I second a good pair of boots is worth putting money into. I purchased a pair of boots for $275 back in October of 2016… I feel that these are the last pair of boots I’ll need until 2026.
I splurge on at least medium-range hotels and motels for this reason. The low-end hotels and motels tend to be screaming partying drunkfests even though motels should be for travelling and the low-end hotels are in the same price range as the medium-end motels.
Which isn’t to say my stay is always quiet, but if I avoid Ramada and Motel 6 I’m usually good.
And another thing- another poster upthread mentioned splurging on a computer monitor because of the amount of time spent on it. These days, people spend vast amounts of time staring at their phones, so a better quality display on the phone does indeed make a difference.
I broke my phone relatively recently and switched to a cheap replacement for a few days, and the poorer-quality display affected me far more than the general slowness of the replacement phone.
Massage.
Go to Massage Envy or another chain and you’ll get an okay “relaxation” massage, but a true massage therapist (costing maybe 50% more) will find the points on your body that truly need work and release them for you. That stiff shoulder? You’ll forget it ever bothered you. They can even help mitigate chronic issues over time.
Also – pedicures. I’m a guy, so this always seemed like frilly girl pampering, but once I got one I was converted. $25 (plus tip) once a month and I no longer have to contort myself or deal with ingrown nails. And who deosn’t love a foot massage with mint-scented cream?
Squeegee, this thread is about what is worth splurging on, not that someone on EBay found a potato chip shaped like Jebus and wants to sell it for a thousand large.
Good sheets are great, but thread count is often inaccurate since it can be inflated by doubling thread and misapplied to inferior materials. Other things matter more.
I’ve never wanted to pay $200 for headphones but find it hard to believe I’m missing out. Am I?
I don’t drink much, but enjoy nicer alcohol when you can taste the difference. But if you mix your Gray Goose with other stuff you might be wasting your money.
Concerts.
I don’t go to many. But if there is an artist I enjoy, and a nice venue, I will buy tickets where I can see the whites of their eyes. Up close and personal.
That would depend on how good your hearing is in the first place, how much outside noise you want cut out, how long a period of time you intend to wear them etc.
If you buy Grey Goose you might be wasting your money.
Which cell phone ads are you looking at? Just about every cell phone ad I’ve seen lately points out their camera is better (esp Apple’s iPhones or Google’s Pixel) or they have a faster processor. When water proofing became a thing, a lot of ads had phones splashed with water.
Galaxy Note ads prominently feature their stylus, as it is a distinguishing feature.
OK, I’ll play:
Musical instruments.
Good socks and comfortable shoes
Clothing, to a point. I hate having clothes that don’t fit well, don’t look good on you, and wear out quickly. Kohl’s should be sent straight to hell for selling any store brand ever.
I do not second the notion of blowing dough on:
1st/business class airline seats (honestly, anything under 6 hours is a cakewalk, and international coach is equivalent sorta to domestic business, sorta: more legroom, better power options, acceptable food, in flight entertainment, all gratis. I just suck it up domestically. I might change my mind and go 1st class if I had to do a crazy flight like London->Sydney, but I’ve been fine on 14+ hour flights from SFO to Hong Kong.
Upscale hotel accommodations. I AirBnB around the world, and in cheaper countries (hello, Thailand!) good hotels aren’t expensive but chain/resort hotels in cheap places just aren’t worth it, it’s like a 300% to %500 difference versus a quite good hotel sans big marketing. I do agree that the cheapest domestic chains aren’t worth staying at, because they’re usually zoos of parties or screaming kids, so I go one bump up the price chain to avoid all that.
Super high threadcount sheets. Above a certain point, the threadcount turns the sheets to flannel.
And yeah, expensive vodka is crazy. Anything above Smirnoff pricing isn’t worth it. Obviously super cheap vodka is just awful, but everyone makes that mistake exactly once.
I agree 100 percent.
First class is worth paying a little more for, but nowhere near what is often demanded. Far better on long flights to fly on an emptier plane and sneak off to an empty row after takeoff where one can lie down properly. For short flights, it just doesn’t matter to me. But if you’re paying or the points difference is small, whatever.
