How does everyone save for tools

[gizmo]

Wife makes her money and I make mine.  We agree on financial responsibilities and as long as those are met we buy what we want when we want without permission from the other.

[Ray Newman]

Gizmo: BINGO! The Squeeze and I have been doing the same for almost 40 years. So far it has worked very, very well.

[Danny in Houston]

I'm 58, have worked hard all my life, and I'm fortunate to be in a position where I can just buy what I want.  I usually discuss a major purchase with my wife (say over $1,000) but otherwise I just buy it.

Woodworking is my hobby, but I have an LLC (dwfinedesigns.com and instagram @dwfinedesigns - works in progress) and I am hopeful to at least pay my expenses at the end of next year as I work less and spend more time in the shop.

[Admiral]

Wife makes her money and I make mine.  We agree on financial responsibilities and as long as those are met we buy what we want when we want without permission from the other.

My bride has her own theory, "What's yours is mine and what's mine is mine."  I get an allowance every paycheck, she gets the rest.  She paid off the mortgage almost exactly 30 years after we bought our first of 5 different houses (serial relocation for work) and has been regularly funding the 401k and IRA, so I have no complaints.  She's no spendthrift, and good managing money.  It's nice not having a mortgage payment.

[Cian]

Great thread.

We’ve been DINKS (Dual Income - No Kids) and happily married for 20 years, so that certainly helps the bank account.

I do have several (seemingly spendy) hobby pastimes but...
I don’t drink.
I don’t smoke.
I don’t gamble.
I don’t have any expensive motorized toys like boats, motorcycles, race cars, or ATVs.
We buy our vehicles used and drive them into the ground. Until last year, we had three vehicles from 2001 through 2003 and one has nearly 200,000 miles. Also, even though we can afford having the dealer do the maintenance, I work on things like brakes and oil changes whenever I can.
We pay off any credit card balance every month, and invest heavily in our retirement.
Except for cars and the mortgage, if we can’t pay for something outright, we’ll save up for it until we can.

For hobby expenses, I have discretionary funds available every month. Depending on other household expenditures, it may be nonexistent or small one month and large the next.  If I don’t spend it, it gets added to the following month’s kitty.  I did save up and buy a lot of my heavy woodworking equipment early on though.   Since I knew I was in this for the long haul, I figured I may as well get the good stuff early on. I tried to adhere the golden advice around here of “buy once - cry once”, but admittedly upgraded some items along the way.  I also bought a lot of lumber early on in bulk when it made itself available for (freakish) pennies on the dollar. What’s nice now, for woodworking anyway, is that any necessary expenses are just consumables like finishes, glue, and project specific hardware.  As mentioned, I do have a lot of hobbies though, and have to spread my funds across all of them.  What I need more of now is just free time.

Thank God for putting my wife in my life - she tolerates me and somehow finds me cute.

[Peter Tremblay]

Peter

I always wondered how Catholic Priests get paid.

I suspect all priests get paid the same way as everyone else.

Some an actual check or direct deposit.

The difference is what the priest does with the check.

Regular priest (diocesan priests) have their own money and accounts.  They own property like cars, fishing poles, stocks and bonds just like everyone else.

As a religious priest (Franciscan) I take a vow of poverty which means that I technically own nothing.
My check goes into a friary (house) account.  We pay our bills from that account.  Each Franciscan Friar gets a monthly allowance for personal needs.  We each have a credit card for friary expenses.  

But technically I don't own anything. 

In reality no one is going to say "I'm taking your favorite chisel" but I don't have my own money.  I'm completely reliant on the community for my needs.

At the end of each month, after we've paid our bills, we give the rest of the money to our community to pay the bills for the seminarians and elderly friars.  After those bills are paid we give our communities extra monies to poorer franciscans and many charities to help the poor throughout the world.

I live religious communism.

[Cian]

...But technically I don't own anything. 

In reality no one is going to say "I'm taking your favorite chisel" but I don't have my own money.  I'm completely reliant on the community for my needs...

I live religious communism.

So what happens when you get gifted a tool, say a block plane?  Does that become property of the friary, or can you take it with you to your next assignement?

And great to see you on here more regularly, Father Peter.

[Cecil]

I suspect all priests get paid the same way as everyone else.

Some an actual check or direct deposit.

...
I live religious communism.

I have heard that priests don't get paid much, but the retirement is really out of this world


This next comment may need to go downstairs, but voluntary communism works quite well.  Scripted communism has been a failure.

I have no problem sharing my tools, after we have developed a relationship and I know you know how to work safely and know how to use a tool correctly.  There was an injured vet that lived next to me for several years who used my tools a lot.  I also have turned folks down.  When I was younger, people helped my and now it is my turn to help them.

There is a shop near me set up for retired folks to use.  They make toys for children.  The company I work for lent them engineers to put together a dust collection system and we bought the system for them.  I have donated as well.  While the subject of this thread has been about buying your own tools, sometimes there are alternatives.

Arlin, did you get the 501©3 designation for your organization yet?  I know you had spoken of it previously.

[Cian]

We decided early on that we were not going to invest large amounts of money into hobbies unless they made an equal contribution to the household in some way--whether that's in terms of money, health, intellect, or aesthetic beauty.  So we work wood, tend a garden, play musical instruments, and read books aloud to each other.  Those hobbies all enrich the household in some distinctive way.  I don't have any way to quantify each hobby's contribution to our family economy, but the contributions are real nonetheless.

I love this.