I shared part of my savings rate conversation with a data science colleague in my last post. That conversation also included a short funny story, I thought I’d share it with you all today.

I’ve been interested in saving money since forever. I like to be efficient. I could be lured into many a web article of 10 (or 20 or 50) “things you can do to save money”. You know the kind, wash and re-use your plastic bags, bring cloth bags to the grocery stores, calling your garbage company to try to get your bill reduced. Many things very basic to the reduce-reuse-recycle concept.

After kids my reading of such articles got even worse, as many of these articles were targeted at moms. But I’d been raised in a pretty frugal household. I was typically doing most if not all of the things in the articles, and what items I wasn’t implementing I’d usually made a conscience choice that it wasn’t applicable (or worthwhile) in our situation. It was disappointing, and frustrating, because I wanted to save more, and almost nothing in them was a savings possibility for me.

In one such instance, I was reading a personal finance piece of money saving tips, sometime after college but before kids, and they talked about what a huge financial mistake buying a boat is.  It took me an embarrassingly LONG amount of time to figure out how that could possibly be true.

In kayaking or canoeing you can buy an entire recreational gear outfit including a used boat and roof racks for ~$1.5k, and then your only other expenses for decades are mileage, meals with friends after the river, and $25-50/weekend race fees if you choose to race a couple weekends a year.  How could this possibly be bad, let alone destroy your financial future?

My lack of understanding gnawed at me for a while. Where “a while” = years later! Yeah, I was slow on this one.

I finally, FINALLY realized they meant a big motorized boat. Those with an initial $10k+ price tag, possibly much more, one powerful enough to pull water-skiers, fuel. The kind needing docking fees, storage fees, a trailer and a hauling truck. The ones that need regular maintenance and repairs, and that come with a constant upgrade temptation. The kind I avoid at all costs, because I love the rush of the whitewater, the birds, the surrounding green trees, the exercise, the camaraderie. And since I’m never out on those lakes, I essentially never see the big power boats, and therefore never think of them.

Whoops! Maybe my love affair with boats won’t be a financial suicide move after all 🙂