Monthly Report: October Update

Monthly Report: October Update

October was an eventful month.

My wife and I packed in so many activities that it felt like we were living our pre-baby life again. Seriously, it felt like something was going on every week.

Last year, I included a lot of details about our costs and expenses every month in these monthly reports. It was particularly pertinent to do so because we took up the challenge to buy nothing for a year.

But this year is different— the challenge is done. We make more money now, so we currently spend a little bit more money. Don’t get me wrong though, we remain relatively frugal. We still have excellent savings habits that allow us to save about half our income. And we still don’t really buy much “stuff”. Food, travel, and experiences make up the bulk of our expenses after accounting for our fixed living costs.

Bottom line is we don’t really budget anymore. The primary reason for this is because we don’t have to. Plain and simple. Over the years, my wife and I have developed responsible spending habits and fine-tuned our own systems that allow us to save money automatically without thinking.

We already know we have enough money and we continue to save for a sustainable future for our kid(s). Tracking every penny just seems like an onerous task that is now unnecessary.

With that said, I’m going to leave out specific money details in this post. Talking about our experiences is a lot more fun anyway! Keeping with tradition, I’ll include some food pictures too.

Let’s take a look at what we did in October.

 

Big Family Trip

The most eventful thing that happened in October was taking a big family trip to Europe.

My wife and I took her parents and siblings to Paris and Rome. It was incredibly special because it was their first time traveling abroad for leisure outside the United States. We paid for everybody’s flights, accommodations, and a decent portion of the cost for food and entertainment.

Yes, paying for the trip was quite expensive. Without giving too much detail (remember: no details!), the total cost was well into the five figure mark. Our annual expenses for travel in the previous years typically hover around $15,000 to $20,000. And this is considering that we use to take three or four nice international trips a year. Well, this trip pretty much equaled our typical annual travel expenses and then some.

Do I feel guilty or ashamed of spending so much money? NO. Since I knew that I could comfortably afford it, I never felt an ounce of guilt or shame. My wife’s parents are up there in age. There was no hesitation from me about opening up the pursestrings a little bit to pay for an unforgettable, potentially once-in-a-lifetime, experience for them.

Other Guilty Pleasures

Another thing I don’t feel guilty about is eating good food that my not be particularly healthy. 80% of the time we eat pretty darn healthy. But you have to have a little fun every now and then.

When in Paris, you have to have croissants and French pastries. That’s a must. But a typical pastry would have eggs, butter, and/or cream… food products that don’t really align with our values.

So we went on our Happy Cow app to see what we can find. Lo and behold, there was a highly rated fully vegan boulangerie and patisserie to far from our place!

The food in France is amazing. I could post many more pictures, but I don’t want to overwhelm this page with just food porn pics.

But I have to say, the food in Italy was just as amazing, if not more.

We found a restaurant with a full vegan menu that had all of the Italian classic dishes, but vegan style. It was awesome because we felt like we weren’t missing out on any good food due to our dietary preferences.

The restaurant had an excellent selection of dessert too. Prior to the trip, my wife had never tried panna cotta before. She was in for a treat! We ordered the pan cotta and it was oh so delicious. We went to the restaurant again two more times throughout our stay in Rome just for the panna cotta!

My wife was so impressed that she was determined to make it at home. When she does, I’ll be sure to post a picture of it.

Anniversary Celebration

We also celebrated our fourth anniversary in October.

In addition to taking my wife’s parents on their first trip to Europe, another reason for the trip was to celebrate our anniversary. But our actual anniversary date was after the trip.

We don’t really give expensive gifts to each other for our anniversary anymore. Instead, we try to give each other experiences (like the trip) and quality time.

This year, our anniversary fell on a weekday. So instead of working, I requested the day off so that I can hang out with my wife in the city.

We didn’t do anything too big. We had sushi at one of our favorite places in downtown. They had a lot of vegan options for us to try.

The dessert we had was relatively healthy. Frozen chocolate almond milk with pecans and fresh blueberries. The frozen almond milk only has four ingredients: almonds, filtered water, cocoa, and salt. No additