I splurge on things for my beautiful old house. It makes me ridiculously happy to see my old home coming back to life - inch by inch.

My kids, my home and garden, my vacation home and land. My husband says that none of that is really a splurge, he calls it an investment. And I guess he's right. With improvements our homes and land will increase in value, and of course our kids are priceless.

Maybe I need to go out to dinner more often.

Car washes. Having clothing shortened and altered by a tailor.

We eat out way too much! That's our splurge.

I guess our big splurge is on Toys. Motorhome and Jet Ski's.

Gayle

Facials, electronics, weekend trips, $$$$ restaurants.

Eating out, plants for the yard, grandkids, donations to St. Jude, going to the "boats."

Shoes!!! Waxing!!!

We eat out once a week. When I was working it was a help, now that I'm retired it's a splurge.
Also splurge on yard and garden stuff.
I used to splurge on grandkids, but as the numbers grew the splurging slowed down. We're up to 10 and I like to try to treat them equally.
I also splurge on various classes for Anna. I just want her to know how to do a variety of things when she is grown.

Linda

Horse stuff. I have my eye on $125 breeches but that will be only if I drop a size or 3. Trying to talk hubby into sending my mare to a trainer and that is $600 a month - urk. The colt ill be ready for the same trainer in another 1 1/2 years.

I splurge on food. I am picky about food. I try to eat good quality food...will only eat fruit and vegetables USA grown, if possible, which is also sort of my little political statement...not that it makes a difference, I suppose. I do buy fruit for the possums that isn't from the USA, like grapes, but I don't eat them.

I eat out too much...out of convience more than anything else, because I am out every day, and no one here most of the time to eat with me, but I have really cut back on it because the food is usually not all that good, compared to eating at home.

I have a new addiction to sodas made with sugar, instead of corn syrup and in glass bottles....like Boylan's Grape Soda and Virgil's Black Cherry Cream Soda. They're expensive and I don't need the sugar, but I drink a couple of those a day.

I buy yogurt for my possums every day...4 or 5 quarts at 1.76 a quart, and chicken for them a couple of times a week and a few dozen eggs for them.

I feed my horses a high quality horse feed, when I could buy a much cheaper feed.

I also buy plants...spent half the night last night looking at some new Colocasias on a plant website that I want to buy.

I love to go to yard sales and flea markets, altho I don't usually buy big ticket items there, but I am always looking for interesting things for the house, and I will spend the money if I find something I want. Will be spending a lot of money working on the house soon, I hope.

I also spend way too much on gasoline, but it is because I live so far from everything and I do a lot of running. I wish I could stay home, but I look after an elderly man in another town, and I have to check on him every day, and there is quite a bit of running in rehabbing...picking up animals, food, etc.

I mostly splurge on eating out. I don't always feel like cooking and don't want Jammer to work all day and then come home to cook.

I splurge on getting my hair done. I've had a stylist for close to 30 years and she works at a great salon in Beverly Hills, (has been there many years.) So that's where I go. I think I'm worth it and it's fun to see how the other half lives every three months!

I also feel like I splurge when I shop at Trader Joe's. Which is about 95% of the time. I never look at prices, I love their good meats/veggies/breads etc. To me it's worth worth the money. And from what I hear TJ's isn't all that much higher than the big grocery stores. I must say I rarely go to Whole Foods or Gelson's...to me that would really be a "splurge".

~Susan

Susan, I think Trader Joe's is very reasonable, especially when you consider the quality. Well worth it.

DH and I take about 3 vacations a year (at least 2 of them cruises). We consider it a priority and will continue the practice until we run out of money, or get too old or too sick.

I lease a new car every 3 years....nothing fancy,but it's a gift to myself for all the years I lived alone driving old cars that guzzled up all my vacation money!

Books. Can't live without books. I do try to wait on some authors for the paper back to come out, but for some I get the hardbacks. I do re-read them.

And plants.

Hair cuts and color and pedicures. I deserve it.

Shoes, purses, skin cream.

Haircuts and colour every four weeks, eating out a lot, a new greenhouse (BIG splurge), a new car every four years or so, helping the kids out, good quality fabrics for my quilts....

Being retired, I try to be carefull when grocery shopping for DH & myself. Our splurge is good icecream, for him and a pricy brand of bleu cheese dressing for my salads. Dottie

I'm like Marilyn, I go to garage sales pretty often and if I want it - I buy it.

Buy good brands of pet food for Roxie and the cats

We eat out - waaaaay too much.

