HN Explorer

Ask HN: What do you spend your money on?

54 points by blahaj ↗ HN
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?

104 comments

[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 186 ms ] thread
typesarecool
Paying for grad school out of pocket (around 700 USD per month, I'm going slowly). Paying for a large tattoo out of pocket, actually the same price as grad school (700 USD). Member of a few different clubs (BJJ, Muay Thai, local spa gym) which is maybe 300 USD all in.

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.

mikesabat
I built a side project during COVID and after. I started recording videos explaining everything that's happening in the world for my kids to watch in 20 years.

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.

TZubiri
Chicken nuggets and debt atm
kgwxd
I think I got more joy from paying off debt than anything I've ever purchased after I finally got out.
ProfessorZoom
stocks and stuff that makes me happy (car, movie theater, eating out)
nyarlathotep_
Apparently many "gaming" mice, as I can't find something that doesn't bother my hand after a few hours.
kgwxd
Hate to break it to you, there will never be a solution for hours of gaming without some pain.
fragmede
physical therapy. hand exercises, weight training.
nyarlathotep_
It's not even much gaming at all (a few hours a week at most).

Mostly just "mousing around" for work stuff. Dunno, I think my hand is just busted.

D13Fd
This seems like a weird comment. Many people use a mouse for long periods. I play competitively and at the end of the comp season each year I'll often play in full-bore try-hard mode for 14+ hours straight with no issues (I'm in my 40's). I think it's just different for different people.
datadrivenangel
Try a vertical ergonomic mouse, and also go for more walks and do some very light body weight exercises and stretches. My hand issues start coming back when I skip the activities long enough. A 15 minute walk around the block and then a minute of pushups and another minute of stretches is enough to keep the arm functional for me.
nyarlathotep_
Good call--I do have a logitech ergo something or other I used for a bit. Maybe I'll go back to that.
HPsquared
Using a range of different shapes is probably good for your hand anyway.
setgree
My salary is $96,000, which comes to about $5700/month after taxes and everything. I spend about $1300 a month in recurring expenses (rent, gym, etc.). I'm 36, I live with roommates in Brooklyn, and I saved $1200 last month. That means on average, I spent about $100 a day on everything else (food, fun, travel). It's a life that works for me.

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/

quotz
Its beyond minid-boggling how you spend 1300 a month on rent and gym and other stuff. Which neighbourhood are you in? How many roommates? I've usually paid around 3-4K for a studio...
exoverito
I was curious too, and it seems feasible. Assuming at least 2 other roommates, you can find a 3 bed for less than 3600/mo. Here's a small 4 bd/1.5 ba for 3350/mo, so about 1120/mo.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/216-E-93rd-St-2L-Brooklyn...

Obviously not the most ideal circumstances, but it can be done.

quotz
actually i used to live in flatbush the first year i moved to nyc in a "coliving" space, and the rent was very low around 1.2K p/m, but never again going back to that area... Parkside ave station was disgusting honestly.
chgs
> which comes to about $5700/month after taxes and everything

That’s surprising as that’s about the same tax as in the U.K., but people claim the U.K. has high tax.

jermaustin1
The problem (in my mind) with the UK tax is the huge steps in the progression and how quickly it hits 40% (in SWE salaries, at least). Go from 0% to 20% to 40% which feels a bit "steep" but it is better than going from 0% to 10% to 12% to 22% to 24% to 32% to 35% to 37%.

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.

chgs
Most people struggle to

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.

setgree
96K/year = 8K/month, and I pocket about 70% of that. Does that seem high to you? It doesn't to me, but then I've mostly lived and worked in coastal blue states. if I moved to Florida, I'd take home probably another $500/month (and I'd probably spend more than that on having a car).
0xBDB
Income tax percentage in the U.S. ranges from negative counting credits (for the bottom 60% of taxpayers in states with no income tax) to a marginal rate of 52.7% plus a 1% surcharge on all income combining federal, state, and local for incomes over a million bucks in San Francisco.

