I've jumped on the hedonistic treadmill. :( Help me get off it!

[FIREin2018]

Went for my annual car inspection.
License plate light was burned out.
He wanted $35 to replace. ($30 labor, $5 parts)
I could get it for $1 at Walmart (15min each way) and 5min to replace.

But that means waiting a little when I come back till he's finished with the current car. Up to 30min if just inspection or up to 1hr if inspection and emissions.
(I cut in front of the line if there's people waiting)

Since i'm FiRED, i have plenty of time. I had nothing planned that day.
But instead i said yes to the $35 because I didn't feel like waiting and I can easily afford it with stock market going berserk.

Case in point:
Last year i skipped a McDonalds near me because it charged 20 cents more for a double cheese burger than the McDonalds near my house. All it cost me was being hungry for 30 more min.

I'm on a hedonistic treadmill and i want to get off!

[Tasse]

I recall that when you posted your McDonald's story last year, the consensus response was that you shouldn't have worried about it. This doesn't sound like the hedonic treadmill, it sounds like missing the forest for the trees.

[twinstudy]

$35 in order to save you 35 minutes of time (and fuel) spent messing around on a shitty errand sounds like a downright bargain to me. That's not even counting the waiting time when you get back to the mechanic.

If someone asked me, hey can you sit around for half an hour, and then do some bullshit errand for 35 minutes (having to drive around for most of that time), and I'll give you $35 after tax in return? I'd say hell no.

[AMandM]

I feel your pain. The last time I sold a car, I paid $25 to turn the plates in to an agent around the corner from me, instead of driving to the motor vehicles office myself.

Still, one self-indulgent event doesn't make a hedonistic treadmill. There has to be consistent repetition for it to count as a treadmill. So count this as your warning and don't do it again :)

[clarkfan1979]

I feel like there is an inflection point in the FIRE journey in which people start paying more money for conveniences that increase your quality of life before you hit your FIRE date. Paying for some conveniences can be worth it, even if you are not yet FIRE.

My definition of the hedonic treadmill is upgrading, just for the sake of upgrading with very little added value. For example, you upgrade from the 50K car to the 100K car with no added value.

Maybe someone pays an extra $100 on a flight with better times. Instead of getting up at 3:30 a.m. and being out the door at 4:00 a.m. for a 6:30 a.m. flight, you leave the house at 9:00 a.m. for a 11:30 flight? I'm actually dropping my wife and son off at the airport today for a 11:30 a.m. flight to Florida. I fly out tomorrow at 5:45 p.m.

My wife and I drove to her sisters house (2 hours away) so our son could trick or treat with his cousins. We stayed 2 nights. We paid an extra $28 in tolls (2 separate cars) to avoid 30 minutes of traffic. There was an accident on I-25 and we didn't want our son to be late for trick or treating. He is 7 years old and was very excited. We paid the money so we could have less time sitting in the car and more time walking outside in the neighborhood.

[vand]

These sound very much like first world problems to me.

[twinstudy]

These sound very much like first world problems to me.

This often happens with people who live in first-world countries.

[Scandium]

These sound very much like first world problems to me.

This often happens with people who live in first-world countries.

Lol, yes. Wonder why don't we get more stories "I walked 2 hrs to collect a bucket of water, carried it home, and it gave me malaria. Should I upgrade to a better bucket?"

[dandarc]

I feel like there is an inflection point in the FIRE journey in which people start paying more money for conveniences that increase your quality of life before you hit your FIRE date. Paying for some conveniences can be worth it, even if you are not yet FIRE.

My definition of the hedonic treadmill is upgrading, just for the sake of upgrading with very little added value. For example, you upgrade from the 50K car to the 100K car with no added value.

Maybe someone pays an extra $100 on a flight with better times. Instead of getting up at 3:30 a.m. and being out the door at 4:00 a.m. for a 6:30 a.m. flight, you leave the house at 9:00 a.m. for a 11:30 flight? I'm actually dropping my wife and son off at the airport today for a 11:30 a.m. flight to Florida. I fly out tomorrow at 5:45 p.m.

My wife and I drove to her sisters house (2 hours away) so our son could trick or treat with his cousins. We stayed 2 nights. We paid an extra $28 in tolls (2 separate cars) to avoid 30 minutes of traffic. There was an accident on I-25 and we didn't want our son to be late for trick or treating. He is 7 years old and was very excited. We paid the money so we could have less time sitting in the car and more time walking outside in the neighborhood.

