Have you ever sat down, felt the lack of money in your pocket and your bank account, then realized you have no idea where the money went? Have you ever thought “I didn’t even buy anything this month where has my paycheck gone off to”? If that’s the case, you may have a case of the “lack-of ideas-on-what-to-buy-so-you-spend money-on coffee-and-food” syndrome. Not that this post is going to try and convince you to save money, quite the opposite really, but let’s go through a few things which you can buy then look back and feel like you spent money on something tangible. This does not mean you should not ever buy food or coffee, just that exclusively spending money on something which disappears within a few minutes might leave you reconsidering your life choices near the end of the month.
An updated smartphone
The advancements in phones over the past decade have been staggering, to say the least and keeping up can be quite a pain, but that does not mean you should stay in the past forever. Have you had your phone for a few years now? Maybe 3 or 4 years? If so, it might just be time to upgrade to something more modern. Unless you are an Apple fanatic, it is not recommended to buy the new iPhone X for the modest sum of over a thousand dollars, that just is not the most logical step for most average working people. However, you can get a different phone for less than half the price of the aforementioned new iPhone and still have access to most of the latest features which are now the modern standard. The moment you start using it, is the moment when you find all these new features you didn’t even know you couldn’t live without.
A fancy keyboard
Do you spend a lot more time on the PC than the average person? Does typing almost feel more natural than speaking in person? Do you maybe play PC games which involve using the keyboard rather than a controller? If you answered yes to any of those questions, they a mechanical keyboard might be something you are interested in. If you have not heard about them before, mechanical keyboards are exactly what the name suggests. All the key switches in the keyboard operate mechanically like in the good ol’ days rather than the more common rubber-dome mush-feeling keyboards which are flooding offices in the modern day. Mechanical keyboards provide not only endurance and performance, being much harder to break even if you are especially gifted in the disaster-causing department, but also often come with fancy LEDs under each key with several different lighting options. It might sound silly, but it really does make life that much nicer. Not to mention the main appeal of the keyboard itself, the clickity clackity sounds of the keypresses.
A place to call your very own
This is a notably bigger investment than a keyboard or a smartphone, but there is just a feeling that cannot be beaten by anything. Having a house which you can safely say will not be taken away from you by the landlord next week is a feeling not many can experience in the modern day. Regardless of the fact that this is a much pricier thing to think about, it is something that will definitely remind you of where your money went even if you feel your pockets growing emptier. If you do not have enough for to put down for a deposit, a housing loan can be acquired with relative ease if you have a decent credit rating. If you end up feeling tied up by your house and want to move somewhere entirely different after a while, a property is still an amazing asset to own. You can rent out the house to someone, getting passive income while you travel or even rent it out on Airbnb, making it a bit less hands-off but even more profitable. In the end, you can always just sell it to someone else, and with the housing prices growing in big cities across the globe, it should turn out more than profitable.
Some great headphones
Is music a big part of your life? Do earbuds make your ears bleed (figuratively)? Do you want to hear what your favourite songs really sound like? A great pair of headphones is just the thing you might just need in your life, providing comfort for your hears, saving you the aching and replacing it with a pair of earmuffs. Proper noise cancelling is a godsend on public transport and busy streets, allowing you to listen on lower volumes while still being able to hear the music. An outdoor model like the AKG K845BT are an amazing pair of headphones, both wireless and wired, solid battery life, stylish design, relatively compact, great audio quality and for a rather accessible price considering they came out a few years back. If you are looking for some headphones to use indoors, maybe because you live in a flat and an amazing set of speakers would get you reported to the landlord by all your neighbors. Consider some open-back headphones which are incredibly comfortable to wear for extensive periods of time and allow you to hear the outside world while wearing them.
A good mattress
Sleep is a considerably important part of your life, allowing you to recharge in advance for the next day. As we all know, nearly nothing can be worse in the morning than a terrible night’s sleep when you need to get up and go to work. If your mattress is old and feels like springs more than anything consider getting a new one. Your future self and your back will thank you. If your current mattress is perfectly fine but you still feel the need to better accommodate your dreaming self, memory foam is your friend. It isn’t cheap but, companies like Tempur make mattresses and pillows which make you feel almost weightless when sleeping on them. It is a somewhat surreal feeling at first but you soon realize how much kinder nights will be to your spine.
Quality kitchen knives
If you suffer from bad-tomato-cutting syndrome, consider it might be due to something else other than your inability to cut in a straight line. Blunt knives are something probably everyone had to deal with at one point in their lives and unless you are rich enough to eat in a fancy restaurant on a daily basis, chances are you want to eat something nice and warm at home as well. Cooking with terrible tools can be an extremely painful experience and a knife is used for most of the cooking process. Investing in either one or a set of high-tier knives, Japanese or other, will make your time spent in the kitchen much more pleasant and satisfying. Who knows, maybe you will even start to enjoy cooking at one point and join the enlightened few who eat quality food in the comfort of their own home.
Organic fruit and veg
If you’re not the biggest fan of eating your greens, you are not alone. But keep in mind that other than the childhood trauma of your parents forcing you to eat mushy peas, not liking fruit might be your own fault. If you tend to cheap out when grocery shopping then the lack of spending might very much manifest itself in your dishes with a distinct lack of taste. Having to then overdose on salt and pepper in order to get any sort of flavour out of your food, is pretty common and not too good for your blood pressure. Organic produce tends to actually taste like the vegetable or fruit it is, as opposed to the usual, slightly flavoured water. Much like the aforementioned knife, some good ingredients might make you start enjoying cooking, saving you money and health.
A good mattress is very important to spend more money on. I learned the hard way that trying to ‘save’ or ‘skimp’ does not help in the long run.