Got a great email from a reader the other day and thought you’d want to chime in :)
As someone who has just made a pretty big decision personally in the “experience” department (though one that actually pays vs the other way around! Haha…) it’s been something a lot on our minds too.
Here’s the note/question:
What up J$! I read an article about 5 things to make you happier – the arts (music/museums/plays), being outdoors, charity/volunteer, cultivate meaningful relationships, and new experiences.
After I said ‘Bye Felicia!’ to debt, I changed my focus to these things. I’ve done some volunteer work, helped raise funds for a St. Jude’s event, donated monthly to them, went to see Wicked (awesome play, def worth going!), and about to go to Hall & Oates concert coming up! haha
Creating new experiences is very interesting topic that I’d like your opinion on. Holly Johnson from Club Thrifty wrote an article about how much she spent on a vacation with her family and it was totally worth it. Kathleen Elkins from Business Insider wrote an article about advice from her mom concerning spending money on experiences.
How do you determine if an experience is worth the cost? Trent Hamm likes to look at cheaper alternatives. What if there’s no alternative? You can’t compare seeing Tupac when he was live versus seeing a hologram of him. It’s not the same. You can’t compare seeing the Taj Mahal in person versus a lego version of it at Legoland. If there is a value…then at what point is it way too much to pay for it?
As in life, I believe there needs to be some balance. Work hard, play hard…. save some money, spend some experiences. I’m just trying to determine the right balance for the cost of an experience. Let me know your thoughts!
First, I love that this is the SECOND TIME Tupac has been brought up on this blog lately, haha… The first time when I found a quote of his bashing Michael Jackson for spending so lavishly ;)
But yes – def. a great question for sure, and of course one we’ll have our own ways of figuring out…
My answer back to him was pretty guessible if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, but I’ll share it anyways just to hit home the point that I very much prefer living while saving money at the same time. Going too hardcore in either direction usually never ends well.
Here’s what I shot back:
I mean, there’s some obvious answers here like if it gets in your way of the priorities or screws up your future or hurts any of your friends or something like that, but if you have all that stuff covered and room to spend $$$ on stuff that brings you so much joy?? I can tell you LOVE experiences so my vote is to just keep soaking them all up as long as the basics are covered as well as saving for the future too. That will look differently to everyone, but why not spend all “extra” money towards what you enjoy the most?
So my answer pretty much comes down to the following set of questions:
- Is the money extra?
- Does it bring you joy?
- Will you regret it later if you do (or don’t)?
- Does it hurt any of your goals?
If the money’s there you could even just *budget it in* so you get rid of the guilt too. Kinda like a monthly bill, only one that’s a lot more fun!
I told him I might share the convo with y’all just to get some more perspectives, and he liked the idea so here we are :) Chime in below!
How do YOU determine whether an experience is worth the cost or not? Do you have any rules in place or $$ caps? Is there something that would throw out ALL reasoning and you’d take up in a heartbeat if you could?
After going back and forth a bit he later shot me a quote that we both agreed sounded pretty fitting. Something to think about going into the weekend/summer!
*****
PS: And if you were wondering about that Hall & Oates concert – “them dudes still got soul,” haha… My parents will be glad to know :)
[Photo by Glen Wright / Tweaked by J$]
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This question is a hard one and applies to everything. Basically, you only have so much time and money and need to decide how to spend both. There are cheap things that are fantastic. There are expensive things that are differently fantastic. Then there’s places that are expensive but not a good experience at all. Those are the ones I’d try to avoid. In the end, the best thing you can do is see how much the cost is, understand the time involved, and choose what’s right for you. And don’t make the decisions based on what others think. Their opinions and input can definitely help, but all this stuff is really for you.
This ^^^^^.
You have to know yourself. You should be able to judge what experience will be fulfilling for you. A family trip to Thailand would be worth it to me. A Super bowl ticket would not be worth it at all to me. Concerts? It depends. When I was young, I enjoyed some live bands, but now it’s not a big deal to me. Life is too busy to go to concerts after we had a kid. It’s just not worth the hassle anymore.
Lol we just went to a concert last night! Parents watched the girls and we had a great day out. But it was only $20 a ticket. Then there’s the super bowl. The amazing thing is that it could be something that others would rather do and that’s ok! We all don’t have to like the same things. ;)
I like the general rule of making sure the general things are covered first, bills, debts, savings, etc. Then I think it depends on the individual. What do you value and prioritize in your life? We enjoy traveling, visiting with family, spending time with our children, so we try and maximize those things. Sometimes spending money on experiences might not be a home-run, but when you got everything else in order you can take chance to see what’s out there.
