‘œCelebrate your success and stand strong when adversity hits, for when the storm clouds come in, the eagles soar while the small birds take cover’ ‘“ Unknown

Although we have been surviving my wife’s recent period of unemployment followed by several financial emergencies, the challenge has been made more difficult by the fact that we’ve also had several celebrations on the calendar.   During the last weekend in June, my wife and I celebrated our first year of legal marriage, after being together over ten years.   This past weekend, we celebrated the Fourth of July.

Initially, we were tempted to completely cancel both celebrations, as it would mean we wouldn’t spend anything at all.   However, we realized that complete deprivation is not helpful when trying to stay on track and it might make us more likely to splurge inappropriately, later.   We’d planned both celebrations well in advance, and it felt like a pretty lousy idea to cancel everything.

We ended up scaling back our plans, but we still managed to enjoy both celebrations.

Our anniversary plans definitely took the biggest hit.   We’d originally planned to spend a long weekend at the fancy hotel where we had honeymooned a year ago.   We wanted to eat and drink in the fancy restaurant, soak in the fancy private hot tubs, and pay for an expensive massage.   Last year, we spent $860 for two nights at the resort, so we planned to spend twice that much for four days.   When we looked at the numbers, spending $1,720 for our anniversary seemed completely insane.   We decided not to make the reservation and came up with an alternate plan instead.

Since my wife and I had made plans for childcare well in advance, we went ahead with those plans.   We’d worked out an arrangement for our daughter to spend time with a friend, rather than paying a sitter.   We spent those days at home, and treated ourselves to better food than we otherwise would have had.   We bought a couple bottles of Two Buck Chuck, we grilled some nice sirloin steaks on our BBQ, and we ate premium ice cream bars.   On the day of our anniversary we went out for a sushi lunch, since the lunch specials are far less expensive than the dinner menu.   We also passed on alcohol when we went out.   We watched a few rented movies and spent a lot of time alone.   Our total cost for four days, including alcohol and food, was less than 10% of our original plan.

Our Fourth of July celebration was also scaled back considerably.   Originally, we’d planned to invite all our neighbors over for a hotdog, hamburger and beer celebration.   We’d bought and froze a great deal of the meat in advance, when our finances were better, so our BBQ plans were pretty much unchanged.   Although we didn’t rescind any invitations, we also made it a point not to go out of our way to remind people about the party.   As a result, our guest list turned out to be much smaller, so we didn’t consume nearly as much food.   When guests asked what they should bring, I asked them to bring their own drinks, thus saving us the cost of beer.   Instead of going out watch the city’s fireworks display in the stadium and paying admission, we stayed home and watched the aerial show from our driveway.

Lessons learned:

1. The most important part of celebrating is the time spent with friends or loved ones, not the fanciness of the party.   Although I’m sure that my wife and I would have enjoyed the hotel, fancy food and massages, the real point of our anniversary was to spend some time alone.   As for the July Fourth party, I don’t think our friends really noticed or cared that this year’s party was BYOB.   Everyone was happy to get together for an enjoyable afternoon, regardless of who paid for the beer.

2. Restaurant alcohol is expensive.   I’ve known this for quite some time, but our anniversary drove home the fact that I can buy an entire bottle of inexpensive wine for less than the cost of a single glass in a restaurant.

3. People and relationships are more important than fancy vacations or stuff.   There’s no doubt that vacations and nice toys are luxuries that everyone enjoys, but the more simple joys of friendship and love are far more powerful.   A vacation is over within a few days or weeks, while a relationship with another human being lasts much longer.

Next in series: Passing on the Lesson

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