What was your largest single purchase of the last 12 months?

[m0nk3y]

1-20% down payment on a 230k STEAL for my growing family- loan is at 180k 3 months later.
2- huge IRS payment
3-3rd child birth costs

[lizzzi]

Used stash to buy house outright--early inheritance--for dtr., s-i-l, and 3 grands. $137,000. Used some more of stash to buy house outright for self and husband--$105,000. Not that I do this stuff every day, but the good thing about Mustachianism and FIRE is that you can if you want to.

[iwasjustwondering]

It was tuition for a gifted, academic summer camp for my older son, at $3800.  Second was a writing camp for my younger son, at $900.

I had a few days of vacation in England last winter, but I didn't really pay anything for it, as I parlayed a business trip to Europe into an extra couple of days in the UK.  My bf and I stayed with his relatives while in England. 

[darkadams00]

Local CL Trek 7.5FX in excellent condition for the wife for moderate distances around town (10-30 miles RT) -- $400.00. She rides her Public 7-speed town bike for distances < 10 miles and hasn't ridden more than 31 miles RT since she started riding again two years ago. Now we're eyeballing a used tandem--it might be the only way she rides longer in the next 2-3 years. A used 10-year old tandem won't depreciate further in 2-3 years in our area if properly maintained, so we could probably break even on the deal if she transitioned to a road/touring bike later.

[rpr]

Car repair -- $936. brakes etc on my old 1998 camry.

[horsepoor]

Roof on our old house, if the insurance payment isn't counted. 

Other than that, a rather expensive, albeit used saddle.

[MidwestGal]

A shiny red almost-new road bike for >$1k, five months later it's something I still lust after daily, gets my ass out on the road and keeps me from unnecessary gym memberships.  Totally worth any face punch.

[teen persuasion]

It was tuition...

This post brought to mind a time a few years ago.  I was walking DS2 thru his taxes, and I had him tallying up all his college expenses vs scholarships, grants, loans, to see if/how much he'd need to claim as taxable income.  He'd "paid" over $50k in college expenses that year!  My reaction was "Holy cow!", while he didn't even blink.

[Thegoblinchief]

New roof and soffits. Overpaid by quite a bit but it's a sunk cost. That said, figuring out how to pay off the same as cash loan on time is what got me hooked on MMM, so over my lifetime I'll be way ahead.

Other than that, my new to me bike for $250. The capital cost of the bike and gear is higher, but every other purchase has been spread out over the past months.

[hybrid]

Our heat pump finally died and we kissed 7K goodbye. I'm very happy we were able to write a check and not take out a loan. A cautionary tale in there somewhere....

[Philociraptor]

#1 was getting married (church, reception, etc.) for $6,700.
#2 was honeymoon (flights, resort, excursions, souvenirs) for $4,300.

[frugalnacho]

Solar panels. $28k. Worth it.

Wtf?  How high are your electric bills?  I could pay my electric bill for the rest of my life with $28k.

[forward]

I spent about $1500 on a vacation, worth it in this case, first one in over 5 years.  Also spent about $500 getting the dog repaired, this one was worth it as well, she hasn't needed any repairs for 10 years. 

This is a good thread, it actually makes you think about your large purchases of the past.

[simonsez]

Solar panels. $28k. Worth it.

Wtf?  How high are your electric bills?  I could pay my electric bill for the rest of my life with $28k.

I'm sure there are very high non-pecuniary benefits with something like that for many people in addition to just dollars and cents.  To each their own.  Then again, I'm admittedly a sucker for renewable energies.

Largest single purchase/payment in last 12 months: $1800 on student loans

[frugalnacho]

Solar panels. $28k. Worth it.

Wtf?  How high are your electric bills?  I could pay my electric bill for the rest of my life with $28k.

I'm sure there are very high non-pecuniary benefits with something like that for many people in addition to just dollars and cents.  To each their own.  Then again, I'm admittedly a sucker for renewable energies.

Largest single purchase/payment in last 12 months: $1800 on student loans

Yea but it still needs to make sense.  Would spend $1,000 on a water barrel that is going to save you $100 worth of water?  Also, in what sense would that even be green with such a low ROI?

Maybe they use a ton of electricity, or maybe they are selling it back to the grid at a profit.  It seems alarmingly high to me though.