I agree with your thought process, Brian. I often take things a step further when trying to determine the value of experiences by considering the hourly cost of the experience. To do, I consider my monthly discretionary money amount and divide it by the number of hours worked. For example, if I had $700 in discretionary income and had worked 160 hours in the month, I earned $17.50 per hour in actual income, minus my mandatory expenses.
If contemplating the purchase of a deep dish Chicago-style pizza, I might ask, “Is it delicious enough to warrant slightly over an hour of work?” I find this thought process to be very helpful in many, but not all, situations.
I like that way of thinking too :) Reminds me of a friend I used to know who would measure *time* in the amount of cigarettes he could smoke to get there. So instead of taking “15 minutes” to get somewhere, he’d say “we’ll get there in 2 cigs” haha…
I personally like the Tightwad Gazzette measurement of “cost per wow” when determining if an experience is worth the money. So if going camping with the family for a week is $500 total and is 5 “wows”, then is Disney World for $5000 ten times as good-50 wows? Also, I find assessing how many times you can do one thing in relation to another is helpful. Iif I can go camping with the family 10 times vs. go to Disney once, which one is a better value to me?
There’s really no right or wrong answer, it just depends on your personal situation and priorities. It’s a helpful measurement of relative fun to cost.The answer will be different for every person, and different for the same person depending on what stage of life you’re in.
But don’t be like a friend of mine and take out a loan to take the family to Disney/Universal Studios while you’re broke. No wows there, only woes.
I LOVE THIS!!!
Never heard of the Wow system – man that’s good….
How many Wows do you get reading this blog?? :)
I LOVE this approach! I’m going to find this and read it. Then I’ll annoy the crap out of Mr. PIE by assigning everything a Wow value!!
If you’re pretty certain that you’ll be able to look back on the event 30 years from now with great fondness, go for it.
I think another big question is how important is the experience to you. If visiting a certain country has been incredibly important to you for years, I don’t think it is necessarily a bad thing if you spend more given the joy you will get from accomplishing it. If you are just going somewhere to go somewhere, then I think you shouldn’t spend as much if you don’t think you’ll get as much of a reward.
It all depends on what is important to each individual family or person. I plan to go with my family to Disney someday. Some people will think that is a waste of money and not worth it but I know the joy it will bring to all of us will be worth the extra cost of going there.
I like experiences, too. I am a big art person so there are museums to be seen and performances to be watched and activities to be participate in. For me it is a line item in the budget. However, I have noticed that many times people (at least in the circles I run in), hype up the big “experiences” so much that they lose sight of all the joy of the little experiences going on around them all the time. I know that in my case the best memories I have of people rarely come from a big event. They come from laughing around the dinner table, a conversation during a mundane regular day, or just sharing in the regular goings on in my life. So when I spend money on an experience it has to at least be able to compete with all that little stuff.
Amen to that!
Tough question to answer, but I can give you an example to explain my thinking. About 5+ years ago we knew planning ahead that we’d want to start a family and once we did we wouldn’t be traveling much anymore. So even though it was fairly expensive, we budgeted and splurged on a trip to Machu Picchu. It was a great experience and bucket list thing, and something we’d always remember. And we budgeted in a splurge trip like that knowing we wouldn’t be doing anything that big again for a number of years. Life has to be worth living and you don’t want to look back with regrets! Hope this helps.
Personally, I suck at collecting experiences. I was the youngest of 7 kids raised on one school teacher’s salary so we worked a lot and didn’t go on vacations or even trips very often. And now as an adult I can still see that lack of experiences influencing my parenting. Some times (usually) I think that there’s no reason to go out and do big trips or activities but at other times I (under my wife’s urging) feel like I need to give my boys more experiences and culturing than I had as a kid. So, long story short, we determine our behavior based on what we have been taught and just keep on going with the family traditions that we grew up with.
True about upbringing!
We do a big vacation every couple years and sprinkle in a few smaller ones in between – if you have the money, I say go for it, what else are you going to do with it
Lots of very costly things give true pleasure – traveling the world, a week at the beach with your family, going skiing, going to a show, catching a Ranger game (this is possibly more expensive than a European vacation). They are all worth it if the money, if it’s there. And if it’s not, if you can set the money aside (i.e. save). But as completely awesome as all of those things are, for me, none are worth putting yourself in debt for. Debt is for medical and other emergencies.
This is how I like to operate too.
Great post. Loved thinking about this one.
