Tales from the Wallet: Money and Priorities

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There have been some interesting reader conversations recently that have gotten me thinking: How do you spend (or save) your money according to your priorities? What is your top priority as reflected in your money habits, and what is the lowest priority? (Does assessing them in this way make you want to change some of your money habits?) We kind of talked about this in our 2014 discussion on “what's worth the splurge — and what isn't” — but it's been a while!

{related: not sure what to do first/next in your personal finance journey? here's our money roadmap}

For example — this isn't an exhaustive list! — but some of my own priorities shake out like this… (and yes, I'll bet our first few are all the same, so it may be more the middle and end of the list that's interesting).

(Just as a reminder, my husband and I are Common Potters, I tend to be the money manager in our household, and I'm a big fan of automatic investing and amortizing my expenses with automated savings.)

Top Money Priorities for Me:

Necessities: Mortgage, food, clothing for kids, healthcare costs

Retirement: Another big, and important, expenditure for us

College savings: There were some years where we bent over backwards to max the kids' accounts, although mostly when my eldest was still really little. I believe strongly in the power of compounding interest! (This one might be in different tiers for different people, though, and that's OK!)

Living within our means / not being surprised by bills: This is a bit of a weird priority, but like I've talked about in the past, I'm a huge fan of automated savings, so those categories should probably be reflected at the top even if I don't think about them often because they're now automatic. My categories are: vacation money, insurance premiums (I know, exciting, right?), healthcare deductible, and “Griffin fun” which is a cushion account separate from our emergency fund. But we spend a lot less on vacations than some of our friends, so it's more of a middle/bottom tier item for us. (Although maybe this is the year I figure out how to make points work for me.)

(Our home is kind of between these two categories — “living within our means” has been our top consideration when we've been hunting for houses or apartments, especially because my income fluctuates (and I make more), I would hate to have a bad year with the site and feel like our back was to the wall with the mortgage. BUT we absolutely have prioritized everyday comfort when we've bought — location, transportation, size, number of rooms / bathrooms, building amenities — even having a washer/dryer was something we were willing to pay a LOT for.)

Middle Tier Money Priorities for Me:

Convenience and comfort: I'm thinking here about paying for the highest quality internet service we can get (even if I weren't a digital content creator, my sons' screens would require it). We spend a lot on “smart appliances” like ecobee, because I love being able to control the temperature via app in the middle of the night. We have regular (and fairly old) mattresses, but if there were a big difference in comfort between two mattresses I'd probably go with the more comfortable one, even if it were more expensive. We like to keep a comfortable temperature year round.

Fun clothing for me: I'm kind of embarrassed to say that this is probably one of our biggest expenses, because I so do not need a ton of clothes, as I work from home and generally shop at affordable places. Occupational hazard, I guess… (I have another post coming up about how I'm reassessing my style!) I say “for me” because my husband and boys will all scream that they don't need anything (and they are definitely not trying things on), but of course I buy pretty willy-nilly for them too.

Restaurants and “food splurges”: We enjoy eating out and trying new restaurants (although we've limited ourselves to outdoor dining spots over the past two years). My eldest son is becoming a foodie so we've been taking him out for some fancier lunches as well, or letting him pick or request foods that are a bit on the expensive side. (OK, Mr. aged white cheddar only.) We'll spend money for top shelf liquor but not for wine, where we rarely spend more than $10 per bottle. We aren't big wine drinkers; we also are not coffee snobs. To me the food is an important part of a vacation; we are not those people who will do Airbnb so that we can cook for ourselves or pack PBJ to save money at whatever destination.

Theater and other experiences: This is the bottom of my middle tier, primarily because we are trying to spend more on planned experiences, but time and circumstances (e.g., COVID) have not recently allowed. We're more the kind of people to buy season tickets to the theater than to any sporting event, though.

Bottom Tier Money Priorities for Me

(Weirdly, a lot of these are things that I listed in our older fantasy open thread on what we'd all do with lottery winnings, so they really are kind of “it would be nice” spending in my head!)

Outsourcing: We do not outsource enough, to be honest. My husband and I could save time and energy if we hired a meal prep service or used a weekly meal delivery service — if we hired someone to come daily to do little things like washing dishes and sorting laundry. (The dream would be a house manager, but it speaks to my middle class upbringing that I couldn't possibly entertain the thought of hiring someone like that unless we were making seven figures.) (Uh, we are not.)

Vacations: I'm putting this here because I would rather be able to buy the clothes and go out to eat when I want, rather than going without so that we could go on a frequent, expensive, or lengthy vacations. Mostly this is because I dislike vacation planning, but that's me.

Fitness: Some people might spend a lot of money on fitness — trainers, classes, gym memberships, expensive clothes and equipment, and more. Meanwhile, my workout clothes are overwhelmingly Old Navy, I have mismatched weights (like one metal 15 lb. weight and one bright red plastic-covered 15 lb. weight), and every time I've hired a trainer or spent money on a class or gym membership I've regretted it.

Coaching: For business, I've considered a lot of paid masterminds and expensive “VIP-level only” conferences and never pull the trigger, primarily because I feel like I know what I should be doing next should I have the time and energy, but, haha, don't have the time and energy. (This might come back to outsourcing.) I have spent some money on weight loss coaching and that type of thing, and I'm always willing to spend more because it's important to me, but my experiences have shown me that those methods don't necessarily work for me. I have been paying far too much for a guided program that I'm really not using and I really need to get out of it.

Networking/Affiliation Groups: Some people can mentally write off a country club membership or the time and money involved with charities or volunteer groups because, you know, they're good for business and moving in the right circles and getting new job/career/business opportunities. At this point, it's just in the bottom tier mostly due to time constraints and the nature of our jobs. I have gone to a few gala-type dinners in recent years, but mostly to support a friend's pet charity or one of my favorite charities. (We're certainly not going to the $$$-a-plate political fundraisers, for example.)

Interior status symbols like furniture, rugs, etc.: Even at this point in my life I still generally check discount places like Costco or Wayfair if we need something new for Casa Griffin instead of looking for “grown-up furniture.” We have a lot of Ikea furniture (including an Ikea couch that I bought in 2003!)… When we renovated our kitchen 10 years ago it didn't occur to us to get a Viking or Subzero or anything fancy like that.

Exterior status symbols like a designer car, or even “the hot new designer bag” or whatever: If I like it and want it then I'll get it (speaking of the bag at least), but at this point in my life I don't feel too much stress to have one just to impress people.

{related: do lawyers need a fancy car?}

Readers, how about you — how are your life goals and priorities reflected in your money choices like expenditures, splurges and savings?

Stock photo via Stencil.