one of the worst things about being a grown up is that you spend a lot of money on things you can't even get excited about

they have this SLEEP NUMBER thing now and tempurpedic and can't you just make this easy for me

need blinds/curtains on nearly all our windows

I've been here 6 years and still have no blinds on the kitchen window because nobody can see in, the sun only comes in annoyingly at times of day when I'm in and awake for like 2 weeks a year, and have you seen the price of that shit (yes you have)

would like a new bed (the current one collapsed in one corner, which is ok probably my fault because I stood on it to change a light bulb and must've put my foot in the wrong place; however it was a hand-me-down and I've never totally liked it) but every time I look at bed prices I go "hooray for being short so my feet only just reach the collapsed area"

would like a new fridge/freezer because the bottom of the door is rusty and the door seal is beginning to go and one corner of the inside of the freezer gets remarkably toasty, making me fear that things are not actually properly frozen, but similarly

there are a few things I might need to call a plumber for soon and argh £££

Ah fuck, I just went to a tailor because I had to get a suit altered for a wedding (am in the wedding party so I have to wear THIS stupid suit and make it work), plus a couple pairs of pants and some jeans I wanted fixed up. TWO HUNDRED FORTY FIVE FUCKING DOLLARS. I have no idea how to haggle or what a good price is for this stuff so I just sort of went, uh...ok.

sorry ONE pair of pants and some jeans. I mean the suit needed the jacket and waist altered plus a hem, the pants needed waist and hem, and the jeans needed the waist taken in and hem. Seems like a lot of fucking money though, maybe I got taken. Needed it fast so maybe it was also a "rush" premium (i.e. the guy read on my face that I wasn't going to go shopping around in this situation).

i got a new used car last year and because it was "nice" and not made in the 20th century, my insurance doubled. car insurance is the most joyless expense. at least medical bills help alleviate pain or the potential prevention of pain.

Legal fees, stamp duty, removal van, council tax, new flooring, bed, mattress, sofa, fridge, desk, table, bookshelves, wallpaper, paint, chairs...looking at about £9000 to move house, on top of mortgage deposit. This is why I'm getting obsessive about paint colours and garish wallpaper designs. Probably another £10000 on a new bathroom and super boring stuff like pointing and guttering next year.

yeah we moved 2.5 years ago and still need a bunch of that stuff

Fuck don't even get me started on when we bought a place -- we did pretty minimal work and no "renovation" per se but still had to refinish the floors, paint the whole place, resurface a bathtub, etc. and that shit plus buying new rugs for almost every room (co-op rules on floor coverage), window blinds and various furnishings really fucking adds up, esp on top of closing costs and moving expenses. And all this shit is way more pricy in NYC too.

fwiw I had to interview this dude who wrote a book about negotiation at a newspaper job I had, and he told me that a good thing to do in that price shock situation is to start by asking something like "why does it cost so much?" Allegedly that sometimes leads to an immediate price drop, and even if it doesn't it kind of gives you room to push downward without locking you into a "fuck this, I'm leaving!" position that you can't back out of. But I always forget to actually do that in the moment.

^good advice. dude who wrote the book otm

yeah, buying a mattress is a horrible experience, it always feels like you're massively overpaying

I looked into this when trying to figure out whether my mattress was the cause of my back pain (it wasn't, turned out I had arthritis) and came to the conclusion that the industry is a joke.

some people sleep better on hard mattresses, some on soft, but treating yourself to an expensive mattress is mostly a delusion. they're all just foam and springs at the end of the day, there's not some magic material that comes with the high end models.

industry is built on skeezy salespeople + making it impossible to comparison shop

http://i.imgur.com/Jp1NJJT.gif

Flea meds for the cat. Anti-itch meds for the cat. Anti-arthritis meds for the cat.

Not even a thank you.

Same cat who vomited on my most recent mattress before I'd gotten the sheets on.

iatee there's a large store here where you basically pay for the amount of springs you get (in the thousands) plus 'better' natural materials etc. I could tell the difference between quite a lot of them. There was also a 35,000 GBP mattress which I have no idea why it was that expensive.
There are also shitty stores with endless variations of gimmicks which drove me mad.
I'm just glad my horrible hip pain has disappeared but annoyed I slept on an old hard mattress for years thinking it was doing me good.