﻿Marie Kondo is famous for recommending that people only keep things that “spark joy.”
Things that make them feel excited and joyous to hold. When it comes to buying new things,
I’m sure many of us, whether we like them or not, have few things that spark similar emotions. So in
this video, I want to share with you, my personal 5, what you might think of as weird things that
I actually love spending money on. But first if you are new to the channel, my name is Tae from
Financial Tortoise. In this channel, I discuss personal finance, investing and another very
interesting topic - surviving a multigenerational family. If these topics sound like something you
like to learn more about, I would much appreciate it if you consider subscribing and also hitting
that like button. And if you have yet to download your free copy of “Sandwich Generation’s Guide
to Financial Security - 10 Steps to Securing Your Family’s Financial Future!” please go to
my website at financialtortoise.com and do so. I send out weekly newsletters with other great tips
on mastering your money and I wouldn’t want you to miss them. I know this is a personal finance
YouTube channel, so it is weird for me to speak about things that I love spending money on. But
I can’t help it, but there are times when I find things I just love to spend money on. Ramit Sethi,
the author of “I’ll Teach You To Be Rich” has a saying “Spend extravagantly on the things you
love, and cut costs mercilessly on the things you don’t.” I’m a firm believer of this statement.
Money serves a lot of purposes. Wealth. Security. Prestige. But one thing that many of us who are
hyper focused on saving, forget oftentimes is that money is ultimately there to buy us things
that we want. These could be tangible things - like a house, a car or a nice pair of clothes.
or intangible things like power, self-worth or freedom. And you shouldn’t feel guilty about
spending money on things that you love. As long as you are also cutting costs mercilessly on things
you don’t so you can really afford them - not putting them on your credit card. Alright, the
number one weird thing that I love spending money on is a nice haircut. Why thank you. And when it
comes to taking care of my hair, I don’t mean getting a $7 haircut at Supercuts every month.
Don’t get shocked by this - but I gladly pay more than $40 every few weeks for what most people
would call a short trim that’s barely noticeable. Most people wouldn’t even notice my haircut
and my wife barely notices it herself. And I take it even a step further. Every few months
I also gladly pay well over $100 dollars for a nice perm. I know what you might be thinking
at this point. What’s wrong with this guy? Is he a wannabe, middle aged K-POP star? Maybe.
Or maybe not. Again. Let’s not judge. During the height of COVID,
I didn’t dare go to the grocery store or even to my downtown office, but the one
place I was willing to risk my life for was to get a good haircut with my hair stylist.
Number two weird item I love spending money on is on Credit Card fees. At the time of this video,
my combined annual credit card fees are - wait for it. Over $2,000. Yes. You heard me correctly.
I gladly pay over $2,000 in annual credit card fees to maintain over 10 credit cards in my wife
and I’s wallet. Again, you might be thinking at this point. What is wrong with this guy?
How in the world does he have a personal finance YouTube channel? I know. Right? But the reason
I gladly pay over $2,000 in annual credit card fees is that I get multiple times that back in
free hotels, airfare and travel perks like lounge access and fancy status upgrades. My family hasn’t
paid for a hotel room or airfare in well over several years. And when we are flying, we hardly
ever pay for food at the airports because most often we have lounge access where we get food
and drinks for free. This is what’s also called ‘travel hacking’ and there are literally hundreds
of YouTube channels and podcasts dedicated to this art of hacking travel for free. I’ll have
links to a few of my favorite resources below in the description. Credit cards can be a very
dangerous tool if you don’t know how to manage your personal finances well. But if you don’t
carry credit card balance and manage your spending well, credit card perks could be an awesome tool
in your arsenal to help you travel on the credit card company’s expense instead of yours. Number
three weird area I love spending money on is to spend money on mending or fixing old items.
The other day I noticed a small tear on my jeans. Nothing unusual. Just due to wear and tear. Now,
what most often happens is that many of us just throw out this old pair and buy a new one. And
if the tear or the damage is too much, this might be the wiser choice. But a lot of times,
if you can find the right person to fix it, you can extend the life of that pair of jeans or other
pair of clothes many more years. Patagonia, the leading retailer of outdoor clothing, actually
lives by this principle. They firmly believe in mending new clothes instead of buying new ones.
Once, they went even as far as taking a full-page ad in The New York Times that said “Don’t Buy This
Jacket.” So whenever I find someone who can extend the life of a few of the clothing items I own,
I am more than happy to spend money on it. With clothes, oftentimes your local dry cleaners
or stores that specialize in hemming can do this for you. Not only are you saving money
from having to replace it with a new item, you save time from shopping and overall it is good
for the environment. I have done this with my favorite North Face Jacket when the zipper broke.
And with my favorite Cole Hans dress shoes when the heel wore off. At a quarter of the price,
I’m able to avoid having to spend time, energy and money looking for a new replacement. Number 4 is
books. You might be thinking, that doesn’t sound that weird. I love spending money on
books as well. But hold one. I take it a few steps further. When I find a book that I really love,
I not only get the hard copy. I get the digital copy and I also get the audio version. Ok. You
should definitely be thinking at this point. This guy is really weird. When I was growing up, my
parents couldn’t afford after school. So what my mom would do was to just drop me off at the local
library. I think back now and am kind of shocked that I was left alone at some random library as a
9 year old for hours on end. But, hey this was the 80s and times were different. But, being stuck in
the library all day helped me to really appreciate the power of books. To this day I can literally
spend the whole day with a stack of my favorite books. Whenever we visit a new city, my wife has
to constantly drag me away whenever I find a local bookstore. So when it comes to a book that I love,
I can’t resist the urge to get multiple ways to consume it. By having 3 different formats,
I can read it at my desk. Transition to listening to it while I’m working out and then picking up
where I left off right before I go to sleep from my kindle version. I know - what a big nerd,
right? But books, I can honestly admit, had one of the biggest transformative impact in
my life and I know many people agree with me. Charlie Tremendous Jones had a saying
“You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the
books you read.” - Charlie Tremendous Jones. I definitely don’t want to be the same person in 5
years as I am today. And if having three different copies of the same book can help me get there,
I’m more than happy to spend that money. Number 5 weird thing I love spending money on is on white
boards. Yes, you heard me right. I love spending money on white boards. I have one in almost every
room in our house. And what do I do with all the white boards? Anything you can imagine.
Zig Ziglar, the famous motivational speaker said that most people never write down their goals.
And when a goal isn’t written down, most people never accomplish them. However, when we write
down our goals, it increases the probability of accomplishing them by multiple folds.
And I totally agree with this statement. If we want to achieve things in life, - make more money,
lose more weight, build deeper relationships - we want to get in the habit of writing them down. And
what better place to write down your goals than on whiteboards where you can see it every day.
For the past 10 years, throughout our debt pay down journey and the growth of our family,
my wife and I developed a habit of writing down our goals - 1 year,
5 year, 10 year. We write it on our whiteboard in our bedroom and because it is right in our face,
we can’t help but reflect on it daily. We review it actively when we are reviewing
our budget and net worth monthly. And I believe it subconsciously impacts our decision making
whether we know it or not. And our kids get in on the fun too. White boards have been a great
tool for our kids to just have fun drawing and expressing themselves. But with time,
I would love it if I could get them into a habit of goal setting and orientation as they get older
as well. If you like to learn more about how to talk to your kids about money, check out my
video here where I delve deeper. Thank you guys for watching and until next time, all the best.