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.

acureau
23m, 2 YoE software engineer, live in Louisiana. I take home around $1100 weekly after tax. My monthly bills total ~$2500. I put ~$600 into my personal IRA, being a contractor. What remains either sits in savings, put towards to developing another source of income, or spent on games and beer.

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.

JohnFen
I have a fundamental philosophy about spending money -- identify the few things that really, genuinely, make your life better and spend on those. For everything else, be a total cheapskate.

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.

nritchie
Beyond mundane living expenses, bicycling and brewing supplies.
scarface_74
Travel - $20K - $30K per year. Not extravagant trips, just a lot of them and months long “nomadding” in different cities and starting next year a couple of months in the winter in Costa Rica. Most of our long stays are offset via income by renting our home out. We live in a unit of a condetel (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/condotel.asp) that we own.

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

[deleted]
(comment deleted)
apwell23
i spend all my money on skiing that i have nothing else left. I hate how expensive it is but i just can't give it up.
normie3000
Ditch the lift passes, get some skins and go skimo!
apwell23
lift passes are the least of it. problem i have is that i live in midwest and it costs a fortune to travel and stay where the skiing is.
thinkingtoilet
I make ~$220k with my bonus. I live in a rural area and work remotely so that money goes a long way. I also don't really have expensive hobbies. Well, my hobbies could be expensive but I don't go down the road some people do. I have a wife and two kids. A decent portion of my money goes to the normal family expenses including retirement savings. Outside of that, my biggest expenses, in order-ish, are:

- 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.

Apreche
I make almost all purchasing decisions using one simple metric, will I use it? More precisely, the question is will I use it an amount that justifies the expense?

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.

peer2pay
Food and (international) travel almost exclusively.

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.

Jeremy1026
Using a 11 year old laptop isn't the reason you're able to spend $30k+ on travel over an 18 month period. Including that is like when people say "stop buying Starbucks if you want to buy a house." There are typically other circumstances are involved, even a $8 coffee every day is only $3,000 a year. That isn't make or break for getting a mortgage.
Bilal_io
I agree with your point, but Tlto be fair, they also mentioned they don't own a car, which can prevent them from traveling depending on the condition and type of car they choose.
peer2pay
I mean true, fair point but OP asked what I spent my money on and it’s travel, as described.

Could I also buy a new laptop? Yeah sure, but I don’t because I don’t value it as much.

DougN7
This isn’t anonymous enough for me to give any details. Nearing retirement so I’ll just say I can buy almost whatever I want, especially if I raided the retirement account, but have finally discovered those things don’t bring happiness. There’s a great cartoon I lost track of that shows a person walking around with a huge hole in their chest, and how different people try filling it with various things (sex, drugs, drinking, money, fame, other people, hobbies(?), etc). While that gaping hole is there, money means very little. How to fill it? Still trying to figure that out.
wijwp
That's pretty reductive.

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).

robocat
Your answer is rather reductive. And unfortunately you seem to be strawmanning since your comment is replying to something that DougN7 never said.

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/ :

  Divorce rates are tied to job security, age, and occupation, so it should make sense that we see a pattern when we plot divorce rates against income

  There’s a tight decrease in divorce rate for incomes between $10,000 and $200,000 per year, and then rates seems to flatten out around 30 percent after that
I suspect your assumptions about divorce money and unhappiness are incorrect. And you were definitely ignoring the confounders mentioned.
kgwxd
IMO, the hole metaphor is terrible. Mountain of trash feels more accurate. Problem is, after it's all cleaned up, there is no hole to fill. There's just nothing more to do, except whatever comes at you. That gets boring pretty quick in a relatively non-hostile environment. Playing Minecraft in peaceful mode never made me happy. Trying to figure out why that is is what I'm working on now. I think that's just creativity for it's own sake but, even though I find joy in other people's creativity, I find little point in doing it myself. Now that I'm typing this out, maybe something like "challenges" and "achievements" is what I should be "creating". Craft my own trash pile.
scarface_74
Money buys me a lot of things that lead to my happiness - the ability to tell my wife that she could stop working in 2020 when she was 44 and I was 46 and we could travel post Covid and she could pursue her passions.