One way to look at is as follows. If you look back on an experience and don’t need the photographs to fondly remember it, it was absolutely worthwhile. The good things and happy times stay with us and don’t need the digital back up to tell us so. Well until we all start losing the function of our neurons…..
Yeah, I would totally drop a couple of thousands if it meant being able to see Pac in concert. Would be worth every penny. I’m leaning on your side of opinion as I feel the same way. My whole thing is having a life and a budget, so if there is an experience I need to keep things popping, I’m going to figure out a way to put it in my budget. If the kids are fed, savings banked, and bills paid, why not? Don’t let life pass you by with a heart full of hope and and no memories.
Experiences are so worth it! I think you just sometimes know in your spirit when an experience will be so good that you can’t miss it. another way to tell is if you passed up on it before and you really regretted it, then it comes around again you better jump on it. This happened to me when Prince was touring years ago. I really wanted to go but didn’t have the funds. I told myself if he ever comes back I will find a way to get tickets even if I have to go a little deeper in debt. Well that chance came around again when he came to Baltimore for the Freddy Gray incident.That concert was amazing on so many levels. Now only a short time later Prince is no longer with us. I’m glad I had the chance to EXPRIENCE him and his music one last time.
Awesome!!! I’m glad you kept your own word to yourself! :)
I got into travel hacking so I didn’t spend all the $ on flights. I’m not an expert by any means but I have taken advantage a few times and traveled to Germany for a few hundred bucks for 3 people. I’m working on another international trip now doing the same thing. Experiences and traveling are top on my priority list and I needed to find a way not to break the bank. So far so good!
Another great way to rock it :)
All experiences are “worth it” if you’ve covered the bases with expenses, debt reduction, savings, and/or whatever other financial goals you’ve set for yourself. What might be extravagant to one person may be frugal to another, and vice versa. You can’t get this time back! If there’s an opportunity for a once in a lifetime experience and you can afford it, I would go for it. There’s no joy in living a life full of regrets, regardless of the size of your bank account. As long as you are true to your financial plan, whatever it is, build in some fun money to enjoy your life. Don’t overthink every wonderful chance for an awesome life experience. Time will pass and your health may falter, and all those things you wanted to someday do may become impractical or impossible. My husband is facing both knee and back surgery in the next few months, so a three week trip to Europe is out of the question until he’s fully recovered. But when (and if) he’s well enough to make the trip, are we going? Absolutely. Will it blow a giant hole in the savings account? Yes, it certainly will. But if I’d known a year ago what we’re facing medically now, we would have already done it. Tomorrow is promised to no one.
Sending positive vibes over to him!!! Hope it goes smoothly!
It’s not about the money…some experiences are $0 and some are $10K. The currency I use to evaluate potential experiences is regret. When opportunities pop up, I get a gut reaction. More often than not, my gut has been great at letting me know what experience is what I’d call a potentially memorable, lifetime experience. When my gut doesn’t give me that vibe, it will likely be one that I could easily forgo.
Return on investment decisions should never apply to the experiential. Only the experiential return of enhancing your life matters.
Oh, and experiences on credit DO NOT have the same effect. The obligation always dampens your ability to truly stay in the moment and may even lead to regret that would have otherwise been absent.
I totally agree with the thought that experiences are better than material things! I also agree that how you were brought up makes a path for you to follow. When I was growing up I can remember 5 family vacations but I remember family picnics every summer with just small day trips for them. My kids have had some really nice vacations but as they got older and school and education cost more…vacations were slim. I felt the experience of a good solid education was the most important. I am hoping as they grow older and I grow older that family vacations will still be every once in awhile…happy memories that will last long past things :)
My first concert was Hall & Oats…..oh the memories :)
Just last week we went to Arches national park and hiked around with our 6 year old daughter. She loved it and then hated it (when it got hot), but we have so many amazing pictures and I have one of my wife and daughter in an arch overlooking another arch and I can’t stop smiling and had to put it as my wallpaper and actually go to the store and have it printed off. So as I think about this subject I love to let my daughter have new life experiences and I love to sit back and watch her experience life for the first time. Anything that I feel is photo print worthy is a great experience. Her bedroom wall has pictures of her jumping off a huge sand mound in to the water in Hawaii, hiking through national parks, a picture with her favorite college volleyball players and mascots, picture with the local college football head coach yelling at her to jump higher and scream louder and tackle. Just simply makes me smile about life.
Sounds so beautiful, man :)
I think having a budget for vacations or fun stuff is a good idea. We don’t really do that officially, but I think we maintain a good balance.
I tend to go with my gut on this type of spending (and pretty much all spending). If we went to a concert last week, we probably don’t need to go to one this week too. If those concert tickets are more than $30 or $40 each, I will probably pass as well.
