At work, we casually use the term regret spend. It sounds clinical. Almost harmless.
It usually refers to money spent on something we know isn’t the end state. A temporary workaround. A patch. A bridge solution that keeps the system running until the “real” solution arrives. Everyone nods, budgets get approved, and somewhere in the back of our minds we already know—this money will not age well.
Lately, I realised this concept has quietly escaped the meeting rooms and made itself comfortable in my personal life.
When I look at my spending through this lens, a few patterns emerge - not in spreadsheets, but in feelings. Not in numbers, but in afterthoughts.
The clear regret spends
Plastic toys
This one makes me pause every time. It pains me a lot - cheap plastic - kids want it for a few hours or may be the way it’s packaged and or what goes in their mind when they buy it thinking they will use it in all those places - butttt….
I know the argument well: kids are kids only once. They need toys. They need memories. They need joy.
And yet, there’s a particular kind of regret that comes from watching a brand-new plastic toy lose its magic within days - sometimes hours. The toy doesn’t break; the interest does. What lingers instead is clutter, guilt, and the quiet question: Did this really add to their childhood, or just to the cupboard or worse plastic trash?
I don’t regret play. I regret excess and or waste.
I don’t regret joy. I regret disposability.
Luxury goods
Luxury watches. Jewellery. Status items.
Even when we own them, something feels oddly unchanged. The mirror reflects the same person. The conversations remain the same. The people around us still treat us exactly as they did before or may be even more so that they start to judge you based on what you carry, have or wear.
We believe luxury promises transformation - but often delivers only possession and or neighbours envy.
What I’ve noticed is that admiration rarely follows ownership; it follows consistency, character, and contribution. The watch doesn’t speak for us. The jewellery doesn’t rewrite our story.
So when I look back, these expenses feel like textbook regret spend - money paid in the hope of a feeling that “we deserve”, “we made it” - but the end result is always far from it.
Impulse upgrades
The slightly better version of something we already have.
The newer phone when the old one works fine.
The premium feature we thought we’d use “all the time” but barely touch.
The subscriptions that we don’t use. These all add up!
At the moment of purchase, it feels justified. Weeks or at times days later, it fades into normalcy - and regret quietly takes its place. But I don’t think we pause to self reflect - we rather venture into finding something else or buying something else to keep us looking for that next thing that’ll bring us the “joy”, the “we made it” feeling.
But the truth is - most material possessions rarely gets us that feeling.
I do like the nice things - but also there is a lieberating feeling in knowing
How many things in this world that I don’t need!
There is wisdom in knowing the difference between things that we need and the things that we want. Needs can always (mostly) be met - but the wants - it’s a bottomless pit.
The blurry, unavoidable regret spends
These are harder. They sit in a grey zone. We don’t love paying for them, but opting out isn’t really an option.
Insurance
We pay faithfully, hoping we never get value from it. The best outcome is that it feels like wasted money - and strangely, that’s the goal. Still, every payment carries a faint sense of resentment because the benefit is invisible unless something goes wrong.
Tax
There’s no drama here - just inevitability. We understand why it exists. We know it funds things we rely on. And yet, when we see the number, the emotional response rarely matches the rational explanation.
Council bills
Bins get collected. Roads stay usable. Lights stay on. Nothing feels exciting, and that’s exactly why it feels like regret spend. It’s necessary, invisible, and emotionally unrewarding.
A few more quietly join this list:
Utilities – electricity, water, internet. We need them - but then the costs of it has sky rocketed recently.
These aren’t mistakes. They’re just… uncelebrated.
The No-Regret Spends
Then there’s a completely different category - the money that never seems to ask for justification.
Books
Books age well. Even the ones we don’t finish teach us something - about taste, timing, or ourselves. Some sit on shelves quietly shaping how we think years later. Even though library works best - there is no hard feelings in spending money on it.
There’s no buyer’s remorse here. Only delayed dividends.
Gym and health
Money spent on health has a rare quality: it compounds silently. Strength improves mood. Fitness improves patience. Energy spills into work, parenting, and relationships.
Even on days we don’t feel motivated, we never regret having invested in the ability to move, breathe, and function better.
Quality food
Not luxury dining - but food that nourishes. We love occasional sea food dishes like Crab - they do cost - but it’s $ worth spending and mostly we home cook it.
Good ingredients reduce decision fatigue, improve health markers, and quietly shape our long-term wellbeing. This is spending that shows up later - in energy levels, medical reports, and how we feel waking up each morning.
Travel
Travel done thoughtfully - finding deals, planning slowly, choosing experiences over indulgence - never feels wasted.
Trips don’t just give us photos. They reset perspective. They stretch time. They give us stories that last far longer than the cost per night calculation.
And then there are a few more that always land on the right side of the ledger:
Education – courses, skills, learning something new. Even unused knowledge sharpens confidence.
Experiences with people – meals, shared moments, small celebrations. These age beautifully.
Subscriptions – anything that we use without cluttering life and or adding more than what we need.
What regret spend taught me
The difference isn’t really about money.
It’s about residue.
Regret spend leaves clutter - physical or mental.
No-regret spend leaves capacity - energy, clarity, connection.
At work, regret spend is acceptable because it’s tactical fix and they can afford too. Temporary. Understood.
In life, regret spend feels heavier because it competes with things that actually move the needle.
So now, when we spend, the quiet question isn’t “Can we afford this?”
It’s “Will this age well in our lives?”
I need to make peace that some expenses will always be necessary. Some will give us experience and perspective and some mistakes are part of learning. But over time, patterns emerge - and those patterns gently guide us toward spending less on things that disappear… and more on things that stay.
And most importantly it’s not to go find or chase the next thing that will get us to that feeling of “yeah - I got it”. It’s in those moments taking a pause to still think and reflect to ask the question “and, then what?”