I’m just going to start this off by saying that the goal of this post is in no way to influence—or deinfluence—you from buying anything in this newsletter.
I come across tons of content like this online, from monthly favorites videos to hauls of people’s “empties,” to posts titled exactly like this one but filled with affiliate links.* Instead of helping you fill your shopping cart, I want to understand why some purchases cost me a ton but felt so good, and why other times I spent weeks griping over a $3 loss.
In summary, here are my best and worst purchases of 2024, and what another year of shopping taught me about my evolving relationship with money.
*Any links you see below are just good old-fashioned links.
Nothing reflects how much I’ve grown as a consumer more than finally pulling the trigger on buying these $140 jeans. In fact, they’re currently the only jeans I own, until they restock them in black, and I buy those as well. This, my friends, is progress.
For the longest time, I refused to spend more than the final sale price at Old Navy for a new pair of jeans. Without fail, they would inevitably stretch out after about 20 minutes of wear, develop holes in the thighs, and lose all structural integrity after a few washes.
What used to be a closet full of a dozen jeans I only liked about 10% has now been replaced by one pair of jeans I’m 100% obsessed with!
The best part? I was able to take advantage of a deal Madewell was running: $30 off if you brought in an old pair of jeans to recycle. Combined with a first-time shopper discount, I snagged these for about $100.
Along the same lines of much-needed upgrades, I decided to take advantage of a solid Black Friday deal and order a new bedding set from Quince.
(You may already be catching on to the fact that, even though I’m buying more expensive things, I still love to wait for a good sale.)
Not only were these sheets a remarkable upgrade from my $15 Amazon ones, but I was able to customize my bundle, choosing a different color for my sheet and duvet cover all within the same set.
Another customizable feature? The option to skip the top sheet entirely—yet another product us millennials have effectively killed. Investing in nice bedding has been a total game changer. As someone who actively looks forward to going to bed as soon as I wake up, this has been a wonderful addition to my bedtime routine.
Bonus: My cat loves the bedding too!
I broke this down in much more detail back in this October post, but one of the best travel investments I made in 2024 was creating an account on TrustedHousesitters.
This website connects you with people all over the world who need someone to watch their pets in exchange for a free stay in their home. Thanks to this site, I was able to take a 10-day vacation through Northern California and Oregon and spend only $339 on accommodations—that includes the $149 application fee for TrustedHousesitters!
If you’re someone who loves to travel but feels limited to cities where you can crash on a friend’s couch, this is a fantastic option to consider. Even if the PNW trip road trip is the only time I use it this year, the application more than paid for itself—especially considering the average hotel stay costs about $150 for a single night.
This isn’t technically a purchase since I’m still renting, but one of the biggest and best financial investments I made this year was to put more money towards my living situation.
After 12 months of dealing with continuous safety concerns, maintenance issues, and an overall less-than-ideal living environment at my old apartment complex, I decided to fork out an extra $300 a month to upgrade to a nicer building in a much better location. $300 is a large chunk of my monthly budget, but so far, it has been worth every penny.
I am absolutely in love with my building, the amenities, the staff, my neighbors, and the location - which allows me to go on long uninterrupted walks with breathtaking views of the Puget Sound and Olympic Mountains. The safety, security, and mental peace I feel living in this space compared to my old apartment is worth double the cost in my opinion, and I plan to stay for a while.
As an avid book hoarder, this one is hard for me to confess, but I have developed a bad habit of accumulating bargain books at the thrift store, only for them to sit unread on my shelf until they are eventually donated back to the same thrift store once again.
This isn’t an expense that broke the bank, but it takes up precious space on my shelves and makes me feel guilty every time I opt to buy a new book instead of grabbing one off my shelf. Moving forward, I want to focus on spending money on books I am genuinely excited about and know I will read in the near future, and leave the rest in the thrift shop for someone else to enjoy.
It only took a quick scan of my backpack and tote collection to decide that I needed a newer and nicer bag for the office. I wanted something that could hold my laptop, lunch, and all the workday essentials all while coordinating with my outfits. I wasn’t in the market to splurge on my first LV Neverfull, so off to TJ Maxx I went!
I found a bag that fit all these qualifications for only $37—so why is this on my most regretted purchase list? Because I used it for about a month and then switched to the same backpack I’ve had since college.
After I began commuting to work on the bus (more on that below), the bag became incredibly impractical. It doesn’t zip shut, it's incredibly heavy, and it takes up a ton of space. So, backpack it is.
But its not all a wash, the bag has quickly become one of my cat’s favorite napping spots!
This purchase falls into the category of “things I bought a knock-off version of to avoid spending a ton of money on the real thing, but I wanted the real thing, so I never use the knock-off version.”
What I wanted was a warm but lightweight cropped black puffer jacket. The ones I saw on the market were in the $100 range, but since I have multiple jackets, it felt wasteful to spend that much. Instead, I bought this $19 puffer from Costco, which ended up being a little too thin and a little too long, and I never wear it.
If I could go back I would have waited a bit longer and invested in a jacket I loved.
Early in 2024, I decided to undergo a bit of a financial experiment and buy a new car. At the time, all expenses were being split between my partner and I, which certainly made the process less daunting, but I quickly learned the downside to owning a car in one of America’s most expensive cities: it's expensive.
First, there's the car payment, which was around $500 a month. Then, insurance, which, no matter how much shopping around we did, we couldn't get under $200. Gas in Washington state averages close to $5 a gallon. Then, the real nail in the coffin: parking. To park a car in my downtown Seattle apartment building costs $325 a month. In case you haven't been counting, we've long surpassed the $1,000 mark.
Any one of these expenses on its own could have been manageable, but together the payments quickly became overwhelming. We did our best to cover the cost by picking up side gigs, like delivering for UberEats and DoorDash, but that ended up costing even more in gas, repairs, and a lot of parking tickets (like that one time the car got towed and they charged us $600 to get it back).
My six-month experiment has come to an end. All in all, I lost about $700, but it also freed up over $500 a month, which feels good. This is the mantra I use to comfort myself while I wait outside at the bus stop in the January cold. It was all worth it!!
The purchases I valued the most in 2024 were items I invested a lot of thought and money into, while my most regretted purchases were often cheap and impulsive.
This year, instead of focusing on buying more versus buying less, I want to focus on buying with more intention. I want to put my money towards items that are higher quality, bring me more joy, and have real thought behind them.
I would love to hear your input on this topic: What was your favorite purchase of 2024? Was there anything in the past year you regret spending money on?
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