Infinite Wealth, Baby

I'm spending very little here in the land of 12€ lunches, 30€ doctor visits, 200€/month health insurance payments, 50€/month condo fees, 4€ 15 minute Uber rides, 35€ grocery bills and 1€ wine carafes. And my health, while stable, isn't such that I foresee 20-30 years of hearty functionality. So, per this posting about the non-linearity of spending with age, I've been trying to enjoy a little more and relax my spending limits. All the saving and sacrifice I've done (more than most people, I believe) ought to lead to something while I'm still able to enjoy it. Now's the time.

The result has been surprising. I had to be in Lisbon for a 7am appointment, so I booked a hotel. And I chose a really nice one (paradoxially, in one of my most impoverished eras I was put up by promotors at five star European lodgings while on jazz festival tours, developing a taste for nice hotels). It was...nice. Oh, and my favorite film director just released a blu-ray in USA only, so I paid Amazon an extra $30 to send it across the Atlantic. And....that's about it.

Sometimes when my socks feel unfresh I switch mid-day, knowing it will increase wear and tear (having been quite poor for a long time, that will never not set off mental alarms). "Spendin' money!" I boast cheerily to the empty room, a big shot flinging slighty wilted footwear into the hamper.

So, figuring a dollar's depreciation on the socks plus blu-ray and hotel, I've lavished a splendid 331€ on myself this year above/beyond basics.

I decided to try harder. "I am infinitely wealthy," I announced to the audience previously awed by my sock performance. But nothing's happened. Though I feel no deprivation aside from the ironic let-down of finally removing dampers only to discover that the engine needn't race.