What was your best impulsive buy ever?

[Scanner]

I know the good saving advicers tend to avoid impulse buys as they budget their monthly incomes and save but I guess all of us at one time or another have made an impulse buy.

Whether it was a vacation, a car, a gym membership, a new outfit. . .what was the best impulse buy you ever made and didn't regret, even though it kind of hurt at the time?

[atx]

i purchased a jeep wrangler last year that was 10 years old and had 80k miles on it, i drove it a few months and sold it and made $3k in profit.

[disneysteve]

I've been trying to think of an answer for this. The first thing that came to mind was this. In February 2000, I left my job abruptly with no work lined up. A short time later, while still unemployed with no prospects, I came downstairs one Tuesday morning and asked DW if she'd like to go to Disney World. She asked when and I said how about Saturday. She thought I was kidding but by the end of the day, we had invited my mom to come along and made hotel reservations at an EconoLodge close to the property where we had stayed before (I think it was $23/night at the time). We had annual Disney passes so our admission was already paid for and we drive to Florida so didn't have to worry about airfare. We left 4 days later, spent 8 nights in Florida and had a great time without a care in the world. We know how to do Disney cheaply and the entire 11-day trip cost us about $1,000 total.

I figured what better use of my unemployed time than to spend it with my family in a place we all love.

[kork13]

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), pretty much all of my impulse buys are for little, inexpensive (read: cheap) things that in almost every case I do come to regret buying. Anything I'm spending more than about $100 for, I'm much more careful about... My camera, bicycle, car, computer, and many things so on...

I guess I can say this... ~2 years ago, I decided to take a framing class. It was only like $30, but was completely on a whim. Not only did I become good friends with the woman who ran the shop (which makes it worthwhile enough as it is), but since then, I've saved literally hundreds of dollars framing my own photography. Also, out of that came an opportunity to learn about using a woodshop attached to the framing shop, and I ended up building a simple but very nice bookcase for myself, again saving ~$300 by doing it myself. Plus, all of those things look good, and I have the satisfaction of knowing I did them myself. So a $30 investment to save over $1000? How's that for ROI??

[cooliemae]

My second year in college I moved out of the dorms and into a one bedroom apartment. Because of the setup it was no longer feasible to use my computer as my tv, so I went looking. I ended up at Sears (eastern New Mexico doesn't offer much in the way of choice) and was just looking at tvs. I was planning on getting a small 24-27 in television. I ended up walking out of the store after spending a $1000.00 on a flat screen sony 32" trinitron with stand and surround sound system. Of course I'm still using the tv and stand, so I guess it wasn't too bad for a better than 10 years of use.

[Like2Plan]

Not exactly an impluse buy, but the closest I can think of is the purchase of our house.

DH and I were living in Los Angeles and we had a move to the DC area upcoming, so we took a house hunting trip. We contacted a real estate agent in advance and then she showed us about 30+ properties. We ranked them first choice to last choice. We made an offer on property #1--it was declined. We moved to property #2 and it was accepted. Bada Bing. We made arrangements for our move. This was about 26 years ago. We're still in the same house.

I wanted to look at more houses and take more time. But, DH didn't want to put our things in storage--and he didn't want to worry about an interim move. He wanted to hit the ground running with his new job--so any house that met our requirements (and price) was okay with him.

[littleroc02us]

Actually we just splurged on a trip to my friends wedding. We flew out this past Friday and rented a midsize car and stayed on the Reeding River in a Hampton Inn facing the riverside on the sixth floor. Very beautiful. Just got back yesterday, had a great time. Tickets for my wife and I were $500 total, the rental car was $22 for the whole weekend, but the hotel was the big splurge @ $126 a night.

[GREENBACK]

Bought a boat a few years ago for a really good price. I didn't have cash so I financed it. I never finance "toys" but this was a one time offer and the reduced price made up for the financing costs. I have never regretted the decision and enjoy the boat now as much as the first time on the water in it.

[briandownie]

My Audi TT Roadster. I have never regretted it not even for one minute and I've had it for 5 years.

Brian

[krantcents]

My only impulsive buys relate to food! I cannot pass up a good cookie, a slice of NY pizza or some other kind of food.

[krantcents]

25 years ago, I bought a Rolex on impulse. It symbolized achieving success. I now realize things like that are not very important. Some may say, it is easier to say after you are successful. I guess I will never know!

[scfr]

My first vehicle was a scooter, bought when I was a college student with next to no money to my name. When I went in to buy it, on impulse I bought a top-of-the-line helmet that probably cost at least half of what the scooter did. Never had an accident, but if I had that helmet would have been worth it's weight in gold.

I've made other less virtuous impulse purchases, but none that have "hurt" financially.

[fiscallyprudent]

my macbook

[wincrasher]

This last May, I bought a new truck. The previous month, I bought my Camaro. $65k for 2 new cars in 2 months. I was gonna wait on the truck, but a good deal came along. A bit impulsive, but I've not regretted it for a minute.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Well... I emotionally and at the last moment pressured family decisions twice toward getting more expensive "vehicles" than the original plan called for. The first time was when my spouse was going to buy a jon boat for use on the Mississippi. I did not have such familiarity with the river as he had, but every year someone drowns while fishing so I wanted him to have a stable boat. I insisted he buy a bigger boat. Can you believe I practically begged him to get a bigger boat? I'm not at all sorry to have done that! The bigger one is much more stable.

Similarly, when my son was preparing to leave for college, we decided to buy him a used vehicle. He wanted a truck. We evidently waited too close to the start of school to find quite what he wanted. We did not know it would take so much time. And as the school date was nearing, I was thinking of the insurance statistics. As much as I trusted my son, I got anxious and wanted him to have a truck with some safety features. That made the price range go up quite a bit, plus he got to look at newer vehicles than the worn out farm trucks we'd been viewing. We spent $6,000 more than we'd originally thought to spend. Again, I do not regret it one bit.

I did not, by the way, go along on any of the buying trips. I do not have anything like a poker face and a salesperson could have sniffed out and exploited my willingness to PAY for safety.