The art of spending money

sevenhills

Nebulous2 said:

sheslookinhot said:

Nebulous2 said:

El_Torro said:

That article is behind a paywall. 


I sometimes wonder what I'll be like when I retire. It's still some ways off, but I've been spending less than my income for pretty much all my life. Even when I was in school I managed to not spend all my pocket money. I like to think than when I retire I'll be happy to see my net worth drop every month, I'll see if that's the reality of it though.

Sorry - maybe I should delete the post. I got it free from Microsoft news.  

Can you cut and paste the text ?

[DELETED BY FORUM TEAM]

A millionaire friend of mine bought a new 'Fiesta type car' ex showroom model, so not the full price.
He is known for being frugal.
I would certainly buy a practical car, even if money were unlimited. We wouldn't waste our money on a Mercedes, although I do like Audi's.
What do people want out of retirement? I hope to retire with a higher income than I get now.

zagfles

Albermarle said:

As for hotels I've never spent a fortune on hotels simply because I don't spend much time in them if I'm away......just need a comfortable clean bed.  Premier Inn or Holiday Inn Express for me

I did decades 'on the road' in the UK ( and elsewhere to a lesser extent) and working for different companies with different hotel expense limits. So I am a sort of 'expert'. Hardly ever stayed in 5*, only very occasionally in 4*. many, many 3*, quite a lot of 2 *, sometimes in a Travel Inn etc, often in 'pubs with rooms' 

Quick summary would be that I would not consider a Premier Travel Inn , or Holiday Inn Express as really 'budget', as they can be quite expensive in busy locations/periods ( especially including breakfast and parking costs in some locations) and the newer ones also tend to cost a bit more. You can stay in a standard 3* in many locations for not much difference in price. 
Pubs with rooms have improved a lot over the years. Many have very modern rooms, coupled with a better ambience than a hotel, although best to have a close look at the photos before booking.
In summary if you pay much less than £100 B&B for a couple, you may be disappointed. ( unless it is a Tuesday night in January in a deserted seaside town !) Anything over that you should be OK. £150 should get you a nice hotel/location/ busy dates.  Anything above that you are probably paying just for 'fluff' mainly ( or staying in London)

I think most "expert" travellers realise that star ratings mean very little. Nor does price provide a good guide to quality, price depends far more on location, competition, and time of year, plus facilities offered by the hotel which you might not be interested in or might cost extra anyway.

Reviews are far more interesting, although you need to apply a fiddle factor to review scores (generally small places get higher ratings, larger places lower). Comments are more useful than scores.

Travelling for business is completely different than leisure. For instance business travellers are usually alone, so stuff like a TV in the room, good communication facilities, room service, maybe a hotel restaurant (some people feel embarassed dining alone in a normal restaurant), maybe gym facilities etc.

Travelling for leisure more likely to be with spouse/family/friends you're less likely to be sat in watching TV etc.

I don't think I've ever paid over £100 for a B&B and have never been disappointed. But I was disappointed with a recent hotel I paid £140 for 

Brie

There was a suggestion that we go off last month to stay someplace for Christmas.  OH had picked an expensive place that we've been to a couple of times and I checked the prices for the holiday week.  Blinking heck!!!  No justification really other than it was a couple of specific days - yes I know they'd have to be paying their staff well over the odds but the cost was nearly 10 times on the 25/26 what it was on the 22 or 28th.   I said we'd stay home.

Premier Inn has been perfectly nice when in transit to somewhere else.  Not sure I'd want to stay for a week but as a one off it's great.

westv

zagfles said:

Reviews are far more interesting, although you need to apply a fiddle factor to review scores (generally small places get higher ratings, larger places lower). Comments are more useful than scores.

What I sometimes do with, say, TA is to select those reviews scoring 4 out of 5. That way I eliminate those that think the place is the best thing since sliced bread/ those that think it's the worst place they've ever been to.
Your left with those that generally liked the place but, for whatever reason, it wasn't quite perfect. It can be interesting to see what they have to say.

Albermarle

Travelling for business is completely different than leisure. For instance business travellers are usually alone, so stuff like a TV in the room, good communication facilities, room service, maybe a hotel restaurant (some people feel embarassed dining alone in a normal restaurant), maybe gym facilities etc.

Travelling for leisure more likely to be with spouse/family/friends you're less likely to be sat in watching TV etc.

I don't think I've ever paid over £100 for a B&B and have never been disappointed. But I was disappointed with a recent hotel I paid £140 for  

You are right travelling for business and leisure is not the same, but I never really liked the hotel restaurants much,  or sitting by myself in some semi deserted place in some obscure town. On the other hand I find B&B's a bit too 'intimate' if the owners are buzzing around. That is why I liked the half way house of a partly modernised 'pub with rooms' , when I was on my own. Plus the added benefit that there is usually a good selection of beer and an easy atmosphere! However as you say some careful studying of reviews is necessary in advance. Also the better ones are usually in the countryside or on the edges of towns. Should be under £100 B&B but anything less than say £65 is usually a bit suspect.

thriftytracey

I recently paid £150 for a room in an hotel in Wareham.  Plus £60 supplement for our two small dogs.  The staff were lovely, the bed and bed linen were very good quality and comfortable but it was a tiny room and being an old coaching inn, the room was cold, even with the radiator on full.  Our dogs don't moult, we take a throw for the bed, they are housetrained yet £60!  I suppose I am subsidising the dirty dogs!

