Why I don’t feel guilty spending money (as a frugal person)

Add “Airboat tour” to your vacation bingo card STAT

When we went on our anniversary trip to South Florida a few weeks ago, we found an airboat tour in the Everglades that looked sick. 

But before we bought the tickets,  my oh-so-wise wife paused and ask: 

“Are we able to do this within our budget?”

And I quickly replied, “HEEECK YEAH! Have you seen our travel fund lately?”

So she opened up our HYSA app, went to the travel fund “bucket”, and after seeing several thousand dollars sitting in our travel sinking fund, we dropped that $160 for 2 tickets for our airboat tour without another thought. 

This didn’t happen by accident. 

This isn’t because we have wealthy parents funding our lavish lifestyle. 

The answer isn’t actually flash at all. It’s pretty boring, TBH. 

But that’s why it’s good! Because anyone can do it. Right now.  

We’ve gotten here because we’ve taken really small consistent steps to make sure we can have moments like this together. 

Which brings me to– 

If you want to stop stressing about money every day, you’ve got to be boring

Most people treat big expenses like they’re surprises.

The car needs new tires. The holidays roll around. A vacation opportunity shows up. And suddenly you’re either pulling out a credit card, raiding your emergency fund, or stuck saying no (when it could have been a yes).

None of those expenses were actually surprises. You knew Christmas was coming. You knew the car wasn’t immortal. You knew you’d eventually want to take a trip.

You just didn’t plan for it.

(I’m going to pause for a quick editor’s note here: I’m aware that might feel a little harsh. Here’s the thing: most of us weren’t taught any of this. Not about emergency funds, sinking funds, investing, budgeting, or most importantly how to think long-term about your finances. 

It’s actually a pretty advanced skill set to have. So if you haven’t known about this, I’m definitely not trying to blame and shame you. 

But if we don’t speak clearly about what the problem is, how can we ever expect to change it?

And the problem is pretty clear: it’s hard to pay for something when we didn’t plan for it. 

There is a thousand different ways you might have arrived at the problem and the emotional context behind the behavior is really important. 

But the “problem” is pretty simple. No plan, no money. And that we can change together right now. 

Okay, back to the main topic. Just a reminder, if you want to talk about your unique plan and what’s going on in your finances in real time, I’ve carved out spots just for my newsletter subscribers on my calendar and I have a few open this month!) 

A sinking fund turns every “unexpected” expense into a boring, non-event. And boring is exactly what you want when it comes to your finances.

We keep our sinking funds inside a High-Yield Savings Account (HYSA) — specifically one that lets you set up separate “buckets” or savings goals within the same account.

So we have a bucket for travel. One for home repairs. One for gifts. 

And we have an automatic “payment” set each month that fills these funds up on autopilot. 

(This is what they mean when they say “pay yourself first”)

Our travel fund? We contribute to it consistently all year long. So by the time our anniversary trip came around, we had more than enough money ready, begging to be spent. And we felt totally guilt-free spending it, because that’s what it was there for. 

There’s a big difference between spending money because you had to figure something out at the last minute and spending money because you planned for this exact moment.

One feels like a splurge. The other feels like a reward.

This is one HYSA I like. It has the individual “vaults” so you can keep your different goals organized (like a travel fund, a wedding fund, etc.). 

Whichever HYSA you choose to use, I would definitely recommend making sure it has this feature. 

Keep it simple, keep it organized, keep it automatic.