Cheap no longer am I

I have always been pretty frugal. OK, cheap. I am sure my Scandinavian ancestry has something to do with it and I feel I has served me well. For the most part. But one thing I have learned (the hard way, because that's how most big lessons in life are learned) is that being cheap sometimes means going expensive. For instance, I used to try to tackle every home improvement project myself. You know, to save money. But invariably it would take forever and look pretty crappy. And sometimes I would actually have to pay someone to fix my work. So now I reserve my home improvement ambitions to minor projects like hanging pictures.

Another lesson this applies to is boats. Anyone who has ever owned a boat knows this well. Our first boat was a 1950's era pontoon boat (and the motor was the same age!) that I had to sort of rebuild the deck to. We ended up spending a lot of money on a better motor, because a 50 year old motor doesn't work very well. Our second boat was a 15 year old speedboat that we sunk on the first day we owned it (hello, drainplug?). We spent a lot of money fixing the motor on that one too. Our third boat was another old pontoon boat but we didn't really pay for it - it came with our house. But yet again, we have put a fair amount into fixing the motor and the boat reminds us of an old river boat, like the African Queen. Our fourth boat was a new kayak. Now we're getting somewhere! No motor! No moving parts! And it's new to boot! I love it. Our fifth boat was a used sailboat that, upon further examination, had many broken parts. We had to get the whole mast rigging thing-a-ma-jig fixed. At an additional expense, of course. Our sixth boat was another new kayak. Again, new is good!
So, Lisa wants a new sailbooat. Not brand new, but new to us. So on Saturday we went to the boat place and found a really nice boat. It cost about 3 times what I was thinking of spending but it was nearly new - in great shape. After thinking about it for awhile, we decided to just spend the extra money and get it right the first time.

I am putting that to use in other areas. We just replaced our plastic lawn chairs with teak. We have an Amish-made dining room set. We now own two Toyotas that I am pretty sure will last forever.

So I am still frugal. I'll go to a nice restaurant but I'll bring a coupon. I am finding that value is much more important than the price.