How much are you comfortable spending on a watch?

I went with B -- but the interval on that is about once every 5 years or so.

Comfortable?  For me, "A" normally (which is pretty healthy for those of us older guys who've been slowly growing their income for 35 years) and "B-C") once every 2-3 years (historically) but that really depends on pure lust (which I don't have at the moment for any non-affordable watch). 

6+ months salary. Yikes!!

Take home 1 month, pre-tax half month

Half a month salary or less, but I regularly buy stuff pricier than that and then go through the ups and lows of elation and regret. Oh well, at least it's not drugs. Shrugs

Obviously, I'm MOST comfortable spending as little as possible, but if we are talking about much money we can spend on one watch BEFORE it starts getting uncomfortable, then it's 1-2 months take home pay.

I've only spent over one month's take home pay five times.

I've never spent two months worth of take home pay on one watch, but I've come relatively close once.  That was the last watch I bought and maybe the last watch I'll ever buy.

I've never come close to spending three months of take home salary on one watch. I can't imagine when I would.  If I ever bought a watch that cost that much, I'd sell others to finance it (or at least finance a good chunk of it).

It took time to get to this point though.  At first, it was more like I'd only spend half a months worth and after that it's starting getting uncomfortable.

If one is uncomfortable spending a certain amount on a watch, maybe it’s a sign to save up for longer, or stay within a certain means. Kind of a hard question to answer—if you’ve saved up the proper amount of money, assuming it’s not your rainy day savings, then you should be comfortable with the purchase, no matter the price of the watch.  Maybe what you’re saying is: no matter how much you’ve saved, it will always feel strange spending over a certain amount of money, and are curious what amount that is for certain people. 

  
If I am not 100% comfortable making a large purchase, I’m not making that purchase.  

Depends on the watch. I have value watches that punch way above their price tag and watches I've spent thousands on I wound giving away rather than take a heavy loss on. I'm blessed to be able to buy anything I look at ( Not an RM for $1 Million - wouldn't if I could spend that cash on an RN or any watch) If I like it I buy responsibly. I wear what I like. Many of my most expensive pieces sit in a safe beacuase it's not worth getting shot over and I like other pieces as daily wear watches. 

The Photo in the Post looks about right.

It's not drugs 

This is officially my new excuse for everything!

I guess it's all relative right? Are we also taking exchange rate into consideration?

Good excuse. 

Buys watches up the wazoo 

It's not drugs. 

Drink Starbucks with every meal/tea-time/to the point you can say, "My Starbucks vessel has blood in it."

It's not drugs! 🍻

If I'm gonna get upset about losing it or damaging it then it's not for me. 

This hobby should be fun. Not stressful. 

My grail is a 700 dollar citizen. For now 160 dollars and only two of them plus a cheap beater. 

Id never really think about months of salary. It’s never really about how much you earn, but how much you can keep. 

For a big piece / splash, then six months of potential savings would be my rule of thumb. So if I can save a grand a month, that’d be 6k. 

For most other pieces, then up to 2. 

I might be wrong but I think my salary could double and I wouldn’t spend more than I do now 

A.
But to buy my dream Omega and/or Grand Seiko I wouldn't mind spending B or C.

Whoa - tough question to answer. Really depends on what the base is that your dividing by twelve.

Some would be uncomfortable spending 1/2 month's salary on either end of the spectrum. Let's face it, if you are making $24,000 a year then spending $1k on a watch is a pretty extreme extravagance, and if you are making $2.4 million a year then spending $100k on a watch would also seem somewhat extravagant.

I think you have to be a pretty hard core collector to sacrifice a significant portion of your income to purchase a watch/watches.

I equate it to my college days where I made $5/hr tutoring math so that I would have money for food on the weekends, but would instead use those funds to purchase used LPs and used science fiction/fantasy novels instead of eating.

On average, I buy about 3-4 watches a month [this November I already bought 5]. Do the math: A is the only option then, and it's considerably less than the top grade of A, more like 10% max for an individual watch. Many of these are super-cheap, but not all. 

Financially comfortable or emotionally comfortable? I imagine somewhere into the 3 month range where no real fiscal duress would be felt, but emotionally it's more like a day's pay. I have a gag reflex. Past experience has shown that half a month's pay can go into service and repairs without flinching.

Just figured it’d be helpful for OP to know both if he‘s using this poll to rationalize his next purchase 

F. None of the above.

c’mon spend what you can afford, don’t go crazy…

I clicked B but I never bought a watch for a full months salary. once i was about to buy a watch for a full month salary (for my 30th birthday) but it was clear that i wasn't going to get the watch in time so instead of spending it on 1 watch i bought 2 that i could get and i don't regret that choice for one second. I don't even want the other watch anymore haha 

I’ve yet to spend more than a paycheck on a single watch purchase. However, I have my eye set on a few pieces that approach a single month’s pay. Boy, oh, boy! What have I become?!?!

I've never spent more than a tenth of my salary. That being said,my salary is not really the determining factor.

Not being a particularly "expensive watch" kind of guy, the most I've ever spent is maybe 1/5 of a month's pay at the time.  I felt weird about it and sold the watch.

That said, I'm considering something that would represent about 1/4 of a current month's pay.

the more watches i buy and the more expensive they become, the easier it is for me to spend that money. but until now it was always less than half months salary. 

Good question. My personal rule is to keep all purchases at a sticker pictures of $1000 or less. I can afford more but for me it’s a strict rule so that I don’t fall into the trap of justifying small incremental increases in price. It’s easy to slowly go from $1200-$1500-$1800. that being said, my rule does not count taxes or shipping. So long as the sticker price is $1000 or less, I will purchase what I like. In regards to the OP question, $1000 would be 1/2-month salary or less. 

I'm going to be anti-establishment on this one and side with Grant Cardone: Don't buy expensive watches with earned income.  Clearly we need to define the word "expensive" as best as possible, but I think there is a number that would generally apply to most people unless you are in the top ~5% or bottom ~20% of the income distribution.  In my mind, that's roughly $1000.  Again, that will vary up or down depending on things such as your net worth and where you are in the world, but I think it's a decent rule of thumb.

Once you get beyond that point, then (in my opinion) you should probably be paying for unnecessary luxury items with distributions from your investments. There's no judgement one way or another from me. Do what you want with your money and find your joy.  At the same time, I think there's something to be said for putting your money to work for you on assets that appreciate, or even better generate money, rather than depreciating assets like watches.

If you can afford to spend more than half a month's salary on anything not directly related to keeping a roof over your head, you have too much money to not be out of touch.

Needless to say I'm not rich lol

I’ve never thought about it like this, but this is probably the mental framework I subconsciously use when deciding if something “seems like a lot of money” or not. Once it gets over 1/24 total annual comp (including bonus - I.e. a “half month’s wage”) then I think I start thinking “well, probably shouldn’t spend much more on watches this year then.”

But I’m also just building out the base of my collection. I’ll probably acquire much less frequently as my collection builds out, and as I get married and have children and whatnot.