Another vote for wine. We were laughing about it the other day, I need new tennis shoes and saw a pair for about $120, and I didn’t get them. Didn’t want to spend so much on a pair of shoes I’d wear practically ever day for 6 to 9 months. The same weekend we probably drank $140 worth of wine.
My purchases:
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A triple graphics card motherboard with 3 crappy video cards with 2 dual core cpu’s each in it. I know the performance will suck but I think it will be incredibly cool to have a computer with 16 cores in it, and even on the hobbyist boards I hang out on think this is incredibly stupid.
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A 40+ inch plasma or LCD screen to use as my main computer screen. Hopefully, in a few months or years, this will come true.
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Connecting the 40 inch tv and several monitors to the 16 core computer I listed above.
I thought of another one–I once spent $150 for a CD.
It was back in the 90s before easily available MP3s…the CD was an out of print German-language cast recording of a rock musical (the American version was fairly easy to obtain even though it was an import). It was kind of the “holy grail” among our group of fans, and nearly impossible to find. I was happy to pay that for it.
Of course now you can probably get the thing as an MP3…I don’t know, I never checked. But owning the CD is still a point of pride for me. 
(And no, before you ask, I didn’t just want a ripped copy of it, which I could have gotten from another fan. I wanted the original.)
Yup. Bought my first oil on paper at 17. When I got my first real job, I purchased the oil I’m looking at right now, on an installment plan. It caught my eye and I just wanted it. The thought of it being on somebody else’s wall was unacceptable.
If I had the cash…
Also, Italian motorcycles. Had two intense relationships with an Aprilia RS 250 and a Ducati 748. Not comfortable, not particularly high-performing for the price - but doing the Splügenpass (Switzerland-Italy) on anything but the Duc would just have been - wrong.
Tools. I must have either the best or damn close to it for most of my tools. At current prices I probably have about 200K parked in my garage. Of course when I was working as a tech all of that Snap-On stuff made me a living. Got me spoiled for my tools around the house. I won’t buy a $19.95 cordless drill, I wind up with a Lion 18V Dewalt.
The good news is I will never have to buy another.
Shoes. they have to be comfortable. For my strange foot that usually means Florsheim or Ecco. I dropped $200 on a new pair of Eccos a couple of weeks ago.
Books. Like others here, some authors require hardbacks.
I was going to go with nothing - I buy stuff for myself, but usually nothing outrageous. My friends and family have to talk me into big ticket items.
But…I do spend more than most people I know on hurricane supplies. I didn’t just get a generator - I got a super quiet Honda generator. I’m currently thinking about a set of movable solar panels that I can put in the back yard after a storm, along with battery packs and such so I can gather power to run lights in the evening.
My family buys a few cans of tuna. I get cans of salmon, crab meat, and chicken. And jars of salsa and roasted red pepper. Who says I can’t be comfortable and happy after a disaster?
-D/a
To each their own. I don’t like going places or having experiences (particular any sort of education, yuck - I am doing a yoga teacher training right now and the hatred has not lessened since high school). I gain a huge amount of satisfaction from buying objects and gloating over them. Usually alone, at home.
I make like $18,000 per year currently, so obviously I can’t spend that much money compared to someone who has more. But I spend what I can on my perfume oil hobby, more/nicer/fancier clothes and shoes than I need, and equipment and supplies for my random hobbies. Also a lot on my pets, I don’t even think about it but I spend a lot more than most people just feeding my dogs and cats.
500 square foot Manhattan East Village studio - $1800 a month (in 2001).
I paid about $1000 for my Boston Terrier. Other than that, I spend a ridiculous amount on guns, books, and yarn.
Eh, my main hobby - riding horses - is kind of on the rocks right now (except for free rides on friends’ horses) due to vet school and the debt therefrom.
I expect a number of people would raise their eyebrows at what I am willing to spend on my 14 year old cat. Last year, my cat cost me a plane ticket, an internal medicine consultation with bloodwork and chest radiographs, a full dental prophylaxis including dental radiographs and 5 extractions, a behavioral consultation for problems with my roommate’s cat, and an ER visit for lameness (with two sets of radiographs) that ended up being aggravation of arthritis. A lot of the vet work was heavily discounted, but it still ended up being more than $1000. This year, she has had more lameness problems from the arthritis, so I give her 3 injections a week to the tune of $50+/month, or $600+/year. If she needed surgery to remove a swallowed string or something else fixable I would find a way to scrape up or borrow the money (well, it’s all borrowed, really). She is already 14 and I’ve only had her for a few years, but we are attached at the hip and I want her to be happy and stick around as long as possible. She’s my buddy and I skimp in other places to live within my means. For someone with negative income at the moment, I guess some people would call that crazy.
I did like to spend money on designer handbags, shoes and clothes. I have some bags that cost around $1500 each in a few different colours. But I’m done with purses and like to buy shoes and tops.
I spend alot on food weekly. If there was something we wanted that wasn’t budgeted we could probably buy it within reason.
Another one who will spend on yarn. I’ve dropped $40 a skein before for silk yarns, and my set of interchangeable needles cost me about $150, but using good supplies results in a better finished product and a more enjoyable experience creating it, too.
Food and restaurants are the other expenses: I like good quality food and I will spend on it.
Fixing feral cats. Yes, they only cost $60 each, but I do it constantly. I would probably faint if I knew how much I’ve spent over the course of 10 years.
Pet food. My cats eat better than me. I’ll drop a hundred bucks on high quality catfood, then run through a fast food place and order off the dollar menu.
I tend either to care a lot about things or not at all. The things I am really passionate about deform my values in no time.
Most of my furniture is old and wretched, except for my $3k armchair. I can and do spend $500/lb. on tea (ancient tree shui xian oolong grown on Wuyi mountain, for example), but I don’t have a television. All of my business shirts are custom and start at $120 per shirt, but I usually just get my casual clothes from Target because I can’t be bothered to make an effort.
In actuality the only thing I really spend money on is educational stuff for Celtling. But if you’re talking ‘would’ spend oney on, like if I had a bunch of extra around to waste?
Books. True bibliophile here. There’s just somehting about tooled leatehr and first editions. . .
Aquariums. Hre’s where we;d get into serious insanity. A fine book will increase in value, even if it deosn’t quite keep up with inflation. An aquarium drops 60% the moment it enters your house. But I’d spend five figures on 'em if I could.
Dogs. If I had it, I’d spend mid-six figures on enough land to raise Irish Wolfhounds.
Boating. You don’t even want to know.
Put me down as a third for yarn. I’m on a hand dyed sock yarn kick at the moment, and $30 for a skein isn’t unusual. But really, that $30 buys me at least a month’s worth of entertainment (I’m a slow knitter) and at the end of it I’ve got a pair of custom-fit wildly colored (and sometimes sparkly) one-of-a-kind socks.
When I think of it that way, it seems like I should buy more…
I just did something wild and crazy and bought my wife a Yamaha baby grand piano two weeks ago.
We are squarely middle class, so the purchase of an instrument that costs as much as a car is far outside my comfort zone.
She has been teaching piano for decades, and has always talked about how she dreamed about some day owning a baby grand. A couple of months back, I thought about this in light of the fact that she is in her mid fifties. I felt sad when I pictured her finally getting her dream fulfilled at seventy. So I decided to make this a priority. I want her to have as many years as possible with her new piano.
It was delivered last Monday, on her birthday.
Bicycles. Lots and lots of bicycles.
I own a $10,000 bike.
Not a motorbike, a $10,000 bicycle. I’m kinda proud that it cost more than my car which is the mark of a real roadcyclist.
Would like to drop a few grand on some new carbon fibre race wheels but as I’m taking the year off to retrain I can’t see that happening anytime soon.