Beside the volatility of the rental market (I assume it’s much more dependent on the economy and if people are willing to splurge for a vacation rental property at like $7k/week as the seller says) this looks kind of compelling.

The rent doesn't justify splurging for a/c.

I figured I could splurge for $42 and upgrade a bit.

the 2nd association it resonates is the highly consumption-driven society we live in. in my area (coastal, urban southern california) i'm surrounded by 2 distinct lifestyles. there's the majority: seems like 95% of the local population who are renters, driving luxury cars, sporting fancy clothes, jewelry, hairdos, etc but obviously living paycheck to paycheck as exemplified by hardly a day somebody or the other is spotted  getting their car repo'ed by a camera crew. the rarer are the landlords, who in this area seem to be of mostly asian demographics (chinese, koreans, japanese) who live obviously very frugally: old 80s model sedan, oldfashion business cloths, always eating simple meal from home, seemingly never splurging $$$ other than into expanding their portfolio), my observance is relatively very few landlords in the area own relatively huge portfolios, each.with the advent of these infomercials and the internet (ie, BP) more and more people want to get a 'piece of the REI pie' and more power to them. there does seem to be this dream of rags to riches and while its ok to dream, do most people actually expect their life to turn around like that, as portrayed in most of the infomercials or even in the everyday setting where the masses living paycheck to paycheck, are spending their last expendable dollars not on depositing into savings acount, but blowing $20 on scratchies etc. in summary, is my observation reminds me of my days when i worked on wall st and the 'ra trace' was so obvious with dime a dozen stock brokers makin 6fig salaries at some point but blowing it on recreational drugs apparently costing thousands of dollars a pop to the point the next week they are broke again and that $ wasnt invested but wasted.  

so, couple months ago i settled multiple unsecured credit cards and now finally they are reporting as closed (by the consumer) and settled (for the amount agreed; a few say for less than the full amount, though).my fico/credit score is still terrible, low, though, at 528. last year, it was in the 700s but then i splurged at home depot and realized i may as well just default on all those credit cards and let them go to collections cuz i heard they settle for around half. besides i was going 'blind' (severe postcapsularhaze) for some time after a traumatic head-on injury and even after eye surgery in both eyes so my credit score was the least of my concerns.anyways i'm wondering now that i do not have nor will i open any new lines of credit (no more credit cards, no more cell phone contracts, no mortgage, no auto loan, etc) indefinitely, how long might it take for my credit as far as 'score' to be back up to qualifying say for an FHA?

I used to be really strict but money just isn't that tight, so I splurge here and there.

Make sure drawers and doors have a soft close feature as this will also increase the lifetime that the cabinets will last (in addition to protecting kids fingers)Lastly I would splurge a bit on the back splash.  

We could have actually had the price in the mid-$130s if we hadn't splurged a little on the floors with "heart pine" upstairs to match the original floors downstairs or gone with typical insulation instead of the expanding foam insulation.

., The lease was a splurge and the first time I did it. 

Leisure in boom times consumers tend to have lots of excess cash so will splurge on the larger trips out of state or out of the country even.In an economic downturn the opposite tends to hold true.