Well, the net worth took a hit yesterday. My wife and I decided to go look for some night stands for our bedroom. We have been using some homemade night stands for about 6 years and before that, we didn’t have any. I had promised my wife that we could use some of my annual bonus to pick up a couple pieces of furniture to add to our rather small collection of purchased furniture. Don’t get me wrong. We have furniture, but some of it was given to us over the years. If it was up to me, we would have used this “free” stuff forever, but I’m not the only one to consider, and my wife has been extremely patient with my frugal approach to furniture.
So, off to the humungous “locally owned” furniture stores. This place is HUGE. It has acres and acres of furniture and is in a small town not too far from where we live. As we looked around, we quickly realized that we were at the point that it was time to move up from many different mismatched pieces of furniture, to a set of matching furniture for our master bedroom. No, we didn’t have to, but we decided it was time.
So, we purchased a sleigh bed frame, dresser, mirror and two nightstands. They all look very nice and it was pretty reasonable to get everything for $1500 including tax. Most of the bedroom sets there would have set us back between $3000 to $5000, so we feel like we got a relatively good deal.
Because of this purchase, our net worth is taking a bit of a hit. We have never counted any items inside our house towards our net worth because our preference is to be extra conservative on our assets. I’m sure we could increase our net worth by about $10k or so if we counted all these kinds of things, but I’d rather not even consider them in the formula. So, our savings is going down by $1500. That’s about half of the annual bonus, but we also got over $3k in taxes back. All of this was somewhat unanticipated so it seemed like the right time to use a little of it to upgrade our furniture.
I’d be lying if I didn’t say I had a tiny bit of buyers remorse, but my wife is happy and we needed it, so the remorse has been kept to a minimum. (I don’t think I’m capable of not thinking about it at least a few times when the total was over a few hundred dollars)
Sometimes it is hard to spend the money we save, but heck – we have to live – right? You found an attractive bedroom set for a good price – that is the smart way to spend!
ah, the compromises of marriage…yeah, I wouldn’t bother adding furniture and the like to the net worth calculation. You will find, if you do try to sell, that people are unwilling to spend much for used furniture…just look at the prices on craigslist.
I was faced with a similar delima several months ago. My husband suggessted we either finished the house (~$10,000 worth of improvements) or start looking. Well, I spent the $10M. Now we have a complete home that is quite nice for both of us to enjoy. Best of all, I got to keep the cheap mortgage, utilities, and great neighborhood. Comprimise is good.
Enjoy your new furniture.
the sole purpose of money is to provide happiness. if you’re wife is happy, you’re achieved success in your finances!