I love hearing stories from people who have been able to fulfill their dreams by being financially wise and living below their means. Last week, I spoke to a gentleman at the gym who told me a story about something that he and his wife did that I thought was amazing. The reason that they were able to accomplish such an awesome goal is simple – they live below their means.
While he was working full-time in a comfortable job, his wife was only working part-time. She started working more days per week and they felt that their current lifestyle worked for them, so they decided to save all of her extra income rather than continue to needlessly inflate their spending. It turns out that this worked out pretty well because they were able to take sabbaticals from work and travel the United States for 5 months and Europe for another 4-5 months. Neither of their jobs were guaranteed when they returned from traveling, but it felt like something that they should pursue anyways. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity. (Fortunately, he was able to resume his job once they ended their 10-months of travel and they were back in the US for good.)
Obviously, we have to acknowledge that they had some favorable factors that helped them do this including their daughter’s high school allowing her to complete classes online, but that shouldn’t detract from the discipline that it took for them to save that money for such a great experience. It would have been much easier to spend the extra money and live a much more “stuff-centered” lifestyle than to take the financially-wise, and more difficult, path of saving and planning for the future.
As we learned in my post titled Can money buy happiness? It depends on what you do with your money., the number one thing that you can do with your money to “buy” happiness is to spend it on experiences rather than stuff. I can’t imagine what the experience of traveling for 10 months would have been like, but it’s something that I see more of my friends doing through study abroad and taking time to travel upon graduation before starting their careers. It will be interesting to see if any friends take a route such as the one that the gentleman I spoke to at the gym and his wife did.
It seems that they recognized the value of experiences and what they could do with their money instead of allowing lifestyle creep to happen. Not only were they able to share an amazing experience with their children, but they were also able to teach them a valuable finance lesson that will probably stick with them for the rest of their lives.