A big YAAAASSSSS to collecting memories not things! I have a savings account dedicated to these indulgences and actually made it my 2016 goal to experience one new, unique thing in NYC a month. It didn’t have to cost money or be pricey (but it could be). I get so focused on savings, that I sometimes talk myself out of enjoying the amenities that surround me and I know I’ll regret it in the long run. Obviously, I’m not going to go blow tons of cash — but I do give myself a bit more permission to spend than I used to, especially since I have zero debt.
Hedonic adaptation can happen with experiences too. Memories get fuzzy over the years, and things forgotten.
I try to spend on experiences that won’t be forgotten….
For example: An experience I’ve never had before, and will likely never have again. Like skydiving. That one will stick with you.
Spending on things you do every day (like eating), will just get lost in the blur of days.
Yes to skydiving. And it sticks to you even more when someone dies shortly after you jumped out because their chute never opens :( Wish I *could* forget that part.
Spend on experience that won’t be forgotten. Also only spend if you have the extra money and the spending won’t set you back (i.e. debt, or years behind your retirement).
I’m a fan of doing stuff with friends – we went & watched a free fire spinning show last month, or checking out a park (even if we spend a little to bring a picnic). Those memories hang on a long time. Other memories do require admission/ travel costs. I don’t remember all of going to see a play in NYC with my mom as a kid (we saw a matinee for a discount for sure). I -DO- remember the feeling of getting to go with her & feeling ‘grown up’. Sometimes it’s getting out of the norm (or locale) to make those impactful memories. That’s part of why I save $, so I can go on & enjoy family trips every few years. :)
Love that :)
I personally say give ourselves treats. What’s the point of saving if you never eek out time to enjoy it? Most experiences and adventures we have had been worth the lessons we’ve garnered from allowing ourselves ways to just enjoy life. Besides, we could save it all and never live to enjoy it.
I love this question! These are the guardrails that Rob and I use.
1. Do we have the money- if not, it’s not going to happen. Unless the experience is life saving surgery, it’s not going to be worth debt. This is such a hard and fast rule that we would apply it to weddings and funerals too, but we would tap into an e-fund if necessary.
2. Is there any reason for us to believe it won’t be worth the money? Sometimes you know something is going to suck, but you still want to spend money on it. That’s crazy. Don’t do it!
3. Learn from your mistakes. Sometimes you go to a bad restaurant or pick a crappy vacation spot or buy tickets to a mediocre performance. That’s too bad, but next time you’ll do something better.
if(Price of experience makes me want to vomit)
{
// Slap myself for even thinking about buying experience
}
else
{
// Suns out Guns Out!!!!!
}
Haha….
BEST. COMMENT. EVER.
One of the things we have vowed never to cut from the budget it travel. Though we tend to travel on a budget when we can, the memories of vacationing with our kids over the past 13 years is absolutely priceless. We still talk about the highlights of our trips from years ago – the kids never forget our adventures. Now that we have one leaving the nest soon, I’m even more grateful we spent the money on those experiences over the years.
I think the advice you gave is spot on!
Like most money things, it all depends on the person. My boyfriend and I love music and try to go to as many concerts as possible. We don’t put a limit on how much we’ll spend on tickets but we try to judge if the ticket price is worth it compared to how much we like the band. For example, we spent $200 each to see Bruce Springsteen (plus a 3 hr drive to LA). That was worth every penny and more! But we didn’t spend $45 each to see Chrvches, a band we like quite a bit but don’t necessarily love. It just seemed to much compared to our interest level.
And as you mentioned J Money, we have our bills paid, our necessities covered, and our retirement and investment savings automated, so this is the extra fun money!
Going to google Chrvches right now :)
This is such an important question to answer for yourself. As long as you are covering your expenses and investments, life is for living! I love doing things with my girlfriend, and sometimes that includes tiny trips. I have been banned (by both of us) from picking the hotel. All three have been absolute duds. Our trips would have been better without my chasing a deal.
We are all about the experiences. We work hard and sometimes we play hard. The catch is…gotta have the money for the experience or it’s a no go. We enjoy traveling and I love concerts. I grew up with a love of music from my mom, so being able to take her to see some great shows has been an incredible experience. An Eagles concert now that Glenn Fry has passed away will never be the same. Any regrets….nope. Taking my mom and son to see Paul McCartney is an experience we all still talk about. I would have paid more, but that’s my thing. If it is something that you love, go for it.
