Earlier today, I arrived back at my apartment. My vacation is complete, and I already miss being in California. There is still more my girlfriend and I would have liked to do on the west coast but we didn’t have time for. It’s back to the mundane for me: tonight I plan on finishing up a statistics assignment and preparing for my first day at the new job.
Thanks to everyone who visited the site over the last week while I was away. There was a bit of discussion about my visit to Disneyland. Yeah, it’s an expensive experience. No, I probably wouldn’t have gone if I were in California alone—I’ve been to Disneyland before. My girlfriend had only been to Disney World twenty years ago. She likes Disney, and she wanted to go to Disneyland. Therefore, I’d prefer to be a good boyfriend and introduce her to Donald Duck than be a stingy bastard any day. As it happens, I had fun as well.
I’m all for watching expenses as much as possible. I also believe it’s okay to splurge for things that are important to people. If my girlfriend wants the Disney Experience, we’ll do it. We might even go again someday! Oh, the horrors.
Disneyland was only a part of our vacation. While we spent a lot of time with my family in Lake Tahoe, we also did some touristy activities as it was Amy’s first visit to the state. We toured the Hollywood Walk of Fame (total expenses: $8 for parking), saw the view of the valley from Mulholland Drive (total expenses: $0), and spent quality time in the backyard hot tub.
As we were on vacation, I didn’t track my expenses closely. Nevertheless, all of my credit card transactions will be downloaded automatically through Quicken, and I didn’t spend much cash, so my monthly reports should end up somewhat accurate.
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I’m all for being thrifty as well, but a vacation is a vacation and you should enjoy it! And by that I mean splurge from time to time!
A few comments:
1. Kids = Disney. If you have kids, I GUARANTEE you’ll be back.
2. Spend what you like, that’s why you work hard. It gives you something money can’t buy: great memories.
3. I’m not even going to touch that “quality time in the hot tub” remark. ;-)