• There has been a recent cluster of spammers accessing BARFer accounts and posting spam. To safeguard your account, please consider changing your password. It would be even better to take the additional step of enabling 2 Factor Authentication (2FA) on your BARF account. Read more here.

What does "affording" something mean to you?

Affording something I want these days takes careful planning. The price of cactus and succulents are rising! I must put gas in my car, I want a newer Miata but I can't afford one now. Don't have the funds for such an extravaganza.
I just had an entire heating and cooling system put in my house-that I needed to take a loan out for. The payments are impacting my budget a great deal.
 
Similar to most who have posted, if I can buy it without taking on debt and it won't leave a smoldering crater where my savings account used to be I can probably afford it. For smaller purchases, if I don't have to think twice about the price, then I consider it affordable.
 
DonTom said:
But how do you even get a clue of how much your next unexpected expense will be? What happens when it is more than ten times of what you allowed for? And right after that, another, close in time? It seems to me they pop up fairly often.

And sometimes trying to save money can cost more. Such as having too high of a deducible on auto insurance. I only mentioned this because I now have a cracked windshield on my Tesla. It costs the same to repair as my high deducible, which means I have to cough up the ~$2,000.00 myself to get it fixed.

-Don- Reno, NV
Click to expand...

Insurance deductibles/co pays plus incidentals. That’s how I get a clue of what unexpected expenses could be.

Does your insurance provider offer a glass deductible? I carry $1k deductibles on my policies. But for like a few bucks a year, I’ve got a $50 glass deductible added. Which of course covers the windshield but also the headlights. Three months after I got my latest car, I took a huge chip which immediately cracked and spread across half the whole windshield. Just about every new car these days has a camera in the windshield, which requires an expensive recalibration procedure if the glass gets replaced. There are no cheap $300 windshield replacements anymore. Everything is over a grand. If your insurance offers it (they may specifically exclude Tesla because they’re such a hassle to deal with though), this is totally worth it.
 
I have a 401K with a stupid amount of $$ in it, and my house has been paid off for 5 years, but I CANNOT AFFORD to shop at Whole Foods!!!

I refuse to waste $$ on (what I deem as) stupid stuff. I don't wear expensive clothing or jewelry. Whole Foods falls into this category for me. Yes, I have enough $$ to pay for it, but I cannot bring myself to pay high prices.
 
lefty said:
I have a 401K with a stupid amount of $$ in it, and my house has been paid off for 5 years, but I CANNOT AFFORD to shop at Whole Foods!!!

I refuse to waste $$ on (what I deem as) stupid stuff. I don't wear expensive clothing or jewelry. Whole Foods falls into this category for me. Yes, I have enough $$ to pay for it, but I cannot bring myself to pay high prices.
Click to expand...

You're doing it wrong...:laughing

Whole Foods is for particular/special items that call for just that little bit more. Fancy blue cheese or triple cream brie. Golden beets and greens, not the red beets that stain everything. Romanesco instead of cauliflower. Toilet paper with glitter built in for that day you have a colonoscopy, etc...

:teeth
 
Last edited:
Melissa said:
I love to window shop at Whole Foods.
Yummy.
Click to expand...

WF lettuce. Oh yeah. Vons has stepped up their game lately too. And WF has a WALL of kombucha. So a few things occasionally.

$300 for one brown bag of mundane groceries is silly though.
 
lefty said:
I have a 401K with a stupid amount of $$ in it, and my house has been paid off for 5 years, but I CANNOT AFFORD to shop at Whole Foods!!!

I refuse to waste $$ on (what I deem as) stupid stuff. I don't wear expensive clothing or jewelry. Whole Foods falls into this category for me. Yes, I have enough $$ to pay for it, but I cannot bring myself to pay high prices.
Click to expand...

One of the keys to building up your nesteggs is not to buy stuff you can "afford" if the price is not reasonable.

We've always lived below our means once we got out of the paycheck to paycheck mode in our early career days working during the day and going to Grad school at night.
 
DonTom said:
But how do you even get a clue of how much your next unexpected expense will be? What happens when it is more than ten times of what you allowed for? And right after that, another, close in time? It seems to me they pop up fairly often....
Click to expand...

Right, but what you can do is budget for payments into an emergency fund. Don't be one of those 51% of Americans with less than 3 months' worth of emergency savings.
 
CRUZer said:
"Can't afford it" means the wife said no.
Click to expand...

:laughing :thumbup


lefty said:
I have a 401K with a stupid amount of $$ in it, and my house has been paid off for 5 years, but I CANNOT AFFORD to shop at Whole PAYCHECK!!!

I refuse to waste $$ on (what I deem as) stupid stuff. I don't wear expensive clothing or jewelry. Whole PAYCHECK falls into this category for me. Yes, I have enough $$ to pay for it, but I cannot bring myself to pay high prices.
Click to expand...

House paid off = Check.
No expensive clothes or jewelry = Check

Wife shops at Safeway.... hits Whole Paycheck for a few specialty items.
I barely ever shop so that part is easy.

BTW lefty.
Drinks at Fred's are still afordable and they have an outdoor seating area now too. :Port
 
budman said:
:laughing :thumbup




House paid off = Check.
No expensive clothes or jewelry = Check

Wife shops at Safeway.... hits Whole Paycheck for a few specialty items.
I barely ever shop so that part is easy.

BTW lefty.
Drinks at Fred's are still afordable and they have an outdoor seating area now too. :Port
Click to expand...

Budman-

You had me at "Drinks". Just say when.

Speaking of Whole Foods; My Stepkids shop there. I ALWAYS give them crap about it, especially since they pay us $500/month to live in our rental home.
 
How about Friday at 5!!

The only day of the week I drink beer. :teeth
 
I mostly buy on credit.

Houses and cars (bikes!) I finance and can comfortably make the payment.

Everything else is CC paid in full each month.

Otherwise it's unaffordable.:wow

I replied before reading the thread. I like to live well, and other than really big ticket items, don't pay a lot of attention to prices. I really have no idea what a gallon of milk costs, or a dozen eggs.

An Accuracy International rifle cost $5k+. Scopes for said rifle are $4K + mounts etc. I do know that much, and Harleys run around $26K for a bagger. Marklin model locomotives run around $3-600, depending. Don't get expensive hobbies.
 
Last edited:
lefty said:
Budman-

You had me at "Drinks". Just say when.

Speaking of Whole Foods; My Stepkids shop there. I ALWAYS give them crap about it, especially since they pay us $500/month to live in our rental home.
Click to expand...

You live in Menlo park and charge your step kids 500 for a rental home???
Give them a Life Lesson and raise the rent to $2000. And that's a bargan!:laughing
 
i cant afford shit cuz im waiting for RE market to come back down

but if you look at my account you would be like you got more then 98% of americans in their savings
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top