I don’t drink straight vodka very often, if ever.
Cheap socks sometimes don’t even last one wear, but nice brands at discount stores are fine.
Although I buy a lot of books, and many new ones, the reality is that used books have never been so cheap, widely available, and (undeservedly so) poorly regarded. This will change.
-When one has several multiples of cats - good automatic litter boxes.
-The occasional perfect vacation. Doesn’t have to be long or exotic, but good food/lodging/service/location really resets my temper from stressed and cranky back to happy and functional.
I splurged on a one-way ticket to warmer climes. IMHO that was an even better solution.
Sorry, I forgot about this until now. VC yellow label is pretty heavy in weight as Champagne goes. I’d call Tat NV Brut medium weight, but it has a rich creaminess on the finish, and usually a fine, dense mousseaux. So, staying around the same price point, or even a skosh cheaper, I’m going to recommend some Franciacortas to you.
Franciacorta is an Italian sparkling wine, made in Lombardy, from Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and unlike Champagne, Pinot Blanc… I’ve tasted a few, and they all have a creaminess on the palate, regardless of the concentration of the wine. Usually fresh, lemony, some biscuit flavors in the whites. It can get weird and tomato-y for the roses… Farmer fizz like, w/o the tariff, or usually, the earthiness/gout de terroir some of them can have. Ones I’ve liked include:Bonomi Saten and Bellavista. They’re around 40 here in Houston.
You can try Cremant de Bourgogne. I don’t have a specific recommendation off the top of my head.
Ask your wine shop.
I would recommend Bollinger if you like big, creamy champagne. The wood isn’t for everybody. It is distinctive, and I think they’ve maintained their quality, even as other producers, IMHO, have slipped to meet increased demand.
I used to recommend Gruet as inexpensive, very good sparkling wine, but I think they’ve slipped. And raised prices.
I was also puzzled by that one at first, but I guess it means if you’re a younger single person who would consider paying a whole rent yourself or sharing with roommate(s) to save on rent, you’d ‘splurge’ on the former.
I was never really in that situation, getting own apartment while in college not an option then lived back with parents briefly before getting married young. Our grown single kids though have each gone through the transition of putting up with roommates, then deciding to go solo at somewhat higher rent cost. But I guess some people like to have (non-romantic, non-related) roommates.
In terms of getting relatively more expensive stuff (‘splurging’ kind of hate that word actually, never use it in real life), that’s the way we go for most things, buy quality if it’s value for money. It can even come out less money if it’s more expensive stuff that lasts longer, though that isn’t necessarily the case. A few things frequently mentioned though are exceptions. I can’t see the value in upgraded airline tickets unless it’s actually free*, cost difference just too big. On hotels it’s a spectrum. I agree with avoiding outright cheap places with noisy patrons, and where it might not even be fully safe. But very expensive hotels, I don’t generally see the value there. Not as a standalone anyway**. And on the domestic road trip type vacations I like most, a Hampton Inn (our standard) is often the top of the heap or close to it in that particular little town.
*some people will tell you they got a ‘free’ upgrade via points/miles on a credit card, but they could instead have used a cash back credit card for the purchases which generated those points/miles: the upgrade cost them that cash back. Sometimes an upgrade is really free.
**recently we did an overseas trip with a package from Costco Travel. It was pretty low cost so I figured the hotels would just be adequate. But they turned out very upscale, a couple were bona fide 5 star, all genuine 4’s at least, and further room upgrades at some when we got there, albeit in the off season, fall in Ireland: lovely, chilly rain every day 
. But at those prices I would do upscale hotels again, depends.
Eh…a $200 set of headphones is probably pretty decent. I own several sets that are over $500, but the differences are subtle. Plus, no single set of headphones (noise canceling, open air, sealed, wired, BT, or whatever) does EVERYTHING well.
OTOH, stereo speakers improve dramatically with price, though there is a point at which you get very little benefit in return for the extra money. Unfortunately, most people nowadays don’t seem to appreciate the improvement or sound quality. Good speakers really do make it sound like the performer is right there. I’ve got friends who “show off” their Sonos speakers and seem to be proud that they are getting such high quality sound. Really? (Before anyone asks, $2500/speaker is my limit.)
