Live For Today

This post over at My Financial Journey really hit home to me. My husband and I have been aggressivly saving since we got married. Some years were easier than others. When we first married, we were surviving on my husband's part time work study job, and later, my minimum wage maid service work. Better jobs were found, things got easier...then we both went to grad school at the same time. Now my husband has a well paying job, and the fruits of our early saving habits are blooming, namely in the ability to buy our house. We did not want a small starter home that we would have to sell if we had children, and our savings enabled us to fulfill that dream. But we did go without a lot of other things to get here. I'm glad we did. The house is worth it ten times over. But as Doug reminds us all, life is short, and we should try to live well while we are here.

That is actually part of the reason we decided to do our Europe trip. My parents were quite surprised that my usually ultra careful, thrifty husband and I were going to take such an expensive trip so soon after buying a house.

We had been intending to go to Europe since before we were even dating. In college, we were going to go with big group of friends. For various reasons, that did not happen. Then we wanted to do it as a honeymoon trip, but that was out of the question, financially. When our roommate was going to go himself, and then brought up the idea of my husband and I going as well (he was in the original group of friends from college) we pretty much immediately dismissed it. We had just bought a house, after all! We had to keep pinching pennies, and maybe in a few more years, we could go. We just had to recover from this one big expense.

And then...

Then we started to think of all the things that may happen each year. We may need a new car. We may have children. We may need a new water heater, or our foundation may crack, or we may want to build up our savings more, or my husband may lose his job, or a hospital bill may set us off kilter, or any number of things. There is always going to be some reason not to go. We looked at our finances, and we saw that we could do it and pay cash for it, as long as we were able to keep in under a certain amount. So we did it, and had a fabulous time. We were even under budget. Yes, that will mean that we can't pay as much towards the student loan or house for the next couple of months (We usually add a few hundred extra to the principal of these loans, and they are our only debts.) Yes, we are going to have to not eat out for at least a month or two. Yes, our savings went down a bit. But we are fine, and we had a great time, and I would not trade this experience for anything. I am so glad we just did it.

Of course, we can't let this become an excuse for spending irresponsibly. We did not go into debt for this trip. Sometimes I think people get into trouble by saying "We should just do it...we will be dead someday, after all!" But I also think it is important to step out of your comfort zone...just a bit...to go out and live life. I doubt that you'll regret it.