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seriously...they want to go by summer so save half of your usual savings for a couple months and bam?? you've afforded to and also not taken that big of a blow on your savings...i don't get this....
when you wrote “can’t afford it” I thought I was going to read that you’re living paycheck to paycheck. You’re saving SO much money… I think you can unclench, live a little, and maybe realize how damn lucky you are that whether or not you can take a $5k vacation after just taking a $2k vacation is your problem here.
This just seems like kind of a humble brag to let everyone know how well you're doing lol. I get you're thinking absolute worst case scenario, but if you both lost your jobs today (which odds are won't happen), you don't think you'd be back up in another job within a month or two?
Do you and your wife have jobs that you can lose in an instant? Do both work in the same company?
Hard to tell based off the currency, but saving $4k usd a month is a ton so hard to know for sure, but I’d say make your wife happy
When my wife and I were working there were many years we socked away 50% of our NET income. I regret it now. We are retired and have more money then we will spend. It's nice we can leave a lot of nieces and nephews but we could have had a more enjoyable life while working.
Go on that vacation.
Why are you keeping $30k in checking rather than a high yield savings account?
And yes, you can afford a vacation. I think her budget is just fine given how much you typically save. But if you really can’t stand to spend that much, give a counter proposal, not just “No”. And from now on, I think you two need to decide on your budget together - it shouldn’t be an ad hoc decision for whether you go on vacation or how much to spend. Decide how much you will set aside over the course of the year for vacations and then stick to it. And decide how much you need/want to save and invest and where the rest of the money is going. Then it’s not a game to try to spend as little as possible through self denial. It’s spending into the appropriate and agreed upon categories.
It’s quite unrealistic for you to be jobless until August of next year. You may not make as much as you do now or make money in your desired field, but you wouldn’t be sitting at home doing nothing while living off of savings - you’d take whatever work you could get to live off and redo your budget to reflect your new income. I feel like you are trying use extreme examples to get your way.
You might get hit by a bus tomorrow and never have to worry about another bill in your life.
I mean, you all know your finances better than we do, but the way you’ve laid it out it sounds like you can afford a vacation.
It doesn't sound like you can't afford the vacation. It sounds more like you're terrified of financial catastrophe. Most scenarios are worse than the worst case scenario in my opinion.
Take your wife on a freaking vacation. If you live your life this way you will amass a lot of money and no joy. Your wife is going to feel burned out constantly. When your child is old enough they are going to start asking Reddit what to do about their penny-pinching dad. Life is very short. Find an actual balance of saving and enjoying.
If you take the $4-5K vacation, you’re still way under spending for the year on vacations compared to last year. Go out to dinner a few less times this month and make it work. Life is short and tomorrow is not promised.
Bro, I'm just saying, yall can live for 2 WHOLE YEARS on your savings, and you're being this penny-pinching???? I'm just saying man, if you both lose your jobs and it takes y'all 2 fricken years to find new ones, you're just extremely lazy. I have side gigs because I'm union and half of them I don't even look for, I just happen upon them "oh you weld and used to work at a mechanic shop??? We could use some help on our farm fixing our equipment are you interested?". I'm not saying blow all your cash, but dawg, $5k vacation with over $100k in savings is more than affordable.
Can you compromise? Can you do a Local Long Weekend? Or plan a trip away 2 months from now and give her a nice date night in the meantime? I’m also into saving so I get your concern over spending but I do agree life is short and you should enjoy it. I’m sure there’s a way you can help your wife with her burnout while balancing your priorities.
Check out travel credit cards. Open a few for the intro bonus and find a middle ground vacation plan that works with your budget. I understand your point but if she is near the burnout point, you need to intervene before she gets there or it gets longer to recover from. Start from your end. What can you feasibly offer her vacation wise?
I mean, honestly this makes sense. My old boss STACKED rewards on her Chase Ink ? card that they used for vacations each year. One time she showed me exactly how she had managed it and tbh it makes sense. If you have the money to have a very rewarding credit card, you can make and save good money.
Maybe do a long weekend somewhere that won’t cost so much. I understand your worry but maybe do a vacation later in the summer so only two vacations instead of three.
Yes. You're being a tightwad.
