Your biggest extravagance during the Celtic Tiger

blackcard

Those were the days. Getting a pay rise I hadn't looked for, being pre-approved for loans I hadn't sought, the limit on my credit card being increased. But I didn't go mad. No second home in Portugal, landcruiser, Xmas shopping in New York, electric gates, shares in a horse. I even bought a second hand car. The most money I spent was putting tarmac on the driveway for €8000. But I can still justify that. My worst extravagance was spending €3000 in a hair clinic because I thought my hairline was starting to recede. I got bored after a while and didn't carry on with the treatment. So what was your biggest extravagance during the Celtic Tiger?

nervous_twitch

Decking.

Agricola

Probably 1500 on a flatscreen in 2006. It wasnt even a very good one.

SEPT 23 1989

breast implants for my jacuzzi

Youngblood.III

blackcard wrote: »

spending €3000 in a hair clinic because I thought my hairline was starting to recede. I got bored after a while and didn't carry on with the treatment

Are you a baldy bastard now?

Beasty

blackcard wrote: »

The most money I spent was putting tarmac on the driveway for €8000.

Pah! spent a lot more than that on a bike - doesn't count though as I spent that in the recession ....

blackcard

Youngblood.III wrote: »

Are you a baldy bastard now?

Actually no. It was only slightly receding and didn't carry on, I had more money than sense

boobar

Weekly shop in Tesco

Tony Beetroot

Beasty wrote: »

Pah! spent a lot more than that on a bike - doesn't count though as I spent that in the recession ....

You would want your head examined spending that on a pedal bike.

Cianmcliam

Turkish Travertine from Daft Dave.

Mister Vain

Escort.

Sparklygirl

I had a public sector job so didn't have buckets of money but had no kids so did have a disposable income. I just enjoyed being young and having meals out and going to the pub and shopping for clothes. On hindsight, I should have gone on more holidays had I known the responsibilities that lay ahead. I helped my sister and brother out financially while they studied and I am happy I did that, it was money very well spent.

Junkyard Tom

An Armani suit made out of decking.

Tony Beetroot

Mister Vain wrote: »

Escort.

Mk1 or MK2?

Specialun

Was in college

One week i splashed out on chicken with more than 60% chicken

Beasty

Tony Beetroot wrote: »

You would want your head examined spending that on a pedal bike.

I've got 2 that cost more than that....

fleet_admiral

I left the immersion on for an hour longer than normal

Mister Vain

Tony Beetroot wrote: »

Mk1 or MK2?

Mk mad whore of a yoke.

Stroke Politics

Went to Paris for the day on the first flight out and got the 9pm flight back that evening. The wife needed to pick up some Macaroons from Laduree for a dinner party we were having that night (it was a Wednesday). Had a glass of champagne with breakfast and lunch in a cafe by the Seine before travelling around Paris twice on one of the open top tourist buses...

porsche959

Once paid £2,300 for car insurance on a sportscar. Reason it was so high was that even though I had a totally clean record, I had only just got a full licence, was under 25, and had no NCB. Fortunately it came down massively the next year, but putting the first years' insurance onto the 5 year loan I took out to buy the car was probably not the best idea in the world!

Outside of that, probably spending ridiculous amounts on nights out, ordering two bottles of champagne in nightclubs or whatever, this didn't happen that often and I certainly wasn't ordering the more expensive types of champagne, but it did happen a few times.

I also lost money on certain investments but I don't consider that extravagance as such, just investments that didn't pan out.

anncoates

A house,I suppose, although it was a relatively modest mortgage by the yardstick of the times and still doesn't seem that bad.

I think, like most people, I fell between the cliches of the tiger. Didn't lose the run of myself by any means but also didn't do the smug hairshirt thing beloved of some of the blowhards you read in here.

porsche959

anncoates wrote: »

A house,I suppose, although it was a relatively modest mortgage by the yardstick of the times and still doesn't seem that bad.

From your own description, that's not an extravagance. It's just the most expensive thing you've bought ever (as it is for most people).

Different story if you'd paid €1.2m for a 3 bed penthouse in 2006 and got a 110% interest free tracker mortgage so as you could buy a new car/go on holidays/spend the balance on renovations, etc.

Sir Osis of Liver.

Mortgage,remortgage and another remortgage.

