Now hold on! Hear me out. My Mom came to Seattle for my birthday and we started talking about money – as usual 🙂 . My favorite. My partner commented that while his values and spending have never really changed – mine have. And he cited as as example me spending $7,000 for a $21,000 roundtrip First Class ticket on the luxury airline Emirates to the Maldives while in my second year in NYC. While we were talking I realized something shocking: I don’t regret buying that plane ticket. Despite it being 35% of my current budget I don’t regret what I did. Let’s go back in time and investigate why. Continue reading “I Don’t Regret Spending $7,000 On A Plane Ticket”
The human brain is insane. I’m talking specifically about mine. We come to expect what’s happening now to happen forever. This is part of the irrational exuberance that creates bubbles and crashes in the stock market. It’s our nature and it’s hard to reign in. I caught my brain in the same trap recently. We recently received our Q3 bonuses. As I’ve mentioned before part of my compensation is a guaranteed target bonus that everyone receives unless they’re on a performance improvement plan. The rest of the bonus is discretionary and based on performance. I call this the “stretch bonus.” 
Guess we need to start hanging out in a place like this – because stereotypes.
I feel like I say this every time, but time is flying and money is piling up. I know this gravy train will temporarily come to an end with the next recession, but for now I am LOVING it! Seeing my money compound so fast is still crazy to me. It’s been 8 months since I hit $150,000 while in Thailand on my 10,000 day of life and here we are with 33% more. Just stupid. This has been caused by the high stock market as well as my salary being higher than I anticipated because of bonuses and investing more as a result. My goal for the end of 2017 was to have a net worth of $200,000 and we’re already there with 3 months to spare. I thought this was going to happen on my birthday in 2 days when I receive my paycheck, but instead the market has been on a rampage and I’ve reached my year end goal with 3 paychecks and approximately $22,000 left to invest this year. Just madness. We’ll see how I feel if stocks crash before the end of the year :), but for now I’m floating on a cloud. It’s time to set a new goal.
We’re 75% done with 2017. Madness. Let’s check in on my goal to decrease my spending from $22,491.86 last year by $4,491.86 to $18,000 this year.