[sol]

Wtf?  How high are your electric bills?  I could pay my electric bill for the rest of my life with $28k.

We just spent $32,400 on solar panels.  If it was only a matter of offsetting our power bills, then yes that would be like 50 years of bills at today's prices.

But the federal tax credit and the state production incentives mean that we'll actually make money over the next few years on that up-front investment, and then get free power after that.

[MrFancypants]

A house.

Yes, it was worth it.  The wife and I enjoy being shielded from the elements.

[simonsez]

Solar panels. $28k. Worth it.

Wtf?  How high are your electric bills?  I could pay my electric bill for the rest of my life with $28k.

I'm sure there are very high non-pecuniary benefits with something like that for many people in addition to just dollars and cents.  To each their own.  Then again, I'm admittedly a sucker for renewable energies.

Largest single purchase/payment in last 12 months: $1800 on student loans

Yea but it still needs to make sense.  Would spend $1,000 on a water barrel that is going to save you $100 worth of water?  Also, in what sense would that even be green with such a low ROI?

Maybe they use a ton of electricity, or maybe they are selling it back to the grid at a profit.  It seems alarmingly high to me though.

Again, there are non-pecuniary benefits, which are always the hardest to quantify/qualify.  Some people receive satisfaction tinkering around with and learning about green technologies or simply even knowing that on a larger scale it is making the most out of what we have.  If I was FIRE and curious about a water barrel, I might buy it even if it is a perceived loss with regard to only dollars.  Do you have any hobbies where you spend more money on them than what the end product produces (or purchased ANYTHING where the $output<$input)?

Perhaps I am overly optimistic about future technology, but I'm of the opinion if enough people demand alternatives, a) the end product (e.g. electric cars, wind generators, solar panels, etc.) will get more efficient over time and b) the average price will come down eventually at least on a per unit basis.

That said, Erica's blog post she references has the payback period at 5.5 years and lists the various credits which make it financially viable as well.  Win-win!

[frugalnacho]

Solar panels. $28k. Worth it.

Wtf?  How high are your electric bills?  I could pay my electric bill for the rest of my life with $28k.

I'm sure there are very high non-pecuniary benefits with something like that for many people in addition to just dollars and cents.  To each their own.  Then again, I'm admittedly a sucker for renewable energies.

Largest single purchase/payment in last 12 months: $1800 on student loans

Yea but it still needs to make sense.  Would spend $1,000 on a water barrel that is going to save you $100 worth of water?  Also, in what sense would that even be green with such a low ROI?

Maybe they use a ton of electricity, or maybe they are selling it back to the grid at a profit.  It seems alarmingly high to me though.

Again, there are non-pecuniary benefits, which are always the hardest to quantify/qualify.  Some people receive satisfaction tinkering around with and learning about green technologies or simply even knowing that on a larger scale it is making the most out of what we have.  If I was FIRE and curious about a water barrel, I might buy it even if it is a perceived loss with regard to only dollars.  Do you have any hobbies where you spend more money on them than what the end product produces (or purchased ANYTHING where the $output<$input)?

Perhaps I am overly optimistic about future technology, but I'm of the opinion if enough people demand alternatives, a) the end product (e.g. electric cars, wind generators, solar panels, etc.) will get more efficient over time and b) the average price will come down eventually at least on a per unit basis.

That said, Erica's blog post she references has the payback period at 5.5 years and lists the various credits which make it financially viable as well.  Win-win!

Of course I spend money, but I also do the math.  For example the water barrel - it's a cool idea, and it might even save the earth! Until I run the numbers and find the payback period is gonna be over 10 years.  It's gonna be friendlier to the earth to just purchase the water I need rather than create a set up for my water barrel.  I had the same initial reaction to spending $28,000 on solar panels.  I won't even use $28,000 worth of electricity in my life time so that cost seems very high to me. 

I checked out sol's post on it and he did the math on it too (as i'm sure erica did too).   They may get some non-monetary benefits out of it too, but he did the math too and it's gonna be a money saver for him in the long run.  The answer seems to be government subsidies.  The gov will refund a large portion (I think 30% in sol's case) of the initial cost, and then buy his electricity back above (at 7X in sol's case) the going market rate for electricity. 

[C. K.]

What was your largest purchase of the last 12 months and was it "worth it"?

Mine would be $2,500 deductible for medical bills for my son being born...needless to say it was totally worth it haha.

