I spent a few hours this afternoon in a contemplative mood over the question: if I had a unexpected financial windfall, what would I do with it? Not how would I pay down a mortgage or pay off my car, or how i might budget it or invest it, the responsible things, but what would I blow it on? What irresponsible thing would I want to do with it? Here is the result of hours of thinking:
Yes, that’s an empty list. Literally, nothing. I’m not good at this irresponsibility stuff.
So I started again with a modified premise: what would someone who wants for nothing do with it? Wanting something would fall as a subset of all possible things, so make the superset list and see if anything sticks out. That list was longer:
- buy a new car
- buy some new gadget (laptop, phone, tablet)
- convert it all to ones and tip lots and lots of strippers
- move to a swank penthouse apartment for a year
- vacation someplace exotic this year; twice
- hire a personal assistant
- host weekly dinners for friends at fun restaurants for the rest of the year
- rent out a venue and host a party for 100 of my closest friends
- set a monthly “must spend this money” budget with the consequence that any unspent money goes to Republican presidential candidate (how’s that for motivation!) — I could even recruit friends to help
Some of those things are are so outside the realm of reality that it’s just not going to happen. A new car? I barely drive the one I have. And I really hate moving so the penthouse is pretty unlikely. Most of the others, however, all seem perfectly doable and a couple I’m rather excited about. Perhaps I dream too responsibly and in general not often enough.
And now we wait for Thursday to see if that unexpected windfall comes to fruition.
Digital Ramblings 
What happens on thursday?
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Resolution to this.
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You need a goal such as, visit all the national parks, or buy up the old downtown buildings in our hometown and convert them awesomely, or something. I can’t think of many completely irresponsible things I would do, either, because… why should I do them again? I wouldn’t get any joy from it. Yet I could do something just for myself quite easily, especially traveling. Doing something just for yourself needn’t be irresponsible.
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True, doing something just for your self isn’t necessarily irresponsible, but to my mind it’s hard to justify spending money on things you don’t actually need if you have outstanding debts (mortgages, for instance) that should be paid or other ways of better spending those resources (investing, saving, 401k, etc).
But I’ve become resolved to be more irresponsible financially, or as most people would see it: living a little.
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I find it works better sometimes to brainstorm as someone else. It’s a good technique.
Of those, I can actually see you going to someplace exotic (twice!) and the ones involving friends and parties/resturants. (Biggest bang for the happiness buck are probably those – and I’m not just saying that out of selfishness. See! http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/can-money-buy-happiness)
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You should have dinner at the space needle restaurant. Spending $100 a person was a bit extravagant but it was for a
special person.
I’m not sure who you’d like to treat for this dinner. Of course, I’ll volunteer for this arduous task.
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