See the Captain Vimes’ Boots Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness :
That being said, even when you splurge, you might get disappointed. I bought my first pair of Doc Marten’s when I was 25ish and they lasted me through 15 good years of daily abuse. True, at the end of those years they didn’t look like much of anything anymore, but they were still dry and comfy as hell until the first big tear in the leather. So I bought another pair that, by my math, was supposed to last me until I got cancer - but unbeknownst to me at the time, DocM’s had since outsourced their entire production line somewhere in the Philippines and cut costs everywhichwhere. Not prices though, oh no.
Which may explain why my still kinda shiny pair of Doc’s has two tears per boot after a mere 2-3 years. I’m legit pissed about that.
Good food. Butter, not margarine. Higher grade hamburger. Quality cheeses. Heavy cream ice cream, not the store brands.
And so on.
Men’s suits. My logic is that if the dress code is such that I need to look impressive by wearing a suit, then it should be a tailored one that costs around $1000. Usually from someplace like Brooks Brothers, Hugo Boss or Canali. If I can get away with wearing a crappy suit, then why wear one in the first place?
First of all, I found that “splurging” on living alone instead of with roommates was worth it in and of itself.
Secondly, one can further splurge on living alone depending on factors like location, building amenities, etc.
I have no idea offhand what the brand is, but mrAru gets this lemon verbena soap at the dollar store, it is one of the larger size oval soaps, a sort of translucent waxy cream colored soaps, very lightly scented. I also had BO issues when I was doing the chemo thing, and it seemed to make me not start smelling for most of a day instead of starting to smell lightly after a couple hours. It also didn’t seem to dry my skin out as badly.
Back then, I could really only wash my hair once a week [and I made sure it was a shampoo without the sulphates and a conditioner without the silicones and I didn’t dye my hair, normally it would vary between natural with magenta highlights to full on cosmic blue and purple] and I would rinse off my body daily, and wash with soap alternate days. Now I am done with the chemo and radiation, I can shower like before, but I still stick with the lemon verbena stuff.
I say, splurgeworthy stuff is bed and bedding - I have these bamboo microfiber sheets that are as ssoft as silk and as hardwearing/durable as good old plain cotton sheets. The mattress is new as of last year, replacing one that was about 10 or so years old and starting to sort of sag where we sleep on it. We also invested in a weighted blanket for me for when I nap - being autistic and having pain issues the cocooning is great for soothing me to sleep. We also have a heated mattress pad, sort of like a whole body heating pad. Food - we would rather invest in smaller amounts of better cuts of meat - choosing for flavor, tenderness, how it was raised [grass fed and grass finished locally sourced beef is way better than normal generic no idea where it came from beef from grocery stores. When we get out to Nevada and are finally set up we are going to keep hens for eggs again as there is nothing quite like eggs fresh that morning frfom your own happy hens.] Ingredients in general, the better quality of food prepared properly is healthier than grocery store freezer section crap, or cheap restaurant food. We would rather go out once every 4 or 5 months and spend a couple hundred dollars for a memorable meal than 20 bucks a week on crap, and as diabetics, it is healthier as well.
Something that not many people mentioned - entertainment - we have Amazon Prime, Netflix and now Disney +, we like to watch series and movies together, right now we are watching Midsomer Murders a couple episodes at a time [we are NEVER going to move there or vacation there … we want to stay alive, ditto Cabot Cove!] We are also working through all the Marvel universe movies in order because I didn’t actually have much interest but Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor Ragnarok caught our eye and we decided to go through them in internal order. We tend to put Netflix on shuffle and it has gotten us interested in some performers we had never been exposed to before. Travel as entertainment - we like cruises - balcony [mrAru likes to take his camera out and I like to hang on the balcony and people watch] so the balcony upgrade is wise. We save up and vacation-splurge every 5 years [our anniversary is on Valentines day, so we also splurge on a specialty restaurant for the anniversary meal]