Some of the best $$ I ever spent was for my Pilot’s License and my homebuilt airplane. My Dad said, over and over, that he wanted to learn to fly and get his license. He had the money, but he wouldn’t, for reasons unknown.
I wanted to do the same, and I earned my Pilot’s License and was able to take my dad flying. I bought an abandoned homebuilt airplane and finished it, months before my Dad died. He got to see me fly it once.
I was able to take my wife, and two kids up, as well as friends and family. I flew my home built from the DFW area to Oshkosh, WI, in 2003, the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers’ first flight.
Due to health reasons I can’t fly anymore, but those are memories that I will cherish forever.
Yeah, that was money WELL spent.
Oh man – so cool you went after that!!! And that your dad got to see you do it!
When determining whether or not the money is worth the experience, I take into consideration the people I would be sharing the experience with. That’s the biggest factor for me.
If the experience will be shared with some good friends, it will most likely be a memorable one, one for the history books. Those experiences are normally priceless.
Good point w/ the people! A lot less fun usually doing stuff by yourself :)
In our household, we have agreed to live on a budget that has room for fun things. We have monthly fun money and a travel fund. In principle, any experience we want to get needs to come out these buckets. Life is meant to be lived. If you have an idea what you want to do when Financially Independent, why postpone it? Why not live now?!?
The tough situation will be be the moment there is an experience that we really really love an the buckets can not afford it.
I don’t have any certain criteria to assess if an experience is worth it. Something just tells me whether I gotta grab it or pass, though I consider the cost I will have to pay, lessons I may probably learn, and the people I will encounter.
I’m 71 and retired now. My income isn’t flush, but I have all my bases covered, including a paid for condo and no other debt, along with a steady source of income, good secondary health insurance and a modest, but ok savings account. I haven’t stopped experiencing life by any means, however, I also know that while I’m healthy I don’t have the constant level of energy I did when younger. Unlike several people I know I do not look back wishing that I had done more or taken more risks or whatever. I did a lot. A whole lot. That is such a gift. I don’t sit around regretting. I had many wonderful times, good times, memorable times. Yet, it wasn’t so much the big things or the expensive things that I remember (in fact, because I have never been wealthy, most of the things I did didn’t cost much), it is more the culmination of the financially modest, though throughly enjoyable or interesting experiences, the people I knew and the attitude with which life was (is) approached.
Thanks so much for sharing! Loved reading this – especially from someone outside of our younger little bubble here. Awesome you read the blog!
After my battle with cancer last year, I can assure you: Just go do it! We all don’t really realize how finite your time in this life is. Save money? Yes. But beyond that, don’t be a miser. Open up your wallet, take that vacation, spend time with the family, and do the things that leave you fulfilled.
Cancer??? I don’t think I knew that, damn man – so sorry to hear :( I hope things are on the up and up now? So scary!
This post hits close to home. I’ve always been a big fan of experiences. I had the opportunity to see Prince in concert in early April, but I decided not to buy the ticket because I couldn’t justify spending $250 for one ticket. I figured that once I’m debt free, I’ll be able to see him anytime. Who knew he would be dead a week after that Atlanta concert? I regret not spending the money to see him. Besides 2pac, Prince was my other favorite artist.
The experiences over stuff and don’t collect things bla bla is getting just dragged through the mud out there and to me is totally being discussed in an irresponsible manner.
– save your damn money, if you’re in debt you should be doing “free experiences”
– consumer driven look at me trips are plain dumb, but geez it was an all inclusive
– have a plan and execute on that experience with a sound budget pre , during & post trip
– can we not get back to trips like the 50’s, get in your car and experience your own state/province
I don’t know , we do everything we can to justify our actions or bait others into saying it’s ok for us to do something stupid. So basically if it’s excessive or irresponsible for your financial situation then a big NO . If you have your sh@t together then yes.
I also agree that we should buy less crap, buy high quality and buy less, buy only what you need and sell the rest. hmmm maybe JMoney told me this ;)
We’re bringing sexy back just like JT told us he would (sorry not Tupac)
Hah! True about just getting in a car and going – freakin’ loved doing that (pre-kids ;)).
On a side note, this blog’s name came out of that JT song! It was hot on the airwaves during my brainstorming sessions and thought it would be hilarious if I tried to bring budgets back ;) Namely, to my self since I didn’t really have one at the time – hah. Would be interesting to see how different it would be if I went with one of my other (more boring) ideas…
LOL keep doing what you’re doing my man.
Hmmm, maybe after careful analysis of alternatives, and if after the money is spent, I don’t feel regret within the first week or month, it’s worth it!
Sam