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My wife Suzie and I have been travelling around the Iberian peninsula for three weeks now, moving between hotels as we go. Last night, over a brandy nightcap, she asked whether the one in my hand was cheaper or pricier than the ones we’d had at our previous two stops. I had no idea. Worse, I couldn’t even tell her what this one cost.
That’s not like me. I’m normally frugal to a fault, so not knowing the price of a drink I’m actively holding is close to a personality violation. But things change when we’re on an extended trip: I willingly cross over to the spendthrift dark side.
It’s taken years to get here. In our younger travelling days, I’d spend whole vacations adding receipts in my head, running a private tally of every dime spent, and in the process, draining a fair amount of the fun out of the holiday. I also went through a phase of insisting a bottle of €4 brandy tasted exactly like a €40 one, and mostly convincing myself.
I broke the habit eventually, thanks to a tip from someone with the same affliction: preallocate the vacation budget and mentally treat it as already spent. Simple. Almost embarrassingly obvious. But it worked.
These days, the money is gone the moment we book the flights, at least in my head. Whatever we spend on brandy, tapas, or one more museum ticket isn’t a new expense, it’s just the pre-spent budget catching up with reality. The math still happens in the back of my mind, but I’m able to ignore it now.
Suzie, for her part, still finds this transformation amusing. She’s married to a man who still has the suit from their wedding 37 years ago, yet now watches that same guy order a second brandy without so much as a glance at the menu price. She likes to test the boundaries occasionally, asking questions like last night’s, just to see if the old vigilance resurfaces. So far, it hasn’t.
If there’s a lesson in all this, it’s that frugality and enjoyment don’t have to share a body at the same time. I’m still frugal, just not while I’m on vacation. The accounting happens before the trip, not during it, and the whole holiday runs better for it.
So I’ll ask you the same thing Suzie asks me: have you ever caught yourself mid-spend, unable to say what something cost, and did it feel like failure or freedom?
Great story. We’ve always been frugal when it comes to everyday things, such as groceries. Why pay over $5 a gallon of milk when Costco or BJs sells it for under $3. But not on bigger important things, like helping the kids buy a home, going on vacation, or buying something where quality is important. As one commenter mentioned they did, we’ve already prepaid a 12 day trip the end of November/early December to Italy, Zurich and Germany to see their holiday celebrations. Booked first class flights for us and my son and his spouse. Train tickets (one from Milan to Zurich through the Alps) and certain events are already paid for. So it appears frugality and spending can exist.
A Milan to Zurich train through the Alps sounds awesome! Does it ever get shutdown during winter months? Or is the train system set up for all weather in that region?
The train from Milan to Zurich is a beautiful, scenic journey — though my first time was a big disappointment. I hadn’t realised there were two different routes, and I mistakenly booked the one that goes through the tunnel under the Alps. A few years later, I made sure to book the right one!
This article really hit home for me. We’ve been retired since 2013 and started off somewhat “frugal” as well. My wife got cancer (twice) in 2016 and 2017 but recovered. This was the first wake up call for me. When we were able to travel again in 2019, that frugality disappeared (within reason).
However, I realized that it was mostly while we traveled. I had not realized that until I just read this article. We have always enjoyed traveling but the “getting to the destination” part was the challenging part (flying economy, for example). Now we fly first class and book suites on cruises. At the same time, I think it is funny that I still peruse the menu and may shy away from a dish that costs $3 more or that I will drive out of my way to save $0.05 on a gallon of gas (does anyone else get that paranoid on gas prices). On the other hand, I feel no remorse spending $1,000 on an excursion to Iguazu Falls.
Another factor has recently entered my thought process. Now that we are in our mid-to-late 70s, it is apparent that our go-go years will be waning at some point and traveling will lose more of its appeal (as walking up 300 steps to reach the castle or shrine entrance might entail). One way I have mentally “justified” spending more is to say to myself “this is the last trip will be taking.” The reality has been that I’ve been mentally saying that since 2019, while taking typically three international trips per year since (avoiding 2020 and 2021 for Covid). We are booked through 2027, so far.
As far as spending limits, our RMDs are fully available for vacation, since we have sufficient income to cover all other expenses. As half our portfolio is in Roth, we have established twice our RMD as the upper end of our discretionary spending plan. This should allow us to spend while still enabling long-term growth.