the dif­fer­ence between being some­what com­fort­able going out in pub­lic while Moth­er Nature is here (well, as com­fort­able as you can be. It’s pret­ty uncom­fort­able no mat­ter what) and poten­tial­ly hav­ing a embar­rass­ing episode in pub­lic. Or wak­ing up in the morn­ing to find a hor­ror scene all over your sheets.

I would pay a lot more mon­ey than I cur­rent­ly do to ensure that con­fi­dence. And trust me, these are not cheap. Some­day I may suck it up and inves­ti­gate a Diva Cup but for now I’m con­tent with the set­up I’ve got.

Side­note: the smart cups that con­nect with your phone via blue­tooth are not worth it, imo. Maybe if they weren’t designed to give out in 6 months, I’d con­sid­er it, but $40 or more for maybe 6 or 7 uses is too much. And no, I’m not kid­ding. Check out their Kick­starter.

Qual­i­ty Under­gar­ments: Anoth­er worth it most­ly aimed at the ladies.

Let me tell you, there is noth­ing worse than suf­fer­ing through going bra shop­ping, get­ting mea­sured, lay­ing out loads of cash and then hav­ing your under­wire stab you 2 days lat­er. I’d much rather pay a few more dol­lars to buy qual­i­ty under­wear that will last awhile and be comfortable.

I wear a weird size, so shar­ing secrets with Vic­to­ria is out. Instead, I did the mea­sure­ments myself from ABraThat­Fits and ordered them on the won­der­ful, amaz­ing inter­net. Most of the shops online that car­ry my non-stan­dard size are locat­ed in the UK so I took advan­tage after Brex­it and bought them cheap­er than normal!

That goes to show you can still get the good stuff and find a deal!

As for the low­er half, qual­i­ty still applies. Aint no one got time for wed­gies or non-breath­able fab­ric. For my male read­ers, I spent most of my trip to Ecuador lis­ten­ing to one of the guys sing the prais­es of his under­wear. The Chau­tauqua’s are so great hahahaha.

I would also extend this to swimwear. I grew up swim­ming and the cheap suits would fall apart halfway through the sea­son. Much bet­ter to buy the Speedo for a bit more than hav­ing to go back and buy anoth­er suit. I cur­rent­ly have a suit I bought last sec­ond at a Wal-Mart. It’s a few years old, but the elas­tic is shot to hell and the suit is start­ing to thin dan­ger­ous­ly. Not some­thing I want to wear tub­ing! This time around I will be get­ting a stur­dier, bet­ter made suit that can han­dle what I’m going to throw at it. aka get­ting whipped off a tube at 40 mph and doing flips before I land face first in the water.

Toi­let paper: Are you sens­ing a theme yet? I’m sens­ing a theme. The moment I moved into my first place I went to the store, got the thick­est and soft­est toi­let paper they had, and nev­er looked back. I grew up poor, then went to col­lege and joined the mil­i­tary. I was sick of using the one ply stuff that looked like it could pass for tis­sue paper. I would also like to think get­ting the bet­ter qual­i­ty stuff means I use less of it. It’s been a whole year since I moved and I just now got out the last roll from a 24 pack I bought when I moved in.

Trav­el: I can’t think of a sin­gle trip I regret. Every sin­gle pen­ny I’ve spent on trav­el in the past has be worth it. I love get­ting to explore the world, meet­ing new peo­ple, and expand­ing my think­ing. It’s pos­si­ble to do that at home, but it’s so much eas­i­er to do when you’ve been thrust into a whole new world!

Not Worth It:

Music: With the num­ber of free options out there on the mar­ket, I don’t see the need to pay for Pan­do­ra, Spo­ti­fy, or satel­lite radio. I can suf­fer through a few ads to save any num­ber of dol­lars a month.

Cable: I talked about the ben­e­fits of going cable free ear­li­er, so I’m not going to beat a dead horse. Just know I’ve saved $300 since I wrote that arti­cle, which brings my sav­ings over $1k already! Ok, fine, if I’m hon­est.…. I prob­a­bly spent that extra $300 on bur­ri­tos instead of sav­ing it but! At least it went to my bot­tom (line) instead of Comcast’s!

Eat­ing out: Now that I just fin­ished tell you that I spent all that extra mon­ey on food, I’m going to turn around and tell you eat­ing out isn’t worth it. Real talk: It isn’t. But some­times it’s way eas­i­er to just drop by Jim­my John’s than it is to actu­al­ly make your own food. It’s irri­tat­ing, but it’s a real strug­gle for me. I know it’s bad for my health and wealth, but some days I’m not so strong. Maybe one day I’ll do a month where I don’t eat out at all. That’d be real­ly hard! (and would save me a ton of money).

New Car: Some peo­ple I know love the everlov­ing crap out of their cars. I don’t get it. To me, spend­ing more mon­ey than absolute­ly nec­es­sary is not worth it. I have a love­ly car (2005 Pon­ti­ac Vibe) and it runs great. Why would I sign up for a new car and the debt that comes with it? I’d rather put $450 towards my Roth IRA than a depre­ci­at­ing ‘asset’ like a new car. I do have after­mar­ket rims on the car, but it took me a sol­id two years to fig­ure that out as the pre­vi­ous own­er had put them on. Now, one small thing that was worth it was upgrad­ing the radio unit in the car. The one I replaced had a CD and tape slot, but no AUX input. I upgrad­ed very mod­est­ly and have used it every time I dri­ve the car. I can’t real­ly think of any­thing else I’d replace though. It just would­n’t be worth it.

Break­fast at work: Some­what relat­ed to eat­ing out, but a cat­e­go­ry all of its own. I’m extreme­ly lucky that my office has a full ser­vice cafe­te­ria right in the build­ing. It’s as easy as going down­stairs and swip­ing your card. I usu­al­ly get loaded hash­browns for break­fast and they. are. delicious.

I’m prob­a­bly the fat­test skin­ny per­son you know.…. I love to eat.

Any­ways, depend­ing on the reg­is­ter’s feel­ings and the cashier of the day, loaded hash­browns cost any­where from $2-$3. It’s extreme­ly rea­son­able until you remem­ber you can buy a box of instant oat­meal for $2.50 (less on sale) and have break­fast for a week. I also have reg­u­lar oat­meal at home that costs about $.12/serving if I want­ed to be par­tic­u­lar­ly fru­gal. But that’s not worth it to me con­sid­er­ing I’m the most awake zom­bie ever in the morn­ing. I’m hap­py com­pro­mis­ing with $2.50/week for break­fast instead of $2.50/breakfast.

One day when I’m FI, I could prob­a­bly cut my spend­ing down by doing all the fru­gal things I “should” be doing like the cheap oat­meal. After all, I still have a ways to go before reach­ing my expect­ed spend­ing lev­el in ear­ly retire­ment. But right now, I’m con­tent with the line I’ve drawn in the fig­u­ra­tive fru­gal sand.

What do you con­sid­er worth it? Agree or disagree?