Eric and I each made trips to the West Coast in February. As he mentioned, Eric traveled to Spokane, WA for a course at Gonzaga. All of his travel expenses came out of pocket. I traveled to Southern California for a retreat with colleagues from seminary. My travel expenses were covered by my continuing education budget, but meals and discretionary spending were out-of-pocket expenses.
We managed to save up about $275 in cash through gifts and other unexpected income. We split this and took it along for those discretionary expenses. Still, we ended up with about $1000 in charges to the American Express, much of that for Eric’s flight and hotel.
We do not like to carry a balance on the credit card, so we have decided to use money from Eric’s salary to pay off those two trips. That is $1000 less we can put towards debt reduction. By the strictest definition, I suppose it means we have lived beyond our budget this month. It is a luxury that we can afford in our little experiment, but I know that for many an extra $1000 in expenses would be crushing.
Travel is one of the experiences we value most in life, so for us it is worthwhile. Perhaps if the trips had been later in the year would could have pinched in other places to absorb more of those expenses and charge less to the credit card. This is where planning and sacrificing become especially important. As of now, we have two other trips planned for 2012: one in April and one in August. Both of these are within driving distance and allow us to stay with family. Perhaps a goal would be to save enough cash to cover the gas and all of our extra meals and entertainment while we’re away. We’ll work on it and report back after the April trip!
