Sale PSA: A pretty Ulla Johnson midi dress, now under $200, an oversized cashmere cardigan from The Row, now 60% off, Miu Miu suede espadrilles, now under $300, and a pretty pink silk tiger skirt from Rixo, now $204
The past few months, I’ve been doing some financial housekeeping. Consolidating accounts, tracking interest rates, investments, etc. I used regularly do this but have been in a child swamp the last few years. But now I’m slowly getting back up to speed. I hope to have some financial posts coming up because I know they are popular and I love to read your answers. But today I wanted to ask the question – what is your particular luxury? As in, what do you spend on, to make your life better, more convenient, more fun, more beautiful? For me, before children I used to spend a lot on travel and fashion and dining – as you might have seen on the blog! Now it’s changed quite a bit, and I thought I’d share what my luxuries are now:
Cleaning services. There was a point early in my career when I did all my cleaning. Not very well and not often enough and it would take me forever. When I got married, one repeated piece of marriage advice was to get a cleaner. We dithered for a few years and finally did and have never stopped. We spend here so that me and my husband don’t murder each other.
Childcare. By far my biggest luxury! I hesitated to write this because I believe that comprehensive childcare should not really be considered a “luxury” and certainly should not represent such a crippling cost for so many families with two working parents…we are fortunate to be able to pay for good childcare but it is by no means a minor expense. In fact, it is our greatest expense after housing. There are ways we could do it more cheaply, including having me stay at home and just work around the kids…but I spend here for my sanity and happiness. And to be honest, even with all that, I still work all the time to get everything done.
A great accountant. I used to do my own taxes. I’m pretty good at them! Ask me about IRAs! Actually maybe not! And I had a pretty simple tax situation. But over time it was getting more and more complex and then after kids my time also became more valuable. So now I have a great accountant and I’m happy to pay him every penny.
Glassware. Kind of a strange answer but I love nice cups to drink my tea out of in the morning. My favorites are still the three above that I bought in Kyoto above. I also have some Hermes porcelain and I should probably use it more but I’m paranoid of chipping the metal edging. I would love a whole Equateur tea set one day.
Jewelry. Yeah! Still my favorite luxury splurge. I’ve been wearing these Frivole earrings more and more and am always happy to take them out of their pouch in the morning. Jewelry is a splurge that’s stayed constant over the years.
It’s interesting, as I was writing this post, I realized that I spend so much more now on services…I think that’s how it always goes, right? As time goes on and you have less energy (or is that just me)? Has that been your experience? I’d love to hear what “luxury” means to you, both now and before.
21 Comments
Kristen
June 3, 2019 at 7:26 amSuch an interesting question! I tend to prioritize spending on things that save me time/energy, for example, housecleaning, childcare, and some laundry items. I also have things delivered, like groceries. But there are trade offs–we live in a smallish space and we don’t own a car. As time moves on and my kids get older, I’m curious how that will evolve.
I must admit my weakness is Hermes.
jenny
June 3, 2019 at 7:35 amWould love to see a post discussing financial planning in somewhat greater detail. So hard to figure out where to even start!
Jaime
June 3, 2019 at 8:18 amFine jewelry and (don’t judge!) Goyard.
Michelle
June 3, 2019 at 9:50 amWeekly meal prep delivery, jewelry (fine and average priced as well), FURNITURE!! I have been on an
Eames , Mies Van der Rohe and Clara Porset shopping spree lately, purchasing pieces that are timeless and will last a lifetime. Needless to say my money flies fast!!
Bee
June 3, 2019 at 9:56 amPre kids: travel, fashion, restaurants
Now: childcare, still travel (less travel but we spend more to make it more convenient/comfortable), cleaning, personal services (the more haggard I feel the more I seem to spend on “upkeep” I can outsource to make myself feel human when I need to look nice – having someone come to our home for blowouts, regular facials, massage to relax/decompress, etc).
Hannah L
June 3, 2019 at 5:34 pmHad to convince husband that we need to pay for cleaning services. I still harbor thoughts that perhaps, when the kids are older, we can get back to doing things ourselves. Guess who shuddered at that thought? Him.
Bee
June 8, 2019 at 9:50 amHaha – sounds like my DH!
Natalie
June 3, 2019 at 1:05 pmHousekeeping, a massage every once in a while, dining out (we do it far too often, honestly), and the best butter I can afford. I read once somewhere that if you splurge on the very best butter you can find, everything you cook and eat will taste better and feel more luxurious. I have never gone back to bargain butter, haha! Love this question and reading everyone’s responses.
Diane W.
June 3, 2019 at 2:38 pmCurrently, I am focused on art….specifically paintings. I’ve collected for many years, but find that my tastes are changing. I’m amazed at today’s shipping choices. Last week, a painting was shipped to me from Tokyo on Tuesday morning and delivered to me the next day (Wednesday afternoon) in California. That’s even better than Amazon Prime! Today, I’m waiting for a delivery of another painting. This one is from Spain. It took 4 days. Still, I’m now in love with DHL. Neither are framed so my excitement will continue at the framer’s.
VP
June 3, 2019 at 4:14 pmLove this post! Post-kids – housekeeping, private school, and expensive retinol skin products in my personal life. For my business, I’m in health care and I used to do my own billing and now I pay someone to do it for me. The time savings more than pay for the service fees. I’m noticing a trend that most of the responses post-kiddos are focusing on saving time. Really enjoying the varied responses.