Congratulations.

I spent about the same on an on-going career development workshop. I should see a return on the investment within a few months.

[lisahi]

My largest purchase was the $700 in emergency room bills I paid as part of my deductible when I was sick the entire month of December. Not fun.

Second was my Trek bike -- $400.

After that it was a $227 vet bill to get my two dogs up-to-date on all vaccines and get them their yearly tests for all the bad stuff.

Coming in fourth was $100 I spent on a chair. Not mustachian, I know, but I had been searching for just the right chair for two years and finally found it at Home Goods. It looks awesome. It's for my computer desk.

Note that I'm not counting any bills. If I were then it would be my mortgage first, my student loan payment second. Blah.

[farmstache]

For me it was:

7.5k for a rural property (which after we solve all the paperwork in 2-4 years and build a small house on, will be worth about 100k - totally worth it both financially and fun-wise).

About 4k with our recent move: fixing and extra rent time to finish fixing the house we just moved out of, and a few things on the house we moved into (maybe $500 of this total), a month of storage while we lived at my mom and got the new house ready ($250), two moving trucks (from house to storage, from storage to new house - total $400 - all because of the fridge and washer-dryer that weight a ton!). Totally not worth it. We could have avoided about $800 of extra rent time out of that by starting even earlier with the fixes, but we really didn't know all that the landlady would ask us to fix. Lesson learned. The good side of these fixes is we did almost all of it ourselves and learned a lot. Did basically everything but the external painting.

About 3.5k in a 2 week long summer trip (tickets for two were 1.2k) - Worth it, but I'm now smarter and next time we'll change the trip style and be much more mustachian. Deserve facepunch for this.

The next highest expense was the pet: since january we got 10 months worth of dog food ($400) plus vaccines I apply myself ($50) and $200 worth of vet bills. Actually, the pet is a huge inflation in our lifestyle - we could have rented a condo for $350 in an extremely central location if it wasn't for the huge dog (and DH's refusal to let it live inside the condo - dog does shed way too much), but had to rent a $600 house a little out of the way instead (nearly the cheapest one we could find that didn't require renovations). We're happy, the house is beautiful and we have a tangerine tree, but financially it might not have been the best moment for this, especially considering I'm jobless right now.

[rpr]

Of course I spend money, but I also do the math.  For example the water barrel - it's a cool idea, and it might even save the earth! Until I run the numbers and find the payback period is gonna be over 10 years.  It's gonna be friendlier to the earth to just purchase the water I need rather than create a set up for my water barrel.  I had the same initial reaction to spending $28,000 on solar panels.  I won't even use $28,000 worth of electricity in my life time so that cost seems very high to me. 

I checked out sol's post on it and he did the math on it too (as i'm sure erica did too).   They may get some non-monetary benefits out of it too, but he did the math too and it's gonna be a money saver for him in the long run.  The answer seems to be government subsidies.  The gov will refund a large portion (I think 30% in sol's case) of the initial cost, and then buy his electricity back above (at 7X in sol's case) the going market rate for electricity.

We installed solar panels as well 3 years ago. The up front cost was about $30k. The federal and state tax rebates brought down that cost to about $10k. We live in Hawaii where electricity costs upwards of $0.40/kWh. Our system produces about 5 MWh/year or roughly $2k at today's electricity prices. Thus the payback time is approximately 5 years. Greens all around :)

[ivyhedge]

* Condo in Boston that mightily cut our commutes;


* Flights/expenses to China to see my in laws (every two years);


* Added significantly to taxable investments.


All worthwhile.

[Thegoblinchief]

Once I get some free capital, I'm totally looking at PV for my house, but it'll probably be for the NEXT house, wherever that ends up being. We won't be in our current house for much longer than 10 years more, and we won't have the money to justify PV outlays for another few years yet.

I wonder what the subsidy picture will look like in 5 years.

[Norioch]

Last August I paid $109,600 for a one-bedroom condo. So far I'm happy with the purchase.

[Frugal Father]

We "purchased" freedom from debt. We managed to pay down in about half a year every last dollar of student debt we had accumulated. Definitely worth it.

[RNwastash]

Bought a 2006 Scion xA for my kid going to college.  All in all I paid $5800 for it including maintenance/ registration.  I actually drive it more than my Honda Accord because it gets more miles per gallon.  I think it's worth it.