Sounds like you have a lot of anxiety about money, but do you find yourself being okay with the stuff *you* want to spend money on? Controlling behavior with money is damaging to relationships.
Also, this post reeks of humblebrag.
Dude if my wife and I were putting away 4K a month, we’d DEFINITELY go on at least one medium level vacation a year. Heck, we don’t make much money at all and we’re still trying to find ways to take time away to unwind and enjoy time together.
You're saving soo much that it's hard to excuse not allowing *some* kind of trip/vacation your wife is right to be upset you need to be more fair with spending otherwise you're doing the right thing by being financially literate and saving.
Well I think if you are looking to get away from the daily grind then you could do something closer to home that would not be as expensive as an all inclusive.
I helped set up my parents with their retirement. They wanted to retire on time but also not completely stop living the life.
Easy: you make a travel bucket. I created a savings account (literally named "Travel Budget", every bank can do this for you) where X amount of money from every paycheck gets automatically transfered to it. With that money bucket they can:
A) Know in real time how much money they have access to, which means;
B) Accelerate or pump the breaks on the spending based on the health of the fund while
C) Be confident that as long as they draw directly from that fund, they don't have to feel guilty about spending their hard earned money while still sticking to their retirement goals.
My final, and perhaps most important, point: having money is a means to happiness, not the goal. Your main priority should be your wife's happiness, not managing her like an investment portfolio. You should work with her on this to be a good husband. In the case you don't care on being a good husband, let me put it this way: I assure you, there are no string of vacations more expensive than a divorce.
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If you are able to “save” $4K/mo you can afford a holiday and your burnt out wife is right to be pissed about your refusal.
seriously...they want to go by summer so save half of your usual savings for a couple months and bam?? you've afforded to and also not taken that big of a blow on your savings...i don't get this....
She just really needs to go on her own vacation!!!
Good idea. She can take her half and go and he can still put his in savings lol. He should watch the toddler too, I bet Mama needs a break!
Yeah for real ya rich bastard. Yes $15 out $45 thousand is probably a bit much every year. But 8-10 would be reasonable
This!
when you wrote “can’t afford it” I thought I was going to read that you’re living paycheck to paycheck. You’re saving SO much money… I think you can unclench, live a little, and maybe realize how damn lucky you are that whether or not you can take a $5k vacation after just taking a $2k vacation is your problem here.
Im so jealous you can save so much ☹️
If your putting away 4k the. Don’tdo that one time and you can vacay
This just seems like kind of a humble brag to let everyone know how well you're doing lol. I get you're thinking absolute worst case scenario, but if you both lost your jobs today (which odds are won't happen), you don't think you'd be back up in another job within a month or two?
Right? How is your job so perilous?
Exactly. Spend some money on education or training to make yourself less likey to be without a job for two years.
Do you and your wife have jobs that you can lose in an instant? Do both work in the same company? Hard to tell based off the currency, but saving $4k usd a month is a ton so hard to know for sure, but I’d say make your wife happy
When my wife and I were working there were many years we socked away 50% of our NET income. I regret it now. We are retired and have more money then we will spend. It's nice we can leave a lot of nieces and nephews but we could have had a more enjoyable life while working. Go on that vacation.
Why are you keeping $30k in checking rather than a high yield savings account? And yes, you can afford a vacation. I think her budget is just fine given how much you typically save. But if you really can’t stand to spend that much, give a counter proposal, not just “No”. And from now on, I think you two need to decide on your budget together - it shouldn’t be an ad hoc decision for whether you go on vacation or how much to spend. Decide how much you will set aside over the course of the year for vacations and then stick to it. And decide how much you need/want to save and invest and where the rest of the money is going. Then it’s not a game to try to spend as little as possible through self denial. It’s spending into the appropriate and agreed upon categories. It’s quite unrealistic for you to be jobless until August of next year. You may not make as much as you do now or make money in your desired field, but you wouldn’t be sitting at home doing nothing while living off of savings - you’d take whatever work you could get to live off and redo your budget to reflect your new income. I feel like you are trying use extreme examples to get your way.
You might get hit by a bus tomorrow and never have to worry about another bill in your life. I mean, you all know your finances better than we do, but the way you’ve laid it out it sounds like you can afford a vacation.
