Vacationing and Personal Price Tag Policies
I was reading the Women in Red message boards when I saw a topic about whether someone should go on vacation when she still has debt. This is a topic that I’ve given a lot of thought to so I thought I’d flesh it out a little here.
When we lived in Florida and our families were all up in New Jersey, we flew up at least once a year to see them despite our debt. These weren’t exactly vacations. Yes, it was time off of work but I consider seeing family a responsibility and it just needed to be done. Our parents are older and, especially my parents, wouldn’t fly. I couldn’t reasonably expect that of them and I couldn’t expect to never see them, either, so this was a necessary expense.
Other than family visits, we tacked on two extra days to a Tampa business trip so that we could visit Disney. Since I used to work there, I had friends get us into the parks for free. We still had debt, though, so in hindsight, even though this was a cheap mini vacation, it probably wasn’t the wisest use of our money.
That Disney trip was quite a few years ago and we haven’t been on vacation since. We moved up to Pennsylvania in 2001 and no longer have to fly to visit family in New Jersey.
Don’t get me wrong. We’ve talked about a vacation for a very long time but beyond the “Wow, wouldn’t it be nice?” portion of the discussions, we couldn’t reasonably justify it while we had better things to do with our money. I know there are always better, more productive things to do with money than spend it frivolously and this was our thinking. It doesn’t necessarily have to be your thinking and you can disagree. We were perfectly happy driving around and doing occasional day trips that cost us little more than gas money.
Now that the debt (sans the mortgage) is gone, we’ve been thinking about a vacation, again. It’s so hard to get over that hurdle of thinking about money as something that is supposed to pay bills, pay for your retirement and earn you more money.
While thinking about vacationing, just as with every other not-required expense, I have a litmus test for our spending. If we can’t pay it off by the time the credit card bill comes in, then we shouldn’t be spending it. If this means not spending a penny more than my committed expenses outlined, then I don’t. If this means savings money to reach this goal, then I do. If it takes more than the money we have each month after paying our committed expenses, though, then it damned well better be important. Very few things are that important, let me just say.
When we do decide on a vacation someday, it will have to meet the same litmus test. We’re not the kind of people that need a big, fancy, expensive vacation. A reasonably-priced vacation now that we have the heavy burden of debt off of our backs sounds like a just reward.
Related Posts:
April 10th, 2007 at 5:53 am
While I was in major debt (and I still am with student loans, but at < 2% I almost don’t count them), I saved $100/mo just for vacations. Why? Because I was living slim as it was to pay back my debt and once a year, a cruise or other fun thing to look forward to like visiting wineries in California was something I needed. It was a time to relax away from home and renew my sanity.
If you can manage it, vacations, even small camping trips are worthwhile. There’s no point in paying back all your debt and being miserable at the same time. It’s a recipe for disaster. After all, if you give yourself a tough repayment plan, you’re more likely to stray if there’s no fun allowed.
April 10th, 2007 at 8:20 am
See, I disagree. I think $100 a month when you’re paying off debt is a lot of money. The median household income in the US is <$50k a year. The lower the income, the more important every dollar becomes. If you cut our mortgage in 1/2 and we had no other debt, I’m not sure I’d be able to justify it on $50k a year and that’s even without throwing kids into the mix.
I’m one of those people that doesn’t consider a vacation a need. It is a want and a luxury. Like every other want, it gets prioritized and debt that you are paying non-deductible interest on is a priority whereas a vacation gets bumped down fairly low. The average credit card interest rate as of January was 14.21% (http://www.indexcreditcards.com/creditcardmonitor/) and if I was paying that, I wouldn’t do it.
You can allow fun, such as day trips or trips to the movies or nights out to dinner, without spending $1200 a year on it. If you have vacation time from work, you get time out of the office to relax. It doesn’t mean you have to go away.
Plenty of people don’t go on vacations every year and aren’t miserable. I’d say that multi-day vacations away from home every 1-2 years are the exception and not the rule for the average family.
You’re allowed to disagree and prioritize vacations as a need instead of a want. It just means our definitions don’t match up.
April 16th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
I still disagree. If I had cut out my vacation trips, I would have just skeeved off on the debt. It’s a whole lot easier to cut back in other areas if you allow yourself some fun. It doesn’t have to be a big vacation each year, which is what I did, but you do need to put in allowance for fun. My debt still got paid off, and I paid more than the minimum, the trick was to not totally deprive myself. I really enjoy my trips. I find them integral to the way I enjoy living.
April 16th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
You’re allowed to disagree, which is what I said to begin with. You’re categorizing vacations as a need and I categorize them a want and a luxury.
Some people’s “allowance for fun” can be a subscription to Netflix and watching movies and reading during their time off from work. If you’re working off of a <$50k salary, then that might be all you can reasonably justify if you have debt.
Your vacation priorities are your prerogative. I just think a vacation is a luxury that not everyone can or should work into their budget. Fun does not have to equal a vacation.