Maybe Buy the New Toy? (Why I Bought A Snowmobile) (#3) — Transcript
THE PICTURE OF WEALTH · EPISODE 3
Dustin Serviss shares a personal story about buying recreational equipment while becoming a parent. He explores balancing family responsibilities, spending and the experiences he wants to enjoy now.
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This transcript was generated from the episode audio and lightly edited for readability. It may contain transcription or speaker-attribution errors. Refer to the recording for exact wording.
Transcript
[00:00:01] Show announcer: Welcome to the Picture of Wealth, a podcast all about living more of your life now yet being responsible for your future. Lifestyle experimenter, wealth scientist, and financial coach, Dustin Service, shares life hacks, wealth tips, and interviews successful entrepreneurs on how they're thriving in happiness, purpose, and prosperity.
[00:00:23] Dustin Serviss: I wanna tell you about a story, how I justified buying a side by side with a newborn. And, you know, for many guys out there who are toy, enthusiasts, the getting married and having children moment in your life is definitely a challenging one for... And I'm speaking from experience. Maybe I'm an anomaly and for other people, it's it's not that hard. But I know that I did sell, one toy to buy, a ring for Jody and and get married so that that money was redeployed. And and then you battle back and you save and you get a toy. But I'll fast forward to later in life, you know, having a side by
[00:01:01] Dustin Serviss: side with something that I thought would be important and fun for our family and social and get us out in the wilderness, which we love. So, here's here's actually how it played out. When I look at buying toys or when I look at, you know, buying a certain item, you know, whether it's a RV or a toys for the kids, people always kinda, you know, consider it's like, oh, you can't buy that. Like, that's, that cost. Or you're gonna spend that money and that money's gone. So let's use a side by side and say the side by side costs, you know, seventeen thousand dollars. So, you know, you think, well, for one, you know, you gotta save seventeen
[00:01:34] Dustin Serviss: thousand because I'm not a huge fan of hundred percent financed, toys. I think you should wait to... Or buy a less of a toy, to get yourself in the game and then work your way up to something that's, you know, maybe more. But, you know, here's the math on what happened. So I bought a side by side. I I think I paid after tax about seventeen thousand dollars for it. And we drove it for basically one year, and then our second kid came. So it was a two seater, and, we did have a little seat rigged up in the middle so we could take our, you know, one year old with us, and and that was great. But I used the side by side about twenty times.
[00:02:11] Dustin Serviss: So if you think about it, I use it twenty times, and I sold the side by side one year later for about thirteen thousand. The thing in BC is when you buy a toy, you have to register everything now, so you pay tax on it, which is the killer. So you don't get back any of that tax when you sell it. So it's a real kicker. But bought for seventeen, sold for thirteen five. So you're basically taking a, you know, thirty five hundred dollar loss. Okay. So when I took that and said, well, we used it twenty times and the cost to rent that machine is three hundred and fifty dollars a day from a a rental place. So we lost thirty five hundred.
[00:02:49] Dustin Serviss: You had ten days, it'd be three fifty. It's one seventy five. So it's a one seventy five cost per use, which is still way cheaper than renting it. Now the thing with owning lifestyle toys or motorized vehicles is it's not just the ownership of the vehicle. It's the social side, it's the lifestyle that's around the thing that is actually a more interesting unquantifiable cost or sort of value. It's not a cost, it's a value. The value you get from being part of a community of like minded people. It is the people you get to meet. You go for a ride on a Saturday. You meet other people who are also into it, and you've got a bond.
[00:03:27] Dustin Serviss: You've got a sense of connection. That's worth something. So every ride, you know, when I say that that's worth fifty dollars a ride. So twenty rides at fifty dollars is a thousand dollars. So really, now we've knocked, you know, what you've lost in cost down from, you know, thirty five hundred to twenty five hundred dollars. And so if you divide that by your cost per use, you're down to a hundred and twenty five dollars. Well, that's a significant savings from renting. So it actually justifies owning the toy and, you know, not being so hung up on... And again, I will be honest for a sec. I I love getting a good deal.
[00:04:00] Dustin Serviss: And I'm, one of those people that used to really, you know, grind and sort of negotiate and be patient and sort of really get that wicked deal on a toy because I hated losing money on the toy or selling it for less than I bought it for. I really was proud to, you know, say I bought a a quad for this much and sold it for this much and, you know, I only, you know, basically got to ride it for free and that... That's what I was really focused on. Now when we wanna go do something and we wanna enjoy a certain lifestyle, I see it different now. I see now, you know, that waiting years to get that toy, to get the good deal, it actually is worse off.
[00:04:39] Dustin Serviss: You know, maybe I wait two, three years to get the good deal on the toy and don't even make it there. Or maybe I'm not able body or maybe circumstances change or income changes or something changes that you're not able to do that. When in fact, you could have done it sooner and you could have went and got that toy or that enjoyment or lifestyle asset sooner and just said, you know what? I'm gonna look at the marketplace. I'm gonna do my best and get the best deal at what I can find right now and move on. Move on and get it and get focused on your revenue and your expenses
[00:05:09] Dustin Serviss: and stop worrying about waiting and waiting and having to look because you're spending more time on classifieds trying to find the best deal when you could be doing other things in your business generating more income. So I hope that provides some sort of context and you know, and if you're trying to upgrade your lifestyle or add a lifestyle, you know, I like to call it a lifestyle asset or have a diverse portfolio of lifestyle assets that you actually use. A Harley in your garage doesn't do you any good if you don't ride it, and it's not cool anymore to just say you have a Harley because
[00:05:37] Dustin Serviss: if you're not riding it, you're not enjoying it and you're really, you know, posing. So get out there, do your research, find an asset that you'll use and talk about it with your family, and will you have the social circle around it, and then go for it.
[00:05:53] Show announcer: If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend. If you found this episode super valuable, leave us a review on iTunes. It will help us continue to bring you top quality content. For more information on anything discussed on this show, visit w w w dot service wealth dot com. That's service spelled s e r v I s s. Any investment topics covered on the show are not investment recommendations, and you should seek professional advice before making any investment decisions. This show was produced by Prodigy Podcasts. Thanks for listening.