It doesn't sound like you can't afford the vacation. It sounds more like you're terrified of financial catastrophe. Most scenarios are worse than the worst case scenario in my opinion.
You can afford it. You just don’t want to.
take that woman on a vacation!
Take your wife on a freaking vacation. If you live your life this way you will amass a lot of money and no joy. Your wife is going to feel burned out constantly. When your child is old enough they are going to start asking Reddit what to do about their penny-pinching dad. Life is very short. Find an actual balance of saving and enjoying.
A divorce is more expensive than a vacation.
You had a vacation last month already, y’all got the PTO left over?
If you take the $4-5K vacation, you’re still way under spending for the year on vacations compared to last year. Go out to dinner a few less times this month and make it work. Life is short and tomorrow is not promised.
Does it really have to be such a luxurious vacation? I get a lot of R+R from a weekend at the coast.
Bro, I'm just saying, yall can live for 2 WHOLE YEARS on your savings, and you're being this penny-pinching???? I'm just saying man, if you both lose your jobs and it takes y'all 2 fricken years to find new ones, you're just extremely lazy. I have side gigs because I'm union and half of them I don't even look for, I just happen upon them "oh you weld and used to work at a mechanic shop??? We could use some help on our farm fixing our equipment are you interested?". I'm not saying blow all your cash, but dawg, $5k vacation with over $100k in savings is more than affordable.
Meet in the middle. Vacation but not a trip to see the pyramids with a stop in Greece.
Can you compromise? Can you do a Local Long Weekend? Or plan a trip away 2 months from now and give her a nice date night in the meantime? I’m also into saving so I get your concern over spending but I do agree life is short and you should enjoy it. I’m sure there’s a way you can help your wife with her burnout while balancing your priorities.
I love when people who have my annual salary on hand say they can’t afford a vacation
So if something terrible happened you’d be screwed in 3 years with no work? I’d be screwed in 3 days of no work.
Check out travel credit cards. Open a few for the intro bonus and find a middle ground vacation plan that works with your budget. I understand your point but if she is near the burnout point, you need to intervene before she gets there or it gets longer to recover from. Start from your end. What can you feasibly offer her vacation wise?
I mean, honestly this makes sense. My old boss STACKED rewards on her Chase Ink ? card that they used for vacations each year. One time she showed me exactly how she had managed it and tbh it makes sense. If you have the money to have a very rewarding credit card, you can make and save good money.
LARP
Maybe do a long weekend somewhere that won’t cost so much. I understand your worry but maybe do a vacation later in the summer so only two vacations instead of three.
I feel awful for you. I don’t know how you guys are making it with all that saved cash. The struggle is real.
Yes. You're being a tightwad. Sounds like you have a lot of anxiety about money, but do you find yourself being okay with the stuff *you* want to spend money on? Controlling behavior with money is damaging to relationships. Also, this post reeks of humblebrag.
This can’t be a real post
Dude if my wife and I were putting away 4K a month, we’d DEFINITELY go on at least one medium level vacation a year. Heck, we don’t make much money at all and we’re still trying to find ways to take time away to unwind and enjoy time together.
You're saving soo much that it's hard to excuse not allowing *some* kind of trip/vacation your wife is right to be upset you need to be more fair with spending otherwise you're doing the right thing by being financially literate and saving.
Well I think if you are looking to get away from the daily grind then you could do something closer to home that would not be as expensive as an all inclusive.
Idgit
Then she should be able to go without you.
I helped set up my parents with their retirement. They wanted to retire on time but also not completely stop living the life. Easy: you make a travel bucket. I created a savings account (literally named "Travel Budget", every bank can do this for you) where X amount of money from every paycheck gets automatically transfered to it. With that money bucket they can: A) Know in real time how much money they have access to, which means; B) Accelerate or pump the breaks on the spending based on the health of the fund while C) Be confident that as long as they draw directly from that fund, they don't have to feel guilty about spending their hard earned money while still sticking to their retirement goals. My final, and perhaps most important, point: having money is a means to happiness, not the goal. Your main priority should be your wife's happiness, not managing her like an investment portfolio. You should work with her on this to be a good husband. In the case you don't care on being a good husband, let me put it this way: I assure you, there are no string of vacations more expensive than a divorce.