Rent Your Luxuries

If you owned it, it would lose some of its appeal.

I think there’s something wrong with the pool pump and yacht sales are apparently way down here in the Côte d’Azur.A wealthy stock broker I know told me at one point in my life to Rent Your Luxuries. Hmm, maybe there’s something to that.

I don’t really do anything luxurious or rather, I don’t own anything luxurious, so it’s a rather easy case to be made, if I’m going from experience. I know people who have boats and they all say they’re floating money pits.

It’s maybe akin to the single day pass or the annual pass at amusement park. If you’re certain you’ll go enough times to make the annual pass worth it, then it’s worth the money. If not, then not. The same with something like a boat. Are you really, truly going to rent a boat so many times that it would have made more sense to buy one? I think I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve rented a boat in my life and that’s including row boats. Maybe a boat isn’t a good example for me … or is it? Maybe it’s a perfect example: I shouldn’t buy something or invest in something that I’m not going to do or use or play or enjoy enough times to make the investment worth it.

When is it worth it?

The amusement park or take a museum pass for example. If one visit is $10 but the annual pass is $60, are you going to go 6 times? Here, though, going even maybe 4 times has its advantages. Maybe you get to go into the fast entrance with the pass, maybe there are other benefits. So even at a certain percentage it’s worth it for the hassle factor or other factors (efficiency, etc.). I’m sure someone has a calculator or an app that can help you decide when to rent or buy (a house, a boat, a luxury or even an annual pass). But if you just think about it for a bit, that usually works well, too.

As if I needed to think about renting or buying a boat. I have a raft. A raft fits me just fine.