Yeah - we build wealth and at some point find ourselves to be wealthy. Then the labor-money calculus starts to change significantly. Plus getting older tends to focus us more on stuff that matters vs. saving pennies.

Just this past week I paid $180 to have a coffee table delivered vs. $30 to rent a pickup or whatever that could handle the task better than our small hatchback + 2-4 hours of my time. Why? Wife texts me something like "how much is your time worth?" while I was deliberating at the furniture store. And gasp - I bought furniture at a furniture store. Not a 2nd hand shop of some kind or ideally from the side of the road for free.

Whole point of this journey is not frugality for frugality's sake - it is to optimize relatively unimportant, but still necessary, things so that we have money and therefore options for things we value.

[GuitarStv]

These sound very much like first world problems to me.

This often happens with people who live in first-world countries.

Lol, yes. Wonder why don't we get more stories "I walked 2 hrs to collect a bucket of water, carried it home, and it gave me malaria. Should I upgrade to a better bucket?"

Nah, the bucket is fine.  You probably want to use an insect repellent with DEET in it to avoid malaria.

[TheFrenchCat]

Did you check your lights before the inspection? I normally check them and my wipers beforehand, since we strongly prefer to do our own car work.  Not that we don't trust our guy, he's awesome, but we were both raised to value doing things ourselves.  So I'd suggest that if you want to avoid this specific situation.

For the general problem of wanting to prioritize saving time over cost, I'm not sure I have good advice.  I'm not FI yet, so I don't know what I might choose to pick once saving money wasn't as much of a priority.  We have been doing a little bit more convenience food from the grocery store since I went back to work full time to save time.  But I'm hoping that's temporary as I work out a better schedule to plan ahead for meals.  I still value doing it myself, but I'm really not used to having this little time.  So, maybe think about what you'd actually do with the time you're paying for.  In some cases it might be worth it, in others I think the satisfaction of doing it myself could make me happier than saving the time. 

[roomtempmayo]

$35 in order to save you 35 minutes of time (and fuel) spent messing around on a shitty errand sounds like a downright bargain to me. That's not even counting the waiting time when you get back to the mechanic.

If someone asked me, hey can you sit around for half an hour, and then do some bullshit errand for 35 minutes (having to drive around for most of that time), and I'll give you $35 after tax in return? I'd say hell no.

Similar:

Our car is under warranty, so I'm still having the dealer do the service.  They're 15 miles away, and they offer a pick up and drop off service within 15 miles for a $30 fee.  Oil changes seem to take about an hour.  $30 to save 90 minutes of driving and sitting around a car dealership seems like a bargain.

That said, I've resolved to start changing my own oil as soon as the warranty expires next September.

[FIREin2018]

I feel like there is an inflection point in the FIRE journey in which people start paying more money for conveniences that increase your quality of life before you hit your FIRE date. Paying for some conveniences can be worth it, even if you are not yet FIRE.

My definition of the hedonic treadmill is upgrading, just for the sake of upgrading with very little added value. For example, you upgrade from the 50K car to the 100K car with no added value.

Maybe someone pays an extra $100 on a flight with better times. Instead of getting up at 3:30 a.m. and being out the door at 4:00 a.m. for a 6:30 a.m. flight, you leave the house at 9:00 a.m. for a 11:30 flight? I'm actually dropping my wife and son off at the airport today for a 11:30 a.m. flight to Florida. I fly out tomorrow at 5:45 p.m.

My wife and I drove to her sisters house (2 hours away) so our son could trick or treat with his cousins. We stayed 2 nights. We paid an extra $28 in tolls (2 separate cars) to avoid 30 minutes of traffic. There was an accident on I-25 and we didn't want our son to be late for trick or treating. He is 7 years old and was very excited. We paid the money so we could have less time sitting in the car and more time walking outside in the neighborhood.

I guess hedonistic  treadmill isn't the word i'm looking for then.
I guess slippery slope is more like it.

Yes, paying $100 more for better flight is what I'm talking about.
But for me, it's the difference between non-stop and 1 stop.
I will always choose the cheaper flight if non-stop if i can drop off bags at my Airbnb at destination city if the room isn't ready.

I don't count spending reasonably extra to make your child happy part of the problem that i'm talking about.

