Ask HN: What do you spend your money on?
52 blahaj 100 6/2/2025, 12:45:46 PM
How much of your money do you spend on what things and what impact do these things have on your life? What things would you like to do or have but can't because you don't have the money?
If you don't mind telling for context, how much income do you have?
Every 2-4 months, I spend some money to go to the next country, could be anywhere from $20 for a bus to $700 for long distance flights.
I don't really buy things anymore, I have everything "I need" for a comfortable life, anything more at this point would just be annoying, I only buy to replace. I buy new shoes every 1-2 years and usually for $200+. I think nice shoes are worth it.
> What things would you like to do or have but can't because you don't have the money?
I think I would need an insane amount of money to make meaningful differences in my life. My partner has a "weak" passport, so being rich enough to "buy" one for her would be nice. Other than that, being able to buy a house or getting a pilots license would be nice.
Having enough money to buy "almost whatever" allows for real happiness to happen. Money doesn't buy happiness, but it opens the door for it.
Family, friends, love, hobbies.
- Financial hardships are one of the top reasons for divorce.
- Building and keeping loving relationships and friends is a lot harder when you have to work 60-80 hours a week.
- Funds to have hobbies so you can do what you truly want to do rather than what pays the bills.
A good fulfilling life is simple (but usually not easy).
I would summarize your point as: we need some money to be happy.
DougN7 said "[I] have finally discovered those [costly] things don’t bring happinessis".
I think lots of money doesn't make you happier. I strongly suspect that most people don't really understand that, because they don't have lots of money and therefore they have not learnt about the lies we are taught about money by our money focused societies.
Let's view your divorce argument from https://flowingdata.com/2021/05/04/divorce-rates-and-income/ :
I suspect your assumptions about divorce money and unhappiness are incorrect. And you were definitely ignoring the confounders mentioned.It gives me enough to know that I could be out of a job for a year without being homeless and hungry (not counting retirement assets)
It means that even though we live in Florida, I can still say “let’s go to Costa Rica and Panama City for the entire winter”. And even locally when I want to fly back to my former home for a weekend every quarter just to play cards with my friends and hang out I can or if we just want to rent an Airbnb back home for a couple of months during the summer to spend time with friends and our adult sons.
When our friends suggest we get together and go on a cruise during Christmas we don’t think about it, we just say “yes”.
When my younger adult son calls us and tells us he is going to be temporarily laid off during Christmas we just ask how much he needs and don’t think about it.
Notice I didn’t say “buy things”. We live in a 1200 square foot condo and everything we own besides our car can literally fit in four suitcases and we have actually traveled around the country with everything we owned in suitcases. Even the furniture in our condotel came with it and if we do sell it, it stays with it. We threw away or gave away everything but the clothes we actually wear and our electronic devices and we even downsized those. If you can’t tell - we really hate “stuff”. Our one car is the cheapest thing that we could buy that was the base level of comfort we could deal with.
We use money for experiences, spend time with friends and family to allow my wife to pursue her passions and do her volunteer work. Even before she retired she was able to get a lower paying job (with the benefits we needed then) working with special needs kids.
I told my wife the same. I'm currently on a $97k/year salary as a CS teacher with very few hours; I make about half of what I normally do, so I can have a lot of time with our firstborn. We're not pressed for money, but we also save less than $1500/mo. We spend most money on food, and second-most on travelling to my wife's home country.
I'm 39, and she's 32. My point is that you don't have to be very well off to make that choice.
> We threw away or gave away everything but the clothes we actually wear and our electronic devices
Wow. Just wow.
That sounds so liberating, but I could never do it.
I have a laser printer that I use a few times a year. I have two kind of belt sanders, even though I hardly do woodwork, because I imagine that I will, and I don't think I'm wrong. I have fitness equipment for a dozen sports. I have a collection of wires so that friends and family can ask for any kind of wire, and I can give it to them. My wife has three moving boxes of shoes that I've never seen her wear. I really wish it didn't take up so much space in our tiny apartment, but I wouldn't want to lose any of it.
I did that. Few years ago work was getting tough (new boss) and owner sold our rental right when second child was born. So we decided to move back from NZ to LT. Spent nearly a year living in Japan, Fiji and Tenerife and LT. Turned out to be mistake as work was hard to come by and it turns out I don't really like my country anymore. Kids need to go to daycare/school and form their friendships.
We went back to NZ, sourced some decent contract work and in like 6 months I was able to get mortgage. Life is stable and nice.
