Random post.. the little things.

I'm not a person that spends money on nice things, or things in general. My savings rate is over 80% and we have (literally) zero debt, which is why my wife and I can thrive in this economic situation. The last time I bought a new shirt was when I was in Italy and decided it would be cheaper to throw my dirty shirts away instead of wash them and bought new ones from an Army surplus store for 1 euro. The check out girl at the thrift store knows me by name. There are a few things though that I do spend money on...

Boots. There's maybe nothing finer than a really well made pair of shoes. Not running shoes- which are disposable- but finely crafted, handmade foot wear. I have several pairs of very nice boots but these are by far my favorites: Frye engineer "Gauchos". The way that I came to own these- they retail for $199- is I watched e-bay for months waiting for a pair of new Frye boots to be listed. Eventually a pair of brand new women's Fryes came up that no one bid on. So I bought them for $89.00. Then I took them in to Boulder to a high end shoe store that sold Frye. And I exchanged them for these boots.. straight trade, so I got my $199 boots for $89.00.


My son's hand print tattoo on my arm. This was expensive, but worth every penny. Nuff' said.


My wedding band tattoo.. extremely painful, relatively inexpensive. I'll never lose it and I can never take it off. When I came home with it the first time- my wife actually said to me "kind of permanent don't you think?". :0


My signed first edition of "Running The Lydiard Way". We were at a huge book sale and this was buried in the bottom of a box... 50 cents.


Good face lotion. More guys should use good face lotion. I also splurge sometimes on good hair conditioner when my hair is long. I may look like a redneck mountain man from time to time but I don't have wrinkles and my hair isn't dry. I'm dreading the day when I drop my son off at school and his friends say "Man, your dad's OLD!". I'll not go gracefully. My goal is to look like Dave Scott (who is over 50 years old), when I'm 40.


A few smaller things... Pinot and Merlot. I don't buy the $50 bottles, but I will buck up and spend an extra $5-$10 on a good bottle of wine. Same goes for beer. A good Porter is worth the money over cheap beer. Tires on my car- with Ben in the back seat it's simple to justify new tires.