What is your biggest lifestyle indulgence?

[Thankfucksummerishere]

Mulling this over as I look through job listings. I think for me it is enjoying fitness classes at different expensive studios, well pre covid it was. Not sure when we will be able to do that again! But I really enjoy it so much and it is definitely not an essential, I'm fortunate to be able to do so. We do live in an eye-wateringly expensive area so I guess that is partly a luxury, although we do need to live in this city for my partner's work.

What would you say is the most luxury aspect of your lifestyle?

Living in a very expensive area. I'm married to an American and we live in Manhattan. It's the biggest, most ridiculous luxury to spend a ton or money on basically no space, but we love it.

I said my hair stylist upthread but should really have added

Health club membership
L'Occitane body care
Netflix and Amazon Prime

Beauty treatments in naice salons, designer handbags, expensive toiletries, silk bedding, PT.

Horse. He’s worth it.

Hobby stuff: Steel, coke and gas, tools

That being said it has enabled me to create my own social distancing tool so perhaps it's not really an indulgence?

Pretty much similar things to others. We like nice holidays and nice hotels. I've stayed in some nice hotels and now when we go on a big holiday I want to stay in a decent one.

Fancy coffee, a couple of subscription boxes and one that's a bit different is surf lessons. They're £30 a lesson but so much fun. But obviously they've stopped just now.

Well i'm in my 30s & live in London so a big chunk goes on the mortgage.

Travelling/holidays. We love to explore and tend to go away for longer breaks and travel around a country or region, and over the course of a month or so away we will generally mix some more low key stuff (being in a remote area, hiking etc and staying in fairly basic accommodation) with more expensive parts (nice 5* hotels and good food when we’re in a city etc). We also treat ourselves for birthdays/anniversaries to hotel breaks in London (we live in London but love a night or two at somewhere like The Savoy or Shangri-La at the Shard). We do spend a lot on holidays and hotels - maybe £20k a year - but we work hard and need to enjoy our down time and time away from work.

Our biggest extravagance is definitely our house. We like to redecorate often and splash money on high quality furnishings. We keep it ultra modern and in our ideal taste. We never scrimp on homeware or garden items at all. We also like good food and eating out. For me personally, I don’t spend money on many things but I have very nice handbags and expensive beauty products (but I don’t use many).

wowsers @Swiftier I can't imagine having 20k spare every year for holidays!

Holidays
First class flights
School fees
Second home
Not in that order.

Art and craft equipment and tools.

Leaving my horrible job

Total other end of the spectrum.
We have a £20 per week treat budget.

This thread is good and very interesting and I'm happy that people have such a range of treats and hobbies.

The only thing I found annoying was someone saying "but we work hard."

The vast majority of this country and people around the world work extremely hard for low pay. I take umbrage when people tag that on, as yes you work hard but so do many many others and they will never get the recognition though pay that you do.

@flirtygirl good point.

Skiing 3 weeks or so a year is definitely up there, or the road bikes which collectively cost more than my car. Definitely both essential non-essentials if that makes sense. Don’t eat out a lot or do expensive clothing that’s not for sporting purposes so decathlon/M&S/supermarket clothing/shoes and no designer handbags, nor the latest phones or laptops. Different strokes for different folks!

A real indulgence pre covid was visiting dd at uni and booking a nice hotel overnight just for the two of us. I have missed that.

Books

Pre covid it was eating out and massages, so I’m saving a fortune

Oh, and travel.

Food but I don’t spend everything I earn so not scrimping to pay for that food!

Lavish and regular holidays and weekend breaks.
Eating out.
Takeaway coffee (necessity not luxury 😀)

Lash extensions every fortnight
Botox every 4 months
Sports massage every fortnight - used to be a chiropractor but this has kept me more mobile
Travel - short breaks x 3/long summer holiday and sports holiday in the winter.
Going out - gigs/festivals and bars

@flirtygirl I think you read my comment in a way I didn’t intend. When I said ‘but we work hard’ it was more a way of explaining how we justify spending what is objectively a lot of money on holidays - rather than saving it for example.

That doesn’t reflect my views on how hard anyone else works or how much they earn. Someone who doesn’t earn as much could just as easily say ‘we spend £X amount on a treat/holiday/whatever because we work hard and need to enjoy our downtime’.

It was holidays - not necessarily expensive/luxury ones but I liked to go away a few times a year at least - main holiday usually a mix of beach and exploring plus lots of eating/drinking with DH, a week or two visit to a relative that lives in a beautiful place abroad (again with DH), couple of uk weekends, a long weekend away somewhere hot with friends and/or my sisters.

Obviously things are probably going to be different travel wise for a lot of people for the foreseeable, but it would have been changing for us anyway as we have a baby due next month.

Apart from that it’s my elderly dog with a couple of health conditions- not so much as an indulgence as a much loved but incredibly costly family member.

We’re just starting to spend a bit on the house, it’s been a shit tip for years and we’ve never really had the money to do much about it because we’d rather go away, have days out, meals etc. Priorities have shifted a bit now and I’m seriously regretting not doing more on the house as we went along!