I get to spend money on improving house - got some tools and DIY a solar, heat recovery ventilation systems. Install Japanese toilet seats and get decent beds. Induction cooktop and some cooking tools. Ebike, kayaks and camping gear. Home assistant and robot vacuum. It's definitely reaching saturation point tho.
Hardest part is with third child on a way any sort of travel across the world is at least $10k in flights, $20k lost while not working and another 5k on vacant house.
Big hope is to save enough on a sailboat big enough for weekend trips. Otherwise grind another 5-10 years, sell everything and go around the world for a proper catamaran.
That also means we have outsourced a lot for $800 a month (not including a mortgage) - that takes care of all of the utilities, maintenance, access to multiple pools, a gym that is literally downstairs and one that is a block away. I use to have my own cardio equipment setup. They come in our condo every other day and take the trash out and will clean our unit for $80.
As far as the printer? We use the one in the business office that all guests can use when we occasionally need to print something.
When we leave for extended stays, we pack our suitcase and put our unit in the rental pool and money gets put in our account.
This isn’t my bragging about money. Our total fixed bills now are slightly less than when we were living in the burbs in Atlanta 5 years ago. Our fixed expenses are ridiculously low.
I get it. Simple living. Don’t own things you can borrow for free or rent cheap. I really see how that makes for quality of life. My brother lives simply but more luxuriously. He owns less and spends more on experiences. I see that saving things you can use in 5 years isn’t really maximising total wealth or convenience, so it’s just a deep affection for a ton of crab.
I see lot of retirees buy ski condos and live skiing lifestyle
I think saying "money doesn't buy happiness" is too reductive. The crap from Amazon certainly makes no meaningful difference and actually I feel slightly embarrassed when I see a new package arrive. But the relief from stress of having no debt, living in a good area for schools, having a large runway and not worrying about the cost of groceries is a real life improvement that I would be sad to give up. Having said that, none of the great memories from life so far involve spending huge amounts of money.
Same, but even more so when 6 different packages arrive staggered throughout the day. I have never understood how that is more efficient than 6 boxes at once, or 6 things in 1 box at once.
As an engineering it's fairly simple to understand.
Income is $450k / yr, engineer, 39 years old, no kids and no plans to have them. I have a chronic illness and retirement seems a distant and not very pleasant prospect. I like working and like to enjoy life.
* $5k / month on rent. (Nice apartment in a high cost of living city).
* At least $7k month goes into savings (I’m not totally financially irresponsible!)
* One pretty ordinary car, expect to drive it for 10 yrs, usual costs.
* $5k / month average on travel. My biggest luxury. I fly international business class sometimes but only when it’s “cheap”.
* $2k / month on groceries, wine, dining out. I enjoy fine dining.
* $3k / month on clothes and accessories. I’m a woman and I have a weakness for nice things, worst of all for designer bags. Yes I know it’s frivolous but the marginal utility is there for me.
* $1k / month on a personal trainer. Could I have the same level of fitness without it? In theory yes, in practice no.
The thing I wish I had more of is time, not in the sense of “retire and don’t work” but in the sense of “it would be nice to take a slight pay cut and work only 9 months of the year and travel more and spend the rest of the time reading, studying math again, and doing interesting projects.” Unfortunately that option isn’t really open to me, outside of consulting which I have no appetite for.
I didn’t get into engineering for the money, but out of love. I’d have done it anyway. But the money is nice, for sure. I save some and don’t feel the need to be unnecessarily frugal with the rest. I know I’m incredibly fortunate. Your mileage may vary, and especially if you have kids. Make your own choices according to your values.
My wife and I are both short so business class is not a big deal for us. But we do spend $2000 a year for lounge access to airport lounges via 2 credit cards and we are both Platinum Medallion on Delta which gives us automatic C+ regional upgrades.
But I just can’t care enough about First class flights. I’ll take regional free upgrades but that’s about it. While we travel a lot domestically as a hobby post Covud and post kids. We don’t look forward to long international flights and are doing our first 10 hour+ non stop flight in a couple of weeks and we aren’t looking forward to being in a metal tube that long.
We are at most going to do two or three long flights a year.
As far as the personal trainer, my commitment device use to be teaching fitness classes as a hobby and running races with friends. Then it was having a home gym with cardio equipment and a big screen TV on the wall.
Now at 50 it’s I never want to be tired running through the airport with a 50 pound book bag on my back and walking around a city when I travel. I bought my current condo purposefully to be right above the gym.
