This all started yesterday- found a link to a major office supply store discount from a website that specializes in consolidating 'great deals' to be found on the web. I had a $170 office chair on sale for $49.99 in the shopping cart and applied the 25% off 1 item coupon code and then...
Stopped myself. My wife and I live in a university town (city really, but when you just moved from NYC other places feel like towns...) and there are gobstacks of abandoned and almost free ($5-$10) furniture for the picking annually when the students move out at the end of the school year. So no need to buy a new one now despite the 'great deal'.
I decided to spend the money anyway. Somewhere in my mind I'd committed to spending on the chair, at least committed enough to choose a slick vinyl throne with 4.5 star reviews and put it in an online shopping cart with coupon applied. So to follow through with that commitment to spend - VTSAX has a $100 minimum reinvest, so I logged in, put an transfer order in to pull $100 from my checking account in to Vanguard and will invest it instead. I plan to strongly scrutinize all future spending ideas, and if I am 'serious' about spending on something and then am able to back out I will put the money in my investments instead.
Nosce te ipsum - I know myself well enough to know that this will work very well with me. I'm considering 'buying' ($400 at Vanguard of course!) the Bowers and Wilkins P7's that I looked closely at last week despite the fact that I have their very nice C5 headphones...
Just talked myself in to it! Not going to think about those P7's again, making the $400 order to add to VTSAX now. Spending with reckless abandon may turn out to be profitable after all!