Am I the only one who feels like Smails takes tons of vacations? I swear, every other post seems to be about going to, during, or coming back from some sweet trip.
Totally jealous.
Not really. We are big on family vacations, so I plan one big one a year. Usually 10-14 days, though Europe was 18. I'm all about life experiences. And I'll spend for them. It helps that I get a lot of airline and hotel points through work, and I bought 2 two bedroom timeshares a long time ago when realizing that 1 hotel room wasn't holding a family of 5. So that sort of forces vacations.
Other than that, I need carrots on my calendar to keep me sane. Doing a boys trip to Del Mar in August to party and play the ponies (just a drive for me), and then going with the same couple we went to Cabo with to New Orleans in October. Just need a little somethin' every few months. Concert, whatever. I'm the anti-Dentist when it comes to spending on this stuff. I want to live and experience now. If I'm 90 and standing outside a soup kitchen I will have made the wrong choice. Otherwise.......
You realize about the only thing I'm willing to spend money on is experiences/vacations.
I'm not cheap on everything.. just almost everything.
But I spent 12 days in the Caribbean last year and another 6 days at a very nice lake in our state.... and I have a small season package of premium tickets to our local MLB team.
I also agree that you have to have things to look forward to... and I like "doing stuff". I'm a boat owner (no loan - older boat) as well which is completely a -EV experience.. but damn fun!
I make the decision to live in a cheap house and we own 2 cheap cars so that I can meet both my goals of saving heavily so I don't have to do another root canal in my life.. while also enjoying life. But my definition of enjoying life doesn't include what most of our country values... the big house, the name brand clothing, the luxury auto, the maid, and eating out multiple times a week.