Revanche @ A Gai Shan Life
June 4, 2019 at 6:42 amHousing and childcare are our biggest spends, and while they’re not precisely optional we did choose the more expensive options that we’re vastly more convenient and increased our quality of life than the savings options that were much less convenient.
Travel is a distant third. We don’t do it often but we make certain trips regularly and don’t always choose the cheapest possible options like I used to. We will compromise and pay a bit more for comfort. It’s not luxury travel by any means but it is a luxury to choose to travel at all, in my book. We certainly could not (for financial or time reasons) afford travel when I was growing up but the experience is so treasured.
Xin
June 4, 2019 at 7:01 amI’m childless as of yet, so I imagine my answers would change a lot over time (certainly childcare would cost significantly more than anything I spend on now!), but my biggest current luxuries are travel (we take one big trip a year and aren’t absurdly extravagant, there are definitely ways to spend a lot more on hotels and airfare and the like; but we don’t worry about the cost of cabs, will book a slightly more expensive direct flight and won’t consider anything with an overly unfriendly layover situation, eat whatever we feel like while we’re there, etc. and don’t really worry about the total bill for the trip at the end) and various kinds of food delivery, both for groceries on occasion and from restaurants frequently (our total food bill each month would be shocking to anyone outside of NYC).
We’ve recently made the decision to hire a cleaning service as well, though getting started with that will take some time. Like you mentioned, we had DIY-ed it for a long time, but now as our careers have progressed, it’s no longer possible.
heebie-geebie
June 4, 2019 at 9:58 amMy biggest luxury is definitely therapy. We are pretty drama-free and introspective people who probably don’t “need” therapy in any medical sense, but right now I have a therapist who I adore, and I’m willing to spend disproportionately much to continue working with her, compared to the rest of our budget. It just feels so good, refreshing, and helpful to chip away at parenting issues and to get unstuck in my patterns of thinking by working with her. The other big one is a housekeeper, which is central to my husband’s sanity.
We have a large, messy family – four kids. Our housing costs are pretty modest – we bought our house in 2006, in a relatively cheap part of the country. Childcare occupies a large portion of our income, but I don’t mentally categorize it as a luxury. For travel, we nearly exclusively take road trips and stay with friends and family.
Nvie
June 4, 2019 at 5:59 pmOverseas trip with my mom! We try to have our annual mother daughter big trip annually. Pre-kids – I’ve travelled a lot with my mom, around the region and across continents. Post-kids – we did East Coast, USA, Italy, Russia and Morocco. It’s Burgundy and Provence river cruise this fall. She’s already planning for next Spring. Don’t get me wrong, I do family trips too but it’s very relaxing with mom where I really enjoy the holiday, no kids, no husband, peaceful mealtimes and sightseeing.
Katherine
June 4, 2019 at 8:38 pmThis is so wonderful! Do you live near your mom? I would love if my daughter wanted to have an annual trip with me!
Nvie
June 5, 2019 at 5:50 pmMy mom lives four floors below my condominium unit! Yes, so near yet so far and it works very well for my family. She’s 70 this year, so we try to do as many places as she likes. She travels with her girlfriends too.
Michelle
June 5, 2019 at 10:45 amPre Kids – cleaning service once per fortnight, send special pieces to cleaners, more frequent off cycle trips, more fine dining, more eating out (5-6 days a week), designer bags, high street clothes and jewelry
Post Kids – cleaning service once a week, send more clothes to cleaners, less trips and restricted by school hols AND spending more since it’s 5 pax now, less fine dining although we have brought them to some Michelin star places when we travel to Asia, less eating out (3 days a week), designer bags, designer clothes (tees & tops that work with my casual lifestyle) and jewelry
Thankfully our insane childcare bills have finally gone away now that they are in elementary school. But there are still extracurricular activities and those adds up as well. As much as I moan about how expensive they are (x3!!!!), they love those classes and another parent with older kids told me that in elementary and middle school is when they have time to try and participate in all these extra activities as once they enter high school, it is a mad academic race.
Katherine
June 6, 2019 at 2:31 pm3X a week dining out still sounds awesome to me (not cause of the cost, just to wrangle the kids out haha). I’d love to get there one day! That’s a good point about HS.
Anonymous
June 5, 2019 at 4:44 pmWith kids and both of us working, time is my biggest luxury. I spent money where I can in exchange of that.
tata
June 6, 2019 at 10:57 amso true!!! house cleaning, child care, absolute must! I also would add nice quality bedding with higher thread count and frequent visits to the dermatologist. good sleep and good skin makes everything better!!!
Yumi
June 7, 2019 at 9:04 amSuch a fun post… No kids and dual-income – my biggest luxuries would have to be:
1. House cleaning service – I started this when both my husband were working full-time and doing grad-school at night (after a semester of trying to do it myself and giving up) and it changed our lives. This is literally the last thing I would ever stop doing, especially since I hate cleaning but I have two messy dogs.
2. Personal training – Lots of people can just exercise on their own but for me, it helps me stay on-track fitness wise to have someone else who helps to keep me accountable for meeting my exercise and fitness goals.
3. External to the house office – I technically could work remote full-time but I keep an office outside the home that I goto three times a week so that I don’t go stir-crazy. This comes with monthly parking (it’s downtown), extra time spent commuting, and needing a dogwalker but all these extra expenses are worth my sanity!
As I’ve gotten older, I spend far more money on things that help me manage stress and improve general wellness compared to when I was first working. If you’d asked 23 year-old me, I probably would’ve preferred pretty (but painful) shoes and cute (and probably too tight!!) dresses but at this point in my life comfort and well-being are worth so much more. I guess officially a sign I’m old!