Eating out

Home improvements

Lawn service

Hawaiian, caribbean and WDW vacations

Electronics

Music CD's

New cars

Shoes~~purses~~silver jewlery~~nice gifts for the kids on b-days and Christmas not pricey but nice and thoughtful. Going to dinner or lunch with my DD's and or my GF's. My DH and I do a nice vacation every year and I do splurge buying things then. I am very prctical, but I want to have fun now that the kids are gone and for DH and I to enjoy ourselves:) We do a date night once a week forsure now:)

Fishing expeditions

I splurge on my hair, shoes, purses, the grands and eating out. DH splurges on fishing stuff and things to ease his yard work.

Books, manicures, pedicures,plants, kids and grandkids.

My biggest splurge is a one week vacation with just my two (sometimes 3) sisters each September. We lay on the beach, read, swim, laugh, go shopping, out to dinner, laugh some more, have drinks on the deck overlooking the ocean, play games, laugh some more, get fake tattoos (once we got a real one!!!!) and then laugh some more. We have the most spectacular time together and we all truly treasure that time together. All of our husband's are really great about it, too.

declansmom, I think you are the best splurger! It sounds like you have such a good time with your sisters.

For me i guess it would be the lawn service,gives me more time to play in the dirt in my gardens.Plants and seeds,for those gardens,and i also splurge on the GGK's now that the GK's are all grown up and on their own,i spoil their kids now.

I'm also a yard saler,i like the thrill of the hunt and getting things for a fraction of their original cost.Besides i meet a lot of gardeners that way,and we exchange plants.
Kathi

Trader Joes is very reasonable. Shopping there is not splurging. Compare the prices of butter there and at your regular market. And nuts? You cannot beat their prices.

Gelsons and Whole Foods is splurging.

Yard service for Mike as he doesn't want to do it anymore and never liked it in the first place.

For me it is traveling. He doesn't want to go so I go by myself. This year, Florida, Hawaii, Minnesota and next Massachusetts. The MA trip my son (39) is going to meet me and spend a week together. Looking forward to that as he is a great guy.

We also eat out a few times a month.

Not much splurging.....but we do like really good coffee so buy a more expensive locally roasted brand.
We save all we can so we can travel to Japan to see our kids and Jake.....and next time we go, a new baby.

Haircuts and colour every four weeks also.

books! and a cable box in the office for my tv...(so i can watch movies, etc)

Not much - half and half for coffee.

Plus other things, as they please me - but there aren't many, I must confess.

Born just before the Dirty Thirties, I don't recall much of the difficulties that were part of our lives then (and may well be again). But I heard of them in later years.

Added to which - it makes a lasting impact when a person helps people who walked away from one life with the clothes on their back and now try to build another, seeking work where there may be something like 30% unemployment (try living in a country where modern war has swept across most of it four times) ... when a hundred thousand or so others are seeking work, as well.

While I am happy, thankful and proud to be Canadian, I live in one of the most fortunate areas of the world.

I have chosen to owe another allegiance, as well - to someone who said, a couple of thousand years ago, that I'm to love my neighbour as myself.

Which, it seems to me, makes me also a citizen of the world, owing allegiance to the other people who inhabit this planet, with an obligation to help them find ways to get on their feet, as well.

Somehow, it doesn't seem quite fitting for me to say, "Here's $4,000.00, Lord, of the $40,000. that we earned this year ... I'll do what you choose with that $4,000.00 ... and whatever suits me with the other $36,000.00".

I hope that you're all having a fine, memorable week.

ole joyful

Getting my favorite mochas almost daily. I try not to add it up.

Plants

Fabric!

I really don't splurge on anything else. I probably would if I could afford it!

Dining out,theatre,Red Hat activities and road trips. Like Marilyn I only buy food of excellent quality. I don't consider that a splurge though. It's the way I was raised. My parents would do without a lot of things before sacrificing good food on the table every night.

Oh I forgot the satellite dish with dvr. Oh well that is really a necessity.

We each have collections. He collects scale model cars, trucks and construction equipment. I collect porcelain figurines, paintings, stained glass etc of wildlife. We have both slowed down considerably in the last few years due to space, not desire. Right now I need a stained glass owl for hanging. Other than that we buy what we want at the grocery store, or eating out, or clothing with out much consideration as to price. We don't have 'expensive' tastes, so I guess we are fortunate since we certainly are not wealthy.

Splurge is a relative term. What may be a splurge to one may be necessary for someone else. Or what may have seemed like a splurge to me 20 years ago may not be today.

I dunno. I can't think of anything that I consider a splurge...that's pretty sad, isn't it? I guess maybe computer hardware and software, but I use that for work so maybe it doesn't count. ??

Having our pond dug will be a splurge IF the &$*(^#@ dozer man ever comes...

Here is a link that might be useful: My blog about the pond