Matt talked about money this last week at The Journey. It's a tough subject, and it's tough because we all love money (usually a lot more than we should), and we never feel like we have enough. But, the truth is, everyone has "extra" money that they spend. Some people spend it on large screen tv's, some on extended, super-duper cable, some on eating out, some on coffee every day, some on their house, or vacations, or buying expensive toys.
Jen and I don't have expanded cable, we don't go out to eat a lot, we don't drive super-sweet new rides, or have some $150 a month cell phone plan, BUT, what we do with our "extra" money has always been to use it in two areas. We want to be generous and give some away, and we love to travel. So, we have a family goal of giving away over a 1/4 of our income (we're not there yet), and we always save any extra money to travel - just the two of us, and as a family. In the past, we've taken our trips to Florida, and the Bahamas, and our 15th Anniversary to Italy. We're getting ready for a family vacation coming up soon, and we're excited.
Here's the exciting part for us - we've always had all the money we needed for the trip "up front". We've never had to put any of our vacations on credit. We've never had to "borrow" from other funds to pay for the cost of a trip. That brings great peace of mind, and helps us to really enjoy when we travel. We budget out our trip (including budgeting to the high end of what we think we'll spend) and then we raise that much money before we go. Simple, yet effective. It means we have to wait longer than we would like, but delayed gratification can be a very good thing. It took us 3 years to save for Italy. 2 1/2 for our next trip. But, we love the memories they create.
Where does your "extra" money go? The first thing you may need to do, is figure that out - because if you don't think you have "extra" money, or you don't know where it goes - that's a problem. And, my guess is, you'll never be able to be as generous as you really want to.