Pat38493

For the next couple of years we are spending weekends away every month or two exploring parts of the country to decide where we want to live in retirement (if we don't stay put).  

We are booked into a nice hotel in Chichester on Saturday night - after debating whether to get up early on Saturday to drive down, we booked into a £44 pub somewhere near Lemington Spa (nearly half way) on booking.com - thinking was that we just need somewhere to break the journey - might regret it but let's see.

Hal17

Thanks Nebulous 2 for the original post.

I just typed: The art of spending money - and what it reveals about who you really are into Google and it took me to a link for the article which worked perfectly. A really good read and gave me some interesting things to think about. 

hugheskevi

The thing that struck me since I retired was the fact that was how much money you actually spend going to work.  After buying lunch every day, coffees a couple of times a day for me and other people, petrol, work clothes and even cars - I used to change my car every 3 years because I did a lot of mileage, now I can't justify changing a 4 year old car because it's only done 21k miles.  You just don't have these expenses when you retire and to be honest my lifestyle has not changed and I am still saving every month.  

It always struck me that the healthiest options were also the cheapest. I always cycled to work, taking in a packed lunch I prepared before leaving for work. I never purchased coffee, given I could make tea whenever I wished. There was also no buying things on the way to or from work, as it was a phaff to lock up bike to do so.

Because we cycled to work, annual car mileage was small (about 3,000), and living in London we didn't really need a car anyway. So my wife and I just shared a small car we bought at 3 years old and ran until it dropped, it cost very little.

I did decades 'on the road' in the UK ( and elsewhere to a lesser extent) and working for different companies with different hotel expense limits. So I am a sort of 'expert'. Hardly ever stayed in 5*, only very occasionally in 4*. many, many 3*, quite a lot of 2 *, sometimes in a Travel Inn etc, often in 'pubs with rooms' 

I found most people at work put very little effort into choosing the hotel they stayed in with work. All our senior people just delegated it to their aide and ended up staying in chain hotels.

Yet I found that our travel provider had a huge range of very interesting places available to book, especially in northern cities, eg, staying in castles outside Darlington I was fortunate to not have to travel too much, only about once a month or so, and hence quite enjoyed it.

In summary if you pay much less than £100 B&B for a couple, you may be disappointed. ( unless it is a Tuesday night in January in a deserted seaside town !) Anything over that you should be OK. £150 should get you a nice hotel/location/ busy dates.  Anything above that you are probably paying just for 'fluff' mainly ( or staying in London)

For the last 5 months, I've been swanning around the Americas, drifting south, choosing all my own accommodation and transport along the way. Initially, I found it quite difficult to get out of the mindset of travel when younger, ie, staying in cheapest places, taking cheapest transport even if quite rough etc. 

It was quite hard to mentally reset to accept that budget isn't really a concern, as we could afford to travel for the rest of our lives without working again based. So instead I shifted to a 'value' approach - paying very little when I wouldn't get much use out of a place, but more when I would. I'd say it took about 2 months to really get out of old habits, both from past travel and habits from living in London.

So this week we are staying 7 nights in a 3 bedroom apartment with 2 bathrooms and 3 balconies, overlooking Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. It is rather excessive for just 2 people, but it only costs £48 per night after factoring in a discount for staying a week and discounts for AirBnb credit purchase I get through work and cashback from paying for that with a Chase card. I could find rooms for about £15 per night, but the difference would be massive. Equally, I could spend as much as I liked, yet the improvement would only be marginal.

When we were in the USA we just used AirBnb to get rooms in a house, typically costing about £40-£60 per night, then once we hit Mexico we started staying in nice places, typically about £30-£50 per night. That all seems to be a good balance between not paying a huge amount yet staying in nice places when there is little cost to doing so.

Albermarle

I found most people at work put very little effort into choosing the hotel they stayed in with work. All our senior people just delegated it to their aide and ended up staying in chain hotels

I pretty much worked on my own from home and did not have any 'aides'. So was able/forced to look around for places a bit more individual than chain hotels.

When we were in the USA we just used AirBnb to get rooms in a house, typically costing about £40-£60 per night, then once we hit Mexico we started staying in nice places, typically about £30-£50 per night

I have used airbnb for short break UK holidays, mainly because they are more flexible on start/end dates, than a more traditional holiday cottage. However they were not cheap, and interesting to see you only paying £50 a night. I thought the cleaning and booking fees tended to push the price up quite a bit ?