Guilty pleasures in our current economy

[skijay]

I was watching a news segment last week about guilty pleasures. The question that was asked to people was what have they treated themselves to during our current state of economy.

I thought about how I have changed my spending habits over the past year and discovered a couple of things related to this past ski season:

1. Normally during ski season I never spend any money for food / beverages at the ski lodge. During the 2008 / 2009 season I loaded my Mt Snow pass with $300 and as of Good Friday I had $4.50 left. I spent it all on food and drink!

2. I never would pay to park at a ski area. This season we paid the $15 for preferred parking 5 times at Mount Snow because it was close to the lodge. Again, this is something I would never normally do.

Even though I cut back on some spending habits, I did not give up anything for skiing. I actually treated myself this season to pleasures I would never do. I look at a ski day as a way to escape reality.

 

[RootDKJ]

We've hired a cleaning company. With my wife still hurting from the accident, I didn't want to have to pick up her slack, so I sub-contracted it out

 

[deadheadskier]

I can't pin point the specific expense, but I'd venture to say I spent 10% more overall on skiing related expenses this year than last myself. I'll only have skied 1 maybe 2 more days, but there has been some overnights and more overall 'social' money spent this winter than last for sure.

 

[Hawkshot99]

My pleasures???? Skied over double the # of days. Moved north for the winter to be closer to skiing. Bought a truck. Bought snow tires for my car.

I usually bought lunch at the mountain 6 times a week.


I am making WAY more money during this horrible economic times than I was before as a college student. Now with summer here I still have my full time job, plus now the grass is growing and I can make some nice extra money.

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

I didn't hesitate to drop a couple hundred dollars to rent a car to drive from Denver to Jackson when my plane couldn't land in Jackson Hole..

At Stowe I dropped almost $10 on a snack..

I didn't Haggle on my hotel in Stowe because the price seemed fair.

In Jackson Hole I definitely had a few $50+ dinners..and some pretty large bartabs..

But although the economy is bad, I made more money in 2008 than I have ever made plus I should make even more in 2009 as long as business is good and I get my end of year bonus..so spending extra on skiing isn't a big deal to me.

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

We've hired a cleaning company. With my wife still hurting from the accident, I didn't want to have to pick up her slack, so I sub-contracted it out

nice..a cleaning lady is the next thing I want..the woman who cleans the office said she would clean my apartment for $50 but I'd rather pay myself the $50 and do a half assed cleaning job..

 

[drjeff]

Just bought a new GMC Acadia Old faithfull was looking at a service visit of just over $2000 and I just didn't see the advantage of spending that on an almost 7 1/2 year old SUV with just under 170,000k on it.

A bunch of cash off the sticker and 0% financing for 5 years. No complaints - picking her up tommorrow night after work

 

[RootDKJ]

Just bought a new GMC Acadia Old faithfull was looking at a service visit of just over $2000 and I just didn't see the advantage of spending that on an almost 7 1/2 year old SUV with just under 170,000k on it.

A bunch of cash off the sticker and 0% financing for 5 years. No complaints - picking her up tommorrow night after work

Nice. What color?

 

[deadheadskier]

Just bought a new GMC Acadia Old faithfull was looking at a service visit of just over $2000 and I just didn't see the advantage of spending that on an almost 7 1/2 year old SUV with just under 170,000k on it.

A bunch of cash off the sticker and 0% financing for 5 years. No complaints - picking her up tommorrow night after work

Talk about your odd couple an Audi and a GMC


That's like Gisele Bundchen marrying the cable guy :lol:

 

[drjeff]

Nice. What color?

Dark Cherry Metallic I think is what GM is calling it.

 

[drjeff]

Talk about your odd couple an Audi and a GMC


That's like Gisele Bundchen marrying the cable guy :lol:

Yup, she has her likes and her "allowance" for it, and I have mine(I've always been a GM kind of guy ) The funny thing is now that our garage will have 2 cars in it that are literally within an 1" of each other in terms of overall length, width and height - my wife and I were amazed when we saw that the dimensions were almost identical