Damn you Bertie and your free money.

I added a basement to my yacht garage

wtlltw

Bought a one bed in godnoslovoweritiz, still haven't been there, but everyone was buying a place there at the time!!!

deandean

I paid 6.80 for a pint of Heineken in Temple Bar.

eviltwin

I won a 1000 Euro voucher for Brown Thomas, spent the entire amount on a handbag

Mint Aero

Ate breakfast rolls everyday for an entire summer working on building sites. I was a kid and t'was like another land thinking back on it now. The queues of white vans outside the petrol stations in the early sunny mornings and the smell of bacon to cure the hangover from the night before. T'was the summer before it all ended. There was hookers, and coke and cake and decking everywhere. We'd so much decking we decked the van.

YFlyer

blackcard wrote: »

Actually no. It was only slightly receding and didn't carry on, I had more money than sense

Liar lol

anncoates

Let's be fair, it's now time for a moratorium on the word 'decking' in this thread.

Tony Beetroot

Could we have a moratorium on big words?

jimgoose

anncoates wrote: »

Let's be fair, it's now time for a moratorium on the word 'decking' in this thread.

Can we deck the next deckhead who mentions the word "deck" in this otherwise serious screenplay? I still lament the difficulty in getting a decent sit-down full Irish, with all these Cheeses petrol station forecourts full of gibbons in white vans. Thankfully that's improving slightly lately.

El Guapo!

This is getting rideckulous.

boobar

Mint Aero wrote: »

. There was hookers, and coke and cake and decking everywhere. We'd so much decking we decked the van.

This has to be the best funniest thing ever written.

anncoates

Tony Beetroot wrote: »

Could we have a moratorium on big words?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html

Massimo Cassagrande

I let the missus get a babycham AND crisps. Mad times. She still talks about them crisps.

riclad

It would be more realistic to say a paid 150k for an apartment in a small town outside dublin thats now worth 80k .
But thats not funny .

rainbow kirby

I was a student through the peak of it. Booze?

MRnotlob606

Remember when I had to go my relatives house we had to take our shoes off we go onto their carpet.

To Elland Back

Spent €2,600 (trade price) on a 32 inch flatscreen TV, which is now in my bedroom. Watching one now that cost €399

beertons

Nasal sherbert.

ted1

I has a permentaly stocked champagne fridge that was in great use.

We got engaged and went on an engagement moon fir 4 weeks to South Africa, then we got married in MIchelin starred restaurant in San Sebastein in Spain with 110 guests. We spent 2 weeks there , then went on a 3 week honeymoon to Hawaii and San Fran.

While in San Sebestein a few of us went to Arzark which is a 3 star Michelin restaurant which after wine cost a couple of hundred each

padd b1975

Mint Aero wrote: »

Ate breakfast rolls everyday for an entire summer working on building sites. I was a kid and t'was like another land thinking back on it now. The queues of white vans outside the petrol stations in the early sunny mornings and the smell of bacon to cure the hangover from the night before. T'was the summer before it all ended. There was hookers, and coke and cake and decking everywhere. We'd so much decking we decked the van.

Lol @ you and your white van.

The real money was in commercial Toyota Landcruisers and Izuzu Troopers.

sadie06

An amazing piano, justifying it by telling myself it had to be of recording quality.

It has been recorded, but not very often.

*Kol*

I used to leave the immersion on and not use the water.

ancapailldorcha

I bought a laptop for gaming for about €1,800. Still shudder thinking about it.

Sheep Lover

Bought a house made of decking with a decking out the back made of concrete blocks.

bnt

MY biggest extravagance was thinking it was safe to quit my job and go to university full-time. Five years of recession, featuring grants that started as "inadequate" and went down from there. Oh hindsight, thou heartless bitch ...

darkpagandeath

Anyone mentioned Public services wages yet ?

ted1

bnt wrote: »

MY biggest extravagance was thinking it was safe to quit my job and go to university full-time. Five years of recession, featuring grants that started as "inadequate" and went down from there. Oh hindsight, thou heartless bitch ...

The opposite for me, I did a two year course, then went working for Intel, took voluntary redundancy and went back to college full time for another 3 years with a **** load of money thanks to the generous salary and ridiculous pay out from Intel. College years were great with no shortage of money

faceman

Going on a date and paying for dinner