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.

DougN7
I think you won at life and I’m genuinely happy for you. Though I’m of a similar mindset, circumstances don’t allow me to do similarly, but it’s not the money.
sshine
> Money buys me a lot of things that lead to my happiness - the ability to tell my wife that she could stop working in 2020 when she was 44 and I was 46 and we could travel post Covid and she could pursue her passions.

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.

scarface_74
I mentioned earlier that I own a unit in a condotel. It’s basically your standard condo style resort that you find in tourist hotspots. It’s not a time share. Anyone can come in and reserve a room just like any hotel and the owner of the unit gets half of the money when your unit is rented out.

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.

sshine
> This isn’t my bragging about money.

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.

dzhiurgis
> That sounds so liberating, but I could never do 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.

apwell23
> especially if I raided the retirement account, but have finally discovered those things don’t bring happiness.

I see lot of retirees buy ski condos and live skiing lifestyle

scarface_74
And I think this is really dumb. We are definitely going to start wintering in Costa Rica next year. But why commit to a second home when we can just get a nice AirBnb and preserve optionality?
apwell23
ppl i've met seem to ski 100+ days and live there all winter.
bionsystem
Roughly 25% living expenses, 25% weekends and activities with my girlfriend (or provisions for future fun and activities), 25% provisions for a future downpayment and the rest in personal savings for retirement. That may be +/- 5-10% on each depending on what's going on in a particular month.
doix
I try to spend around 500-1.5k USD on renting a place to live in, depends on the country I'm in. Around 200-500 USD on food for two people (again depends where we are). Anywhere between 0 and 500+ USD on "activities" - ski lift passes, hiring a car, permits to go hiking, access to tourist sites, etc.

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.

dijit
Nearly all my money goes on living in an above average apartment that I own.

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)

georgehaake
Offspring's Tuition, as I don't want them to have the screwed up college debt that the US provides...
chasd00
Most of my money is spent on mortgage, property tax, electricity and then food (including eating out). I’m married with two teenage boys so food is a decent chunk of change. Money left over is spent on family vacations in the summer, savings for college and retirement, and extracurricular things for the boys like piano, boxing lessons, and GPUs (heh my youngest has expensive taste in hardware). I have a couple hobbies, high power rocketry and competitive pistol shooting, that consume maybe $200/month on average.

I don’t really spend a lot of money on “things” per se. Mostly tools, materials, and other consumables for my hobbies.

ata_aman
Good to see a balanced spend amount on the competitive shooting. I know it can get crazy spending wise.
chasd00
I’m just getting started, along with my oldest son, I can definitely see it getting out of control expensive.

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.

ata_aman
I have similar goals, get enough land to do hobby rocketry and get back to long range shooting. Both require a lot of land haha. Bumming it out at publicly available land at the moment. Awesome to hear you're enjoying the hobby with your son!
apwell23
this sounds mind numbingly depressing :(

Are you happy?

MattPalmer1086
It sounds perfectly fine to me - a happy family, enough to indulge in some interesting hobbies and provide for all other life needs.

Why on earth would you find that depressing?

apwell23
they spend only $200 on themselves.
MattPalmer1086
Not much less than I spend and I'm not missing anything I want to have or do. Mostly a few books and a meal out with a good friend sometimes. I could spend more, I just don't have the need.
sshine
I treat myself with cheap milk chocolate and caffeinated beverages. I have the expensive equipment and subscriptions I need, and the more expensive chocolate doesn’t make me happier. The thing I can’t buy is time and skill progression.
dzhiurgis
Getting decent set of tools is one of the best things ever.

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.

chasd00
coming back to this, i'm happier now than ever but i do think about what life is going to be like when my boys head off to college. Pretty much all of my interests are shared with them, from favorite coffee shops, to games, hobbies, to even coding. Because of that, money spent on the family should probably count as if it's only spent on me. I sometimes wonder if my identity is tied to closely to theirs, i have no idea what i'm going to do with myself once they are out of the house. I have about 3 years left with my oldest and then another 3 with my youngest, it goes by so fast.