My husband and I took a bit of a vacation recently. And when I look back on it, I see that we did a lot of things right from a financial perspective. And we also did a lot of things wrong.
Our five day adventure was a road trip to Chicago. We traveled by car instead of airplane, which saved us several hundred dollars. Yes…it took us 10 hours or so each way. But we enjoy each other’s company…especially on a road trip. Yes…we paid about $40 each direction in tolls as we took the turnpike all the way across both Ohio and Indiana. But it could have been much more expensive (and a lot more annoying) if we hadn’t used our EZ Pass. And yes…we had to fill the gas tank several times. But we were driving our 2008 Prius and averaged 47 miles per gallon over the whole trip. All in all, our travel cost was very inexpensive!
While we were in Chicago we stayed with friends who live there. They didn’t have a guest bed to offer, so we took along our camping cots and sleeping bags. And our lodging was completely free for our four night stay! That’s as inexpensive as it gets. A great choice as well as great company!
Our primary reason for traveling was to see a pair of concerts at Wrigley Field. Entertainment is always one of those areas where I feel guilty about spending money. But we bought the cheap seats. We weren’t right in front of the stage or even on the field level. We were actually pretty far out to the edges of the viewing area both nights. But we could see the giant screens and we could hear every note. If I had it to do again, I would buy the same seats.
The place where we did nearly everything wrong was with food and drink. We ate out too often. We bought too much food and beverage at the concerts. We treated our friends to meals and drinks. We bought too much road food while we were traveling. We could have done all of that a lot more frugally. We should have packed road food and beverages in a cooler. We should have eaten in more. We should not have purchased concert beverages and ballpark hot dogs. Even with treating our friends, we still could have shaved a hundred dollars or more off of our food and beverage bill by simply planning ahead and being smarter.
As we travel through life, there are always places that we see we did things right (YAY!!!). And there will always be places that we find we could have made better choices. This road trip is a perfect example of that. Do I regret the trip? Absolutely not! Will I make better decisions on my next road trip? Probably. At least I hope so. The only truly bad decisions are the ones we fail to learn from.