I will spend extra on trips (ie: better hotel) to make it nicer for my girlfriend.
Or if family visits me, I'll treat them to a nice restaurant instead of making spaghetti at home.
In these 2 cases, it's not about me.

[FIREin2018]

I feel your pain. The last time I sold a car, I paid $25 to turn the plates in to an agent around the corner from me, instead of driving to the motor vehicles office myself.

Still, one self-indulgent event doesn't make a hedonistic treadmill. There has to be consistent repetition for it to count as a treadmill. So count this as your warning and don't do it again :)

I went from super frugal McD 20cents to paying $35 instead of doing it myself in a year's time.

What i'm afraid of is turning into a typical American where if there's any slight chance of inconvenience, i'll pay extra to avoid it.
Like going to the nearest ATM found on google for cash and pay the fee instead of going 2 extra blocks on a nice day for a fee-free one if i have time on my hands.

[FIREin2018]

Did you check your lights before the inspection? I normally check them and my wipers beforehand, since we strongly prefer to do our own car work.  Not that we don't trust our guy, he's awesome, but we were both raised to value doing things ourselves.  So I'd suggest that if you want to avoid this specific situation.

For the general problem of wanting to prioritize saving time over cost, I'm not sure I have good advice.  I'm not FI yet, so I don't know what I might choose to pick once saving money wasn't as much of a priority.  We have been doing a little bit more convenience food from the grocery store since I went back to work full time to save time.  But I'm hoping that's temporary as I work out a better schedule to plan ahead for meals.  I still value doing it myself, but I'm really not used to having this little time.  So, maybe think about what you'd actually do with the time you're paying for.  In some cases it might be worth it, in others I think the satisfaction of doing it myself could make me happier than saving the time.

No I didn't check the licence plate light and I should have. I got dinged for it 15yrs ago and got charged $15 to get it replaced. Since then for that car, i always checked and 5yrs later, i found it burned out again. Changed it myself before getting the inspection.

Then I got a new car (end of year rebates) shortly after that and forgot about the licence plate light since it's a new car. Today is the 9th year of that car.
I change my wipers every year so I dont check. Ice/snow causes streaks on my wipers that i change it every spring (on sale at Costco).

Like I said in my OP, i had nothing else to do that day. I had plenty of time on my hands.
I think i just surfed the internet more.

[oneday]

For pennance, go do something outdoors for an hour. No phone. Bonus if the weather is unpleasant. Think about what you've done. ;)

[Metalcat]

Based on your many recent threads, I think you would benefit from doing some deeper introspection about what money actually means to you, and what you are trying to do with it.

I know you're one of the only people in the history of this site to just go with the 4% rule and not think too much about it, but most of us contemplate it (and everything else about personal finance) for years before retiring, so we have the advantage of years of developing a really personal conceptualization of money and what it's supposed to do for us.

So I can see why you're struggling with it even years after retiring, because you didn't go through that highly neurotic process that the rest of us do.

But that's okay, there is likely even a lot of advantage in doing it your way, no anxious OMY years, for example. And it's never too late to do deep personal reflection.

You get to decide what money means to you and what things are high value to spend on. Sometimes spending money to save time and hassle is the best money you can spend, sometimes it's the most wasteful.

That really comes down to you, and ultimately, that's a decision you have to make.

However, whenever you find your own behaviour not aligning with what you believe your values to be, that should give you pause and trigger some self-reflection to figure out what unmet need is driving the mismatch between what you want to be doing and what you find yourself doing. That's an alarm bell that there are parts of yourself that you don't know very well.

[Just Joe]

$35 in order to save you 35 minutes of time (and fuel) spent messing around on a shitty errand sounds like a downright bargain to me. That's not even counting the waiting time when you get back to the mechanic.

If someone asked me, hey can you sit around for half an hour, and then do some bullshit errand for 35 minutes (having to drive around for most of that time), and I'll give you $35 after tax in return? I'd say hell no.

Similar:

Our car is under warranty, so I'm still having the dealer do the service.  They're 15 miles away, and they offer a pick up and drop off service within 15 miles for a $30 fee.  Oil changes seem to take about an hour.  $30 to save 90 minutes of driving and sitting around a car dealership seems like a bargain.

That said, I've resolved to start changing my own oil as soon as the warranty expires next September.

I changed the fluid in my transmission last night. ~30 minutes in my driveway. The drive to and from WalMart would have been ~30 minutes plus whatever wait. There are details of course - I need to carry the oil away when I go to the dump next time. It took 10 minutes to gather the tools and then put them away. Because of the type of vehicle, I can't buy the correct trans fluid locally so I had to order it some time ago.

