Hunting Happiness

Flexo over at Consumerism Commentary has a very timely and poignant post about living frugally versus, well, living. It is particularly applicable because SomeGal has been pestering me to indulge in one of my vices: automobiles. In a past life (before SomeGal), I had some very expensive and very fast sports cars. Ironically, back then household income was a lot lower than it is now. And last year (2007) was an absolutely record breaking year as far as income.

At SomeGal’s urging we test drove various cars. I have to say it was a lot of fun as we both enjoy sporty driving.  After the initial impulses to spend large amounts of money I determined that I wouldn’t be willing to even entertain the notion of moving up more than $10K in price (versus my current car’s trade-in value).  A couple of cars fit very nicely into that price range (some new, some used) and those are the likely contenders. Most of them have AWD which is something I miss having.

But somehow I’m having a hard time. My current car is only a couple years old, is completely paid off, and works just fine. I remember how much more stressful life was when the difference between what I/we took home and what I had to then immediately pay out wasn’t that big.  That is not a situation I ever want to return to.  I also can’t help but consider the opportunity cost.  We currently have one rental property (posts on this coming soon!) and the time is ideal to snap up more.  That $10K could buy a really nice, fun car now, but it could also be the down payment on a second rental.  In option one the $10K is worth essentially nothing in 5 years, but in option 2 it is worth at least $10K and probably closer to $20K.

So it all boils down to the title of this post and to Flexo’s post: at what point does being frugal interfere with happiness?  After all, I think the whole point of being frugal is that eventually it allows us to live according to our values which leads to happiness.