Anyone who hops onto this blog for more than 3 seconds will realise very quickly that my dogs are very important to me. In the picture here are Scout and Poppy, lurking behind the oregano. Jeffrey looks almost the same as his twin sister, so just imagine 2 Cavaliers and you’ll have the family group.
It’s also no secret that I’m a long-term thinker. Around the dogs is all the reclaimed brick paving I put in, so Old Lady Frogdancer won’t have to mow lawns and weed in her golden years. I like to do a job properly once, then walk away and never have to do it again. The side-hustle that I did for 6 years exemplifies this. You buy a thermomix and it’ll last at least 20 years. I love that!
I also have an eye on retirement. A group of us were talking about it at work during the end-of-year luncheon yesterday. Most of us are looking at another 4 or 5 years of work before pulling the pin. We’re starting to seriously think about how our days will look like, what we’ll do and what’s important to us. I’ve started to put some preparatory plans in place while I’m still working and part of that is visualising what an average day would look like and how Present Me can make things easier/cheaper for Future Me.
My life in retirement will be pretty simple. Once (or twice) a year I’ll be spending up big on international holidays, but for the rest of the year, I’ll be living very simply and frugally. It’s in my nature. I’ll be reading, sewing, knitting and living with the dogs, socialising every now and then and having the ‘Sunday Roast’ lunches every week to see my boys.
Which brings me back to the dogs. And the dog beach 5 minutes walk away.
I was reading a post by a Way Famous blogger where he talked about the “Buy it for Life” concept and he mentioned buying a dog walking bag. Intrigued, I clicked across and had a look. For 4 years I’ve been using a plain canvas bag to hold things like leashes, balls and my phone as we walk and it’s been a constant irritation. Sand gets into it and the straps aren’t long enough to sling over my shoulder to keep it from flopping around. It’s hard to locate things in it while on the move, which is annoying. But I got it for free and it does the job… barely.
This new bag seems to solve a lot of problems.
We get fined if we don’t pick up after our dogs, especially on the beach. This little dispenser makes it easy to carry them with us all the time.
The material it’s made from is sturdy and doesn’t flop open, so any bits and pieces I carry won’t get sand on them. This compartment is big enough for balls and treats and is very easy to open.
A zippable pocket for my phone. Yes, please! No more sand getting onto it and I don’t have to worry about it falling out of my pants pocket and getting lost.
I had a door key cut for my dog walking bag. This clip means that it isn’t swinging around on the handle of my canvas bag and it’ll be securely in place.
Was it cheap?
Hell no, especially when you take the exchange rate between Aussie and American dollars into consideration. It took just over half a day’s take-home wage to pay for this bag. That’s a lot of money for what’s essentially a luxury item.
But look at it. It’s incredibly sturdy, functional and will last me for YEARS. I’ll never have to ‘make do’ with a bag that irks me every time I use it. It will make my life just that tiniest bit easier every time I grab the leads and we walk sprint out the door. Every day for years. That’s a pretty good bargain when you think of it like this.
There have been times in my life where, with all the best will in the world, I had to ‘make do’ because I simply didn’t have the income to spend on buying the more expensive, better-made alternative. A low income limits your choices.
However, if you have the coin to be able to weigh up the available choices on a particular item, I’ll make the spending choice based on long-term value rather than purely looking at the price tag. If it’s not of huge, or only occasional value to me in the way I live my life, I’ll be frugal all the way.
But if the purchase dovetails neatly into enhancing my quality of life with the things I feel are important, and it will last for a very long period of time so I don’t have to think of buying it again, I’ll spend the extra coin.
Money well spent.
so happy for you that you will be retiring soon and enjoying a job free life, how exciting! i agree with you on purchasing a quality item……it is so much better than purchasing junk and it having to be replaced over and over.
Cute dogs! I do agree though that most times buying a good quality item that will last you years is worth it.
My mother used to purchase $20 school bags for me and I used to always break them. Then one day when I started working myself, I purchased a North Face bag that lasted me 7 years and I still use it today (although not on a daily basis). Ever since, I’ve sworn to seek out good quality items that I use everyday because they beat the cheap ones that need replacing so often.
I’m looking forward to coming home early today – it’s the last day of the year here ad 5 week’s holidays are here – and test-driving the bag by taking them for a walk.