More context. Paid cash for the van and the utility trailer. Paid off a good chunk of debt on top of those big purchases and didn't use credit at all this past year.
Hawaii: We used to live here, and have spent the past few years saving for this trip. We came to see friends that we haven't seen in 4 years. They are meeting two of our children for the first time. Airfare: $400/ticket round trip purchased months ago at the lowest price of the year. Van: Our friends are letting us use their van for free for all 16 days. We are staying at three friends houses while we are here, also free. Our expenses while here are food and gas. Everything else we are doing here is free, surfing, swimming, snorkeling, hiking, going to the lava etc. The entire trip is costing us less than $2,500 for our family of 6 to fly to Hawaii and spend 16 days with our friends. I've saved money money on just about everything. I'm not sure it's possible for this trip to have cost any less than it has. We valued this trip over paying off a chunk of our debt for many reasons. Having money and being debt free is important to us, but recognizing that being debt free is a few more years out, we saved and paid cash for the trip. The rest, sunshine, body boarding and time with friends is worth a lot more to us than the money.
Hawaii: We used to live here, and have spent the past few years saving for this trip. We came to see friends that we haven't seen in 4 years. They are meeting two of our children for the first time. Airfare: $400/ticket round trip purchased months ago at the lowest price of the year. Van: Our friends are letting us use their van for free for all 16 days. We are staying at three friends houses while we are here, also free. Our expenses while here are food and gas. Everything else we are doing here is free, surfing, swimming, snorkeling, hiking, going to the lava etc. The entire trip is costing us less than $2,500 for our family of 6 to fly to Hawaii and spend 16 days with our friends. I've saved money money on just about everything. I'm not sure it's possible for this trip to have cost any less than it has. We valued this trip over paying off a chunk of our debt for many reasons. Having money and being debt free is important to us, but recognizing that being debt free is a few more years out, we saved and paid cash for the trip. The rest, sunshine, body boarding and time with friends is worth a lot more to us than the money.