The last time I changed a license plate light, it was one bulb and two phillips screws. A 5 min task plus whatever time it took to fetch the bulb. I usually combine those tasks with another shopping trip (hardware store, grocery store, gas stop).

I will pay more for certain things of course. We fly maybe once a decade. This year is the year. DW and kids will be visiting NYC before Christmas. First flight for them. DW paid a little more for a convenient flight and a nicer hotel. I'm staying home to tend to the animals to do do airport taxi duty for them. Airport we use is not convenient. I'm not a happy flyer. I might have gone if we had driven to NYC again. Also, other elderly family responsibilities are keeping me close to home as well this time.

Also paid for a new roof, new windows, etc in the past few years. Could have done them myself, have done them myself in the past, wouldn't do it myself this time.

I DIY what I can so I can afford to hire out what I don't want to do. 

Don't sweat the details. If it doesn't impact your bottom line and you prefer to do this or do that, don't let it keep you up at night. If it would make you feel better, help someone else with your money.

Edited for the inevitable typo that affects clarity.

[FIREin2018]

Based on your many recent threads, I think you would benefit from doing some deeper introspection about what money actually means to you, and what you are trying to do with it.

I know you're one of the only people in the history of this site to just go with the 4% rule and not think too much about it, but most of us contemplate it (and everything else about personal finance) for years before retiring, so we have the advantage of years of developing a really personal conceptualization of money and what it's supposed to do for us.

So I can see why you're struggling with it even years after retiring, because you didn't go through that highly neurotic process that the rest of us do.

But that's okay, there is likely even a lot of advantage in doing it your way, no anxious OMY years, for example. And it's never too late to do deep personal reflection.

You get to decide what money means to you and what things are high value to spend on. Sometimes spending money to save time and hassle is the best money you can spend, sometimes it's the most wasteful.

That really comes down to you, and ultimately, that's a decision you have to make.

However, whenever you find your own behaviour not aligning with what you believe your values to be, that should give you pause and trigger some self-reflection to figure out what unmet need is driving the mismatch between what you want to be doing and what you find yourself doing. That's an alarm bell that there are parts of yourself that you don't know very well.

I can't believe i totally misunderstood the 4% rule.
I also can't believe i'm the only one on this board that had the steel belief in the 4% rule.

And you're right i'm  lucky that i missed the point since i cruised past Covid without financial worry as the stock market plummeted 30%+.
I did worry about my mom's health! ALOT! My college friend's parents both died to Covid shortly one after another. :(

I have no idea what $ means to me.
I have more $ now than when I FiRED 6yrs ago and it's growing even faster thanks to the post-election stock market surge.
You're also right in that i never thought about it. I didn't plan on retiring in 2018. I thought retirement was still years away.
then I got laid off and decided to really look at my #s using Excel. *BAM* i'm done with work!
It helped that i'm single with no kids.

Right now i'm traveling to different countries on the cheap.
Besides that, I have no idea what I want to do with it. Images of Donald Duck's uncle swimming in his vault of $ is what I'm thinking right now.

JustJoe makes a good point:
Don't sweat it If it doesn't impact my bottom line.

Maybe i'm overblowing my fear of going from one extreme (ok with being hungry for 30min to save 20cents) to the other extreme of like going business class for all my travels?

[Metalcat]

Based on your many recent threads, I think you would benefit from doing some deeper introspection about what money actually means to you, and what you are trying to do with it.

I know you're one of the only people in the history of this site to just go with the 4% rule and not think too much about it, but most of us contemplate it (and everything else about personal finance) for years before retiring, so we have the advantage of years of developing a really personal conceptualization of money and what it's supposed to do for us.

So I can see why you're struggling with it even years after retiring, because you didn't go through that highly neurotic process that the rest of us do.

But that's okay, there is likely even a lot of advantage in doing it your way, no anxious OMY years, for example. And it's never too late to do deep personal reflection.

You get to decide what money means to you and what things are high value to spend on. Sometimes spending money to save time and hassle is the best money you can spend, sometimes it's the most wasteful.

That really comes down to you, and ultimately, that's a decision you have to make.

However, whenever you find your own behaviour not aligning with what you believe your values to be, that should give you pause and trigger some self-reflection to figure out what unmet need is driving the mismatch between what you want to be doing and what you find yourself doing. That's an alarm bell that there are parts of yourself that you don't know very well.

