August 04, 2008

I'll Give You a Topic: Fiscal Vices

I went to Barnes and Noble recently to peruse the selections, and noticed Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was $34.99.

Or $37.09 with tax.

It's not in paperback yet.

So my question is: are y'all insane? You, the ones who paid that for that? *cough*SarahK*cough* I know crackheads will pay any price for their fix, but yikes.

If you're not one of the HP crackheads, what do you spend money on that would be hard to justify to an East African? Manolos lining your closet? Hummer in your driveway? Boat requiring monthly motor repairs docked at the marina? Name your poison.

As for me, I probably won't spend $34.99 on a single book unless it is a textbook and I have no choice, but I often find myself in the 2nd hand bookstore buying a pile of books for about that. I also have a bad habit of being unable to stop myself from buying DVDs I want rightnow. But the book hording is bordering on out of control.

Despite the booklove, I will wait until Deathly Hallows comes out in paperback...I find hardback books annoying to hold in my hands anyway. I like to bend the crap out of my books.

Posted by Jennifer at August 4, 2008 09:00 AM | TrackBack

Comments

Good lord woman, no one pays retail for something like that. Amazon has it new for $21.00. I got it for $17.99 when it was released from them.

Posted by: Pete at August 4, 2008 05:36 AM

I don't have a single thing that I habitually splurge on. Most of my splurges are one time things. Last month, I decided I was going to build a bike, so I researched it, sourced the parts, and put it together in my garage. Sometimes it'll be a house project, or maybe a new peice of tech gadetry. My next one is going to be either tiling the kitchen/dinette, or building an arbor over the back patio.

Posted by: shank at August 4, 2008 07:55 AM

Yeah, it was nowhere near that when I bought it. I think I just walked into Target and grabbed it on the first day for somewhere in the neighborhood of eighteen bucks.

Are any of them in paperback? And I mean REAL paperback, not those huge trade paperbacks.

(I'm with you on hardcovers. I'd much rather read a paperback. Way more conducive to reading while laying in bed.)

Posted by: Keith at August 4, 2008 08:13 AM

Shank, what type of Bike?

Posted by: Pete at August 4, 2008 08:42 AM

My money gets regularly blown on music. I have serious issues with iTunes - it is waaaaay too easy to buy stuff. That's pretty small potatoes compared to my concert habit though.

Posted by: Jim at August 4, 2008 09:27 AM

Pete - Just a cruiser for the beach. Just to clarify, this isn't a motorcycle. The Wife (an ED RN) told me the only way I would ever get my own motorcycle would be if we got divorced. I ran the numbers on that scenario, and it inflates the cost of ownership to the point that the choice would be financially unsound.

Posted by: shank at August 4, 2008 09:39 AM

Beach cruisers are great. Half the reason I'd like to live at the beach would be to ride around on a beach cruiser.

I think if they printed Deathly Hallows as a pocket paperback it would be two volumes. That sucker was the size of a textbook.

And as fiscal vices go, I think most rational people would be stunned by the vet bills we pay for the rats.

Posted by: nic at August 4, 2008 04:50 PM

Yeah, I think we got both of our copies for $17.99 because we pre-ordered. Oh, and the new Beedle the Bard that's coming out? Consider that crack, because we've already preordered the $100 collectors' edition.

Frank and I each get an allowance every month, and we can spend it on whatever we please, no matter how silly, as long as we don't go over our allowance. His mostly goes to comic books. Mine so far has gone to CDs and BTVS comics. Next I'll start collecting another series on DVD.

Posted by: sarahk at August 6, 2008 08:40 AM


Jew