If you had a 'spare' £400k, which lavish but mundane items would you buy?

[noblegiraffe]

I've got the £100 pencil sharpener and the £2000 salt and pepper shakers and I'm eying up the gold plated toilet brush holder for £1480

https://www.harrods.com/en-gb/p/zodiac-cylinder-gold-plated-toilet-brush-holder-000000000001590094

But I've still got quite a lot of money left over. What should I get?

A VW camper van for a start. Cost around £50-£60k or more depending on the interior F&F etc. Not to sleep in, but just for days out, travelling for UK holidays, etc. Just the sheer convenience of having all your "stuff" with you, and the convenience of being able to sit and have a cuppa in comfort wherever you feel like parking.

After that, continue with my collection of Jelly Cats - got quite a few already, and like the thrill of the chase to find small stockists wherever we go to pick up something rare. Not interested in the ones that every shop/dept store sells - it's the more obscure/older ones that I'm collecting. Managed to "rescue" a couple rare ones on holiday last week - one was in the gift shop of an English Heritage garden and the other from a gift shop in a Yorkshire Dales village!

Many different pairs of indoor embroidered slippers and Scandi woollen house boots.

Oh and a pub or a farm.

You wouldn't want to upgrade to the Star Wars one for £2399?

https://www.harrods.com/en-gb/p/royal-selangor-star-wars-chess-set-000000000006580916

Bankruptcy then...........

If you had donated to the SNP cause via subscriptions , I bet you feel violated hearing where it all went.
Why are our politicians and hang ons so corrupt? How do they get away with it all ? It is sickening and he bought some really random things.

I would make them a roaring success by transforming them into Mumsnet centres.

A mumsnet centre that doesn’t use loo brushes and only lets you in with a special password.

DH isn’t the most observant so I think I’d swap all of the existing curtains (Dunelm, Next, one pair from JL when I was feeling frivolous) with made to measure ones in fancy materials. I think I could also go & buy some fabulous jewellery and claim I’d got a bit carried away in Accessorize. Although there is a flaw in that plan as I’d be bound to lose the odd earring and DH would be confused at how stressed or upset I was. I could get some gorgeous bits for around the house which DH would most view as tat.

Live on it and quit work. Bliss

My DP could get a lot of equipment for his hobby without me clocking on, as most of the equipment is kept in one place I don't go.
I would buy the most dull things, there's a toilet seat I want that's over £100 anyway so give me 400K and I'd want a £400 toilet seat.
I'd replace all the towels for thick cotton ones, proper big bath towels as well not these small little things they call a bath towel these days.
Bedsheets too, buy the really nice soft patterned ones.
I'd replace the carpets and pay for a deep clean on my house once a fortnight. DP might notice the carpets but I can explain that away with 'savings'.

And most importantly I'd get my car serviced when it's supposed to be!

It actually makes me a bit sad that things like this exist. 5k for a picnic basket? I could take my family on holiday for 2 weeks for that, buy a car, feed my family for months, it just feels so wasteful and unnecessary. But then, if I had 400k I probably would buy a few stupid things too. Mine would be excessively luxurious every day items like fancy shampoo and conditioner, a posh all singing all dancing kettle, and probably some automatic blinds 😂

Air con !!

Japanese toilet.

I’d love to have a hairdresser every other day to my house to tame my hair at home and then I could just leave it till the next visit.
Agree that spending so much on such frivolous items is criminal. It is another world and ( in this case ) not even their own earned money but someone else’s 😩

Of normal one i mean!

I bought a stick blender with his name on about 20 years ago, it was about £100 which felt like a lot but I've used it many times a week since then and it still feels like it will outlast me.

But if instead of buying all your household stuff from supermarkets or Ikea you got it all from JL or Harrods and sorted by price high to low, you could upgrade your spending by about 50-100 times, meaning that £400k only has the same spending power as about £5-10k.

For example, instead of the kitchen bins I got from Ikea for about £10, I could spend £490 on BLANCO Select Orga Under Counter 2-Section Pull-Out Kitchen Bin & Organiser, 49L from John Lewis and they don't look different enough for DP to notice that we have a new bin. Or at least that they cost so much money.

Art
Gold bars
A couple of boxes of Neuhaus chocolates
Opera tickets
Fortnight & Masons hamper

I saw a really lovely silk eiderdown for about £2000. Although Harrods will do you an £18k mink one that might keep you warmer if perhaps you needed something suitable for a campervan?

I'd buy some boodles jewellery and say I got it off etsy

Go to Center Parcs in the school holidays for a week. Just looked and a week in a treehouse from 31 July is £12k!

A house keeper to place Madams internet orders, someone will need to liaise with Harrods VIP for you, you won’t want to go to the bother of speaking directly.

I'd have my kitchen extended and loads of storage built in so I could have all the Ninja gadgets and themed crockery/cutlery/accessories for different cuisines and occasions.

I wouldn't waste my money on stuff like that, I'd pay off the mortgage, do up the house and invest the rest, and see if I had enough to go down to 3 days p/w or retire straight away. How mundane is that for you?

Steady on, you've only got £400k.