I can't believe i totally misunderstood the 4% rule.
I also can't believe i'm the only one on this board that had the steel belief in the 4% rule.

And you're right i'm  lucky that i missed the point since i cruised past Covid without financial worry as the stock market plummeted 30%+.
I did worry about my mom's health! ALOT! My college friend's parents both died to Covid shortly one after another. :(

I have no idea what $ means to me.
I have more $ now than when I FiRED 6yrs ago and it's growing even faster thanks to the post-election stock market surge.
You're also right in that i never thought about it. I didn't plan on retiring in 2018. I thought retirement was still years away.
then I got laid off and decided to really look at my #s using Excel. *BAM* i'm done with work!
It helped that i'm single with no kids.

Right now i'm traveling to different countries on the cheap.
Besides that, I have no idea what I want to do with it. Images of Donald Duck's uncle swimming in his vault of $ is what I'm thinking right now.

JustJoe makes a good point:
Don't sweat it If it doesn't impact my bottom line.

Maybe i'm overblowing my fear of going from one extreme (ok with being hungry for 30min to save 20cents) to the other extreme of like going business class for all my travels?

Time to spend some time really getting to know yourself.

A lot of us have done the Yale online course The Science of Well Being

I would start there and get a sense of what it takes to live a really rich, happy, and healthy life. Then start reflecting on how money plays a role in building and sustaining that kind of life.

Once you grasp what it means and what it takes for your life to be sustainably really enjoyable and how money plays into that, financial decisions become really intuitive and much less stressful.

[FIREin2018]

Time to spend some time really getting to know yourself.

A lot of us have done the Yale online course The Science of Well Being

I would start there and get a sense of what it takes to live a really rich, happy, and healthy life. Then start reflecting on how money plays a role in building and sustaining that kind of life.

Once you grasp what it means and what it takes for your life to be sustainably really enjoyable and how money plays into that, financial decisions become really intuitive and much less stressful.

Thx for the Yale suggestion!

One thing to add about no angst for years before retiring.
Like I said above, I didn't think I had enough to FiRE till I was laid off.
Did calcs and discovered I could.
Another reason why it was so easy to pull the trigger was that I no longer had a job to quit.
I didn't need to struggle with the decision of quitting.
Someone made that decision for me.

As long as I'm unemployed, I'm retired by default.
So much easier to NOT spend the time and energy to look for another job.

All my life I've been lucky with not planning and just letting things fall where it may.

[partgypsy]

Think of it like being on a diet. There is the active phase. And then there is the maintenance phase. The maintenance phase you use all the habits and tips you learned (planning meals, avoiding fast food etc) and monitoring. But not necessarily actively counting calories. If you are monitoring your expenses and then going up too much then you need to maybe examine it, and if really failing going back into active portion control. I don't diet but I've worked on studies that involved diets.

[Tasse]

I mean, you say you didn't plan, but you had obviously saved a lot of money. That's excellent preparation for any number of possible futures.

[lhamo]

I've mentioned this several times on different threads so maybe it is boring to repeat it, but since nobody has said anything similar I will.

I understand the impetus to spend as little as possible.  I'm in that awkward phase leading up to age 59.5 when the bulk of my stash will be easier to access without significant taxes/penalties (yes, I know about 72t/SEPP withdrawals but don't want to bother with that, and prefer to let my Roth contributions continue to grow tax free).  Plus I am remodeling the house I bought last year to make it nicer/better for aging in place), and have therefore spent a LOT more than is typical this year.  The Inner Bag Lady has had periods this year where she has just about driven me nuts with anxiety about my cash flow. 

But I found that once my contractors actually started work on my house and I found that they were really nice guys, it was SOOOOOO much easier to actually write the checks for the project without major concerns.  I have the money for the work.  It fits into my long term financial plans (if worse came to worst I could sell this house for at least what I have put into it).  And I am helping to support MANY MANY nice people and their families.  The first 10k check?  Paid for the demo, windows and new doors.  Second 10k check?  Paid for the plumbing crew who spent DAYS crawling around in my crawlspace putting in new pipes and a whole house shutoff valve (that choice alone has probably saved me $$$$$$ in the event I ever have a leak somewhere....).  Next 10k check?  Paying for the insulation, drywall and painting prep (I am going to paint myself to save about $2k). 

