Three Dollar Questions

I’ve been waiting a couple of months for Parasite to come to streaming and was really excited to see that it finally arrived on Amazon Prime over the weekend. But much to my consternation, when I clicked on the title, I saw that it was only available to purchase, for $15. Grrrr.

In the span of about three seconds, I had a realization, why am I even debating this decision? I spend $12 at the movie theater every other week, what’s an extra $3 for something I’ve been dying to see that allows me to watch from the comfort of my own home?

So I went ahead and spent the extra $3 and I’m sure glad I did. (Trailer here if you’re interested)

I’m not for spending frivolously, but I am for spending purposefully. I learned this from Ramit Sethi, who has taught me to focus on $30,000 questions, not $3 ones.

“Is the Chase Sapphire Reserve card still worth it?”

My answer below pic.twitter.com/mVLf9camB1

— Ramit Sethi (@ramit) January 18, 2020

Ramit also says, “Spend extravagantly on the things you love, and cut costs mercilessly on the things you don’t.” To that point, I’ve been playing around with Tiller Money, a really neat budgeting tool.

I wouldn’t describe myself as someone who spends extravagantly, but one look through the most recent 90 days of transactions was eye-opening. I only started tracking this a few days ago, but it’s already clear that there is more than a little fat that I can easily cut.

Life’s too short to pinch every penny, but it’s also long enough that we have to be careful, because it’s easy to let your spending snowball out of control.