But as far retirement? It scares me more than I look forward to it. With my working remotely, work is not the gating factor for anything in my life.
But on the other hand, while my wife travels a lot domestically by herself, I don’t think she would ever want to fly economy as a single woman internationally. I get it.
No one would ever call us frugal when it comes to travel, lounge access, month long stays in different cities. But I’m very frugal when it comes to fixed expenses.
So, for example, I drive a cheap used car because a nice expensive car doesn't actually make my life better, but I won't think twice about buying an expensive tool that I'll use every day, or going out for a lavish meal every so often, etc. There is nothing I want to do but I can't because of a lack of funds.
I make six figures, and I'm not in SV or NY, so that can provide a very comfortable standard of living. I actually spend about 25% of that and put the rest into charitable donations, savings, investments, etc.
Would love to buy some top-of-the-line compute for my homelab and a few machines that just don’t exist yet and a house in a country town to retire to. None of that is ever going to happen.
Am in South Europe so my income is way less than it should be considering what I do for a living, have somewhat made my peace with that by just enjoying my free time.
I don’t really spend a lot of money on “things” per se. Mostly tools, materials, and other consumables for my hobbies.
High power rocketry basically has no upper bound on expense. You can build a rocket to reach the karman line with commercially available components and launch it in Nevada with minimal oversight. The certifications required to purchase the propellant and launch with Tripoli insurance will take about 1.5 years to reach. The limiting factor is just $$ spent on propellant and testing. It’s a ridiculous hobby expense wise.
Are you happy?
Why on earth would you find that depressing?
I've travelled lots, but raising kids and fixing and building shit around house is so rewarding.
Traveling with kids is the ultimate flex tho.
IMHO, income is logarithmic [0], so in terms of things I might like to have but don't (an apartment with a shared pool?) it would probably be a big jump up in income to get them. If I got a $10K raise tomorrow, it wouldn't really make a difference.
If I ever have kids, I'll either have to give some things up or climb the income ladder.
[0] https://ofdollarsanddata.com/climbing-the-wealth-ladder/
That’s surprising as that’s about the same tax as in the U.K., but people claim the U.K. has high tax.
But since I was old enough to actually look at paycheck (paycheque?) calculators online, I've found that the UK tax rate for livable wages is actually fairly low.
To compare NYC to UK, £66k/yr = $90k/yr. In the UK, you would be taxed £17k ($23k), but that same salary living in NYC would be taxed $26k (£19k).
So NYC + Fed + NYS taxed together at a higher rate than the UK government (INCLUDING NI).
And $90k in NYC feels like WAY less than £66k somewhere Zone 4-6 in London with a similar commute.
Remember under 50k NI is a massive jump. Roughly the marginal bands are 32%/42%/62%/45%. Add 10% if you have kids between 60k and 80k, add 9-15% over 27% if you have student loan. The 62% marginal rate at 100k is a big kicker.
Basically means most people pay far higher marginal rate between 50k and 120k than above 120k.
A recent video on NYC, "The Absurd Lengths Billionaires Go to Not 'Live' in NYC":
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veJfMypXWtc
Low income tax states tend to make up for it in other ways (sales tax, property tax, or both) but basically UK taxes would look extortionate to an Alaskan, painfully high to a Texan and probably pretty normal to a New Yorker or Californian.
For instance, here's $3500 for a 4 bedroom/1.5 bath that's on a quiet street but near a lout one https://streeteasy.com/building/171-east-8-street-brooklyn/3...
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/216-E-93rd-St-2L-Brooklyn...
Obviously not the most ideal circumstances, but it can be done.
New book from the writer (his second):
* https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/770215/the-wealth-l...
In recent years, I have had just a little bit extra, and I found satisfaction in paying off debts and contributing to a retirement fund for the first time. I also bought ski passes for myself and my kids and we had many enjoyable days on the mountain.
I have rich friends who own three houses and make over a million a year just from investments. They’re quite content, but the extra money doesn’t seem to buy them much extra satisfaction.
Housing is stupidly expensive if you want to live comfortably, and even more so if you want to actually own the place you live.
I earn something like €95,000-€100,000/y in Prague. (varies due to Czech Koruna)
Started buying some items for them in 2020 when the pandemic hit and they lost what little income they had. Slowly it grew into large-scale support, and I'm committed to help to get the folks to adulthood.