It sounds to me like the place you go for car service is a good one.  Do you want to ensure that they are still in business when you next need to go back?  Then paying $35 to have them change your light is a reasonable investment in a business you value and want to stick around.

I adopt a similar mindset with more casual/optional spending, too.  Could I just sit at home and make my own coffee every day?  Yes, and I mostly do that.  But I do like going out for coffee and a treat every once in a while.  So when I do that, I try to go to a local place that has nice ambiance that I want to ensure stays in the neighborhood.  I actually have a few I rotate between to share the abundance.  That helps ensure I have choices when I do want to splurge a bit.  And I do usually treat a friend to enhance the experience/make it even more worthwhile to me, even if it costs more money.

Personally I have found that my Inner Bag Lady/frugal values are plenty strong enough to ensure I don't slip and fall on the hedonistic treadmill.  I am guessing you are probably similar. 

If you want to ensure you keep things under control, maybe one approach would be to set up some kind of "hedonism slush fund" that you let yourself dip into for these kinds of expenses?  It would take a lot of $35 expenses to add up to much. 

[FIREin2018]

Think of it like being on a diet. There is the active phase. And then there is the maintenance phase. The maintenance phase you use all the habits and tips you learned (planning meals, avoiding fast food etc) and monitoring. But not necessarily actively counting calories.

 If you are monitoring your expenses and then going up too much then you need to maybe examine it, and if really failing going back into active portion control.
I don't diet but I've worked on studies that involved diets.

That makes sense.
Keep track and don't worry about it till something is a miss.
Problem is that the stock market is fickle.

I guess I could set my baseline at the $ level when I FiRED in 2018.
If I was comfortable to FiRE with that amount back then, then it should be even more fine 6yrs later.

When the $ I have drops below that level, then I should look into it.
Until then, don't worry about purchases up to $35?

[FIREin2018]

I mean, you say you didn't plan, but you had obviously saved a lot of money. That's excellent preparation for any number of possible futures.

Yeah, I guess being debt free and having an emergency fund allowed me to be lazy to just let things fall randomly as they may.

[crocheted_stache]

Get back on your bike if you ride one, but one $35 exception that serves a purpose (preventing you from going back through a long line) does not a hedonic treadmill make. Nothing about paying someone to do this task once obligates you to do the same next time or creates an ongoing expense for the future. You can still mark your calendar for a bit before the next inspection and take a good look at lights, wipers, and anything else on the list that you can easily handle by yourself.

Somewhere along the line, I set a mental threshold for "do not worry about one-off purchases below this line." It might have started at $10 when I was a 20-something. As I've grown, it's grown, and at this point, it doesn't have a specific number, maybe somewhere in the $50-$100 range, depending on context. I still avoid things that feel like "this costs too much for a simple ___," or "I could do this easily myself and save $__," or I may choose to pay a bit more and get it over with. Choosing to pay a bit extra is still not remotely a reflex for me, but it's not against any rules, even mine, to pay a bit more if there is some utility in doing so.

[partgypsy]

Think of it like being on a diet. There is the active phase. And then there is the maintenance phase. The maintenance phase you use all the habits and tips you learned (planning meals, avoiding fast food etc) and monitoring. But not necessarily actively counting calories.

 If you are monitoring your expenses and then going up too much then you need to maybe examine it, and if really failing going back into active portion control.
I don't diet but I've worked on studies that involved diets.

That makes sense.
Keep track and don't worry about it till something is a miss.
Problem is that the stock market is fickle.

I guess I could set my baseline at the $ level when I FiRED in 2018.
If I was comfortable to FiRE with that amount back then, then it should be even more fine 6yrs later.

When the $ I have drops below that level, then I should look into it.
Until then, don't worry about purchases up to $35?

there's not a one size fits all rule. Some people can be nitpicky for small purchases, but are more likely to splurge on a big purchase. Other people it might be going out to eat drink and the frequency creeps up. You know yourself better than anyone where your weak spots are. Main thing is to look at monthly spends and if you are off from where you think you need to be spending see if it is a one off or a spending creep. 

[Tasse]

I mean, you say you didn't plan, but you had obviously saved a lot of money. That's excellent preparation for any number of possible futures.

Yeah, I guess being debt free and having an emergency fund allowed me to be lazy to just let things fall randomly as they may.

You're underselling yourself. Evidently you also had 25x your spending saved.