Family Vacation or Budget Deficit?

In the Wall Street Journal Demetria Gallegos writes about taking a vacation with her four daughters without her husband. She wrote about differences of opinion over affordability and location (Los Angeles and Disney), but appears to have skipped many other issues. Issues like control (did he have any input into planning?), frequency of their Los Angeles trips (is this the fifth trip there?), proximity to relatives (hers?), style (shopping and Disney trinkets vs. history and culture), trip efficiency ($ per day), and budget (was money saved for this trip, or is it coming from credit cards?). The responses tended to be polarized, with perhaps half of the commentators castigating the husband, and the others supporting him. Several were quite harsh, suggesting the wife divorce the husband.

One of the dangers of frugality is that other people attack it. It is difficult enough for some of us to refrain from spending money we shouldn't spend. When we do, we are being sensible. Ben Franklin would be proud. A penny saved is a penny earned. When other people attack that frugality, it is much easier to give in to the criticism and resume overspending.

Something more than "good parenting" was at stake in this article. Most of us know that a good shared experience can pay dividends for the family for many years. Time passes, and you cannot get it back. Children grow up, and if you don't seize the initiative to travel with them, you won't get that opportunity later. It evaporates.

What was missing from the article, though the author implied that her husband did understand all of that, was any discussion about whether this trip would be a memorable trip. It is possible that the husband calculated that circumstances would result in a poor "memory" payoff for the cost involved. Certainly those commentators eager to attack him gave no consideration at all to this payoff calculation.

The bigger issue is the people dynamics. It is possible to be sensible and do the right thing about your finances, to be great at getting high returns from both expenses and investments, and still someone will come along and berate you for reasons that are emotional. You were happy, but now they are doing all they can to make you believe that you were wrong for being happy.

I have to wonder about some of those commentators. Did they really have other motives in making those comments? An over-spender may be anxious to force others to also overspend, as a way of justifying their behavior. Or it may be simple competitiveness:  They want the husband to be as miserable and broke as they are. How dare he escape the vacation dilemma with money left over! Something tells me, however, that there is something even more sinister than that afoot.