The impact: I've learned to let go and become less stingy. Donate much more frequently these days because I realized I have more than enough. Much happier this way.
I make ~$190k/yr. I work 32hrs/wk instead of 40hrs though, and I like it a lot more for my mental health - which I'm able to do because my salary is high enough to support my lifestyle with the trade-off of earning less per week.
- Concerts. My wife and I love going to see music so it's maybe $100 bucks for a concert or two per month.
- Once or twice a year I'll buy myself a new guitar pedal. They tend to be higher quality ones so that will run you $300 - $400 easy.
- Pokemon cards. My son got into and I got hooked. It's a deep strategy game and it's tons of fun. We probably spend ~$50 a month on this. We go to a game store to play on the weekends so we always buy a pack or two to help support the store.
- The usual drugs. Alcohol. Weed. The less usual but still good drugs, mushrooms and molly (pure MDMA) a few times a year.
If I had a billion dollars I would probably have things like a personal driver and chef, and maybe a few nicer guitars and some sweet-ass pokemon cards, but overall I want for nothing. As you can see, I tend to spend money on experiences instead of things. The physical things I do buy, pedals and cards, are for things I do with other people. My biggest restriction is having two kids, 4 and 7. I would love to travel more but it's not a money issue.
This applies for small purchases like a tempting snack at the grocery store. Am I going to eat it? Will I really enjoy this? If so, ok. If it will sit in the cabinet and be passed over for other snacks, no.
It applies to large purchases as well. Should I buy this very expensive bicycle? Yes, I will ride it. And as it turns out, I did. It’s almost 10 years old, and I still ride it a lot.
I’m also regularly going through my belongings and donating, selling, and trashing things I don’t use. This helps me to learn over time and make better purchasing decisions. It also helps me reduce the amount of crap I have. Best of all it’s really nice when I can give something to someone who appreciates it much more and will make better use of it.
The result is that other than the regular essential things to maintain life such as food, household goods, etc. I buy things extremely rarely. The thing I spend the most disposable income on is probably tickets to shows, sports, and other experiences. If you ask me if I’ll use them and enjoy them, the answer is almost always yes.
The only thing I want, but can’t afford, is real estate. I could afford real estate in a place with lower property value, but I only want NYC real estate. It’s not happening.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novi_Sad_railway_station_can...
It's prob over $200/month on group and private lessons when put together for me (I skate for 3-6 hours a week). Skates vary in cost from $150 for beginner skates (both boot and blades) to $400 for intermediate. At the upper end, boots are $1k by themselves and blades are $500+. Your skates last a good while though assuming you're not an Olympian. Hockey has similar costs, but you also have to spend ~$1500 on gear as an adult.
I am fairly lucky in that I can do most things I want to. I can buy things that I want with a little saving. I can eat out with the family. I can't travel too much, though I'd like to. The only "normal life" expense I can't afford is buying a home. It seems a long way off.
I think the path forward will be moving states or working remote, as there are few jobs in software near me. At least at my experience level. For now I cannot complain. My quality of life is higher than most I know. Off topic, but I think about this a lot.
Impact of life; is that I'm not miserable. (I was obsessive about not spending early on in my career and got really bad depression, i.e. working really hard, not allowing myself to enjoy the fruits of my labor)
Things I'd like todo if I had more money are: - Travel to see family abroad - Tidy up the nitpicky things in my house that bother me - A car with more doors (3 door at the moment)
My philosophy is to have enough saved for a rainy day, then excess goes to pension / investments and then provide myself with a small amount of ££ for myself (And research the hell out of the thing I'm buying)
That said, I was pretty lucky in that I don't have debts: I got my Master's degree mostly for govt. funds due to good grades + started working in development during my 2nd year in Bachelor's. I am also pretty lucky that I don't have many expenses: I live in my dad's old city apartment and look after it (swapped out fridge and stove some time ago, new lightbulbs, lots of cleaning etc.), so day to day only have to cover utilities (~300 EUR) and no rent to speak of.
I try to save and invest a decent chunk of whatever I earn, sometimes funds managed by my bank, sometimes specific company stocks, a relatively small amount in crypto as well. At the same time I spend some of my money helping my friends that are less fortunate than me, like with medical expenses or getting food near payday etc., since while I feel comfortable with a bit of a spartan lifestyle, them not being able to afford necessities sucks and it'd feel bad to do nothing.
Aside from that, I do get some knickknacks sometimes, like how I'm getting an Aigo AIO for my PC (~60 EUR, not strictly necessary, but might help with the Ryzen 7 5800X, ~150 EUR, throwing a hissy fit whenever I make it compile things) and a new Modecom PSU (~50 EUR, the old one rattles a bit, might be bad bearings on its fan, probably a good idea to replace it and not risk it frying things at some point), some new clothes (~150 EUR) and the usual boring stuff (e.g. groceries are around 250-300 EUR a month over here). Also visiting Germany later this year (~1000 EUR) for a programming event and to hang out with some lovely people.
Probably won't have: a fancy gaming PC, or flagship phones/laptops, a car in the near future, my own apartment in a newly built building even in the more far future, or any sort of living in luxury. At the same time, I much prefer either being able to help others and also having some financial stability over having the latest shiny thing.
Unfortunately, despite not living in excess, it very much feels like I'm one financial crisis away from financial ruin. Fun times.
Those are my regular monthly bills outside of house, food, etc...
Won't say salary but in a high percentile of income in EU country.
If I had no job and unlimited money (and no responsibilities) I'd go to Phuket and train Muay Thai for a year, then go to the Wudang mountains and train Kung Fu at some probably quite Westernised temple for another year. Afterwards I'd start a company in the defence or space sector.
Rewind 1 year: I was buying retro gaming consoles to mod (the exquisitely beautiful, but unreliable Sony PSX). I also bought a mid-engine Japanese sports car to soup up (one of the cheap ones you can get for less than 20k with low miles).
Rewind a little further - paid off the house.
Purchases that fill not a hole, but my time. Hobby-type purchases which create learning opportunities. Or - investments in financial security of some sort.
Mortgage - $3800
Groceries - ~$1000
Eating out - ~$1000
TV / Internet - $250
Utilities (Water, electric, sewer, gas, trash) - $400 average
Car insurance - $280
Phones - $170
Life insurance - $106
Health insurance - $700
Audible - $40
Personal Trainer - $300
Panera Sip Club x2 - $26
Pharmacy - $100 / average
~$8200 a month on regular purchases.
What do I want that we don't have the money for? A paid off house. My mortgage is 40% of our monthly expenses and I'd like it to be half what it currently is.
I want to buy a nice new truck or car, but can't justify adding another payment of $500 to our bill sheet for the next 6 years. I also don't want to blow up savings to buy a car with some cash.
Then I wanted to capture my parents life story. I thought it might be a good little project and others might find it valuable. So I built viography.co
The problem is that I'm not really promoting it and not getting customers. So I'm spending a few hundred dollars a month to record videos, save them for later and of course fix bugs that I find.
Currently on the third $10k+ trip with my wife in 18 months but don’t have a car and am still using my laptop from 2014. Main reason is that I feel like I have my whole life to buy X or Y but only have the time and energy to travel long distances while young.
Could I also buy a new laptop? Yeah sure, but I don’t because I don’t value it as much.
I would put more into savings/investments and charitable giving if the taxes came down.
24 grams. You won't even feel the weight of it.
Mostly just "mousing around" for work stuff. Dunno, I think my hand is just busted.
We are 51/49, grown kids, and I work remotely
I make in the low $200s in cloud consulting and another $7500 in rental income offsets to pay our mortgage + expenses when we aren’t there
$6k apt in a very nice area
$4.5k for preschool and daycare
$4k for household help (kids, cleaning, some cooking)
$1.5-2k for eating out
$400 for utilities
$1.5k on travel (smoothed out)
$500 boat club
$400 hobbies
> The first tip is what I call “The 2x Rule.” The 2x Rule works like this: Anytime I want to splurge on something, I have to take the same amount of money and invest it as well. So if I wanted to buy a $400 pair of dress shoes, I would also have to buy $400 worth of equities. This makes me re-evaluate how much I really want something because if I am not willing to save 2x for it, then I don’t buy it.
[…]
> And you don’t have to invest the money for The 2x Rule to work effectively either. For example, you could donate the other half to a charity and have the same guilt-free effect. Every “extravagant” dollar you spend on yourself could be matched with a “charity” dollar that goes to a worthy cause. Not only does this allow you to help others, but you won’t feel bad when you spoil yourself.
* https://ofdollarsanddata.com/how-to-spend-money/
And if you get a raise, if you're wondering how much of your extra income can you spend without succumbing to "lifestyle creep", about half is a good rule of thumb:
* https://ofdollarsanddata.com/lifestyle-creep/