How do you justify big purchases?

[Silversurfer]

Read Die With Zero and Four Thousand Weeks.

What about your three kids?

[RetireJapan]

Read Die With Zero and Four Thousand Weeks.

What about your three kids?

What do you mean?

[Silversurfer]

Read Die With Zero and Four Thousand Weeks.

What about your three kids?

What do you mean?

If you “cease to be” with zero your loved ones will not inherit anything if I understand you correctly. I apologize if I am in error.

[RetireJapan]

If you “cease to be” with zero your loved ones will not inherit anything if I understand you correctly. I apologize if I am in error.

More detail here: https://www.retirejapan.com/blog/book-r ... with-zero/

[Tkydon]

https://canadacollege.edu/dreamers/docs ... -Needs.pdf

https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

https://www.simplypsychology.org/herzbe ... heory.html

[Bubblegun]

Read Die With Zero and Four Thousand Weeks.

What about your three kids?

Sometimes we don't need to give our kids much. It might be ok if you're a millionaire, but I have met many a poor grandparent, and a very rich child earning over $150,000 a year while their parents live on a state pension. We give our kids as much as possible, but not to the detriment and quality of our lives. Some of us just work in a restaurant, a shop, or just a small English school. Not exactly lawyers, pilots, doctors salaries. Sometimes our children make their own way in life and are very happy. But some parents have their problems. For me, the best thing to give our Kids isn't the money or an inheritance, but our time and maybe their own experiences. If there is something for them,(after paying for their college) I hope they can enjoy it.

[banders]

I love cars and bought a luxury vehicle on a loan. I invested money from the sale of our last car (rather than using it towards the new one) and bought some stock which now accounts for about half of the outstanding amount that will be payable at the end of next year. Hopefully they’ll be worth even more then. My family like the luxury. We have a kei car for local travel but I wouldn’t want that for excursions. I am quite happy with that and my wife and I are happy not to deny ourselves the pleasure.

Long story short, you can’t take it with you so if a particular thing gives you pleasure, go for it. I don’t think I’ll regret my taste in cars on my deathbed.

[RetireJapan]

I love cars and bought a luxury vehicle on a loan. I invested money from the sale of our last car (rather than using it towards the new one) and bought some stock which now accounts for about half of the outstanding amount that will be payable at the end of next year. Hopefully they’ll be worth even more then. My family like the luxury. We have a kei car for local travel but I wouldn’t want that for excursions. I am quite happy with that and my wife and I are happy not to deny ourselves the pleasure.

Long story short, you can’t take it with you so if a particular thing gives you pleasure, go for it. I don’t think I’ll regret my taste in cars on my deathbed.

Nice. I kind of do something similar by renting nicer cars than we need when we travel

[Deep Blue]

I bought myself a nice mechanical keyboard, fancy mouse and mouse mat. Total outlay about 20,000 yen and the keyboard and mouse have RGB lighting which makes me smile every time I see it. A delayed Christmas present maybe.

My eight year old son is very jealous.

On a side note, the keyboard weighs 2kg and feels like it would survive a nuclear war.

Frippery aside, we’ve kind of moved past big purchases now. We did buy a new (ish) car last year, an ex demo VW for 4 million yen but I’m really happy with it - the upgrades on safety features alone vs our previous 2007 Mazda are great. I simply can’t imagine driving in Tokyo now without the predictive collision warning on the wing mirrors, CarPlay, voice guidance on upcoming lane assignments etc.

I’ve also been very happy with the lane keeping and (especially) the adaptive cruise control which keeps the car running happily in heavy traffic with no inputs from the driver. It does require 100% concentration still but does give the right foot a bit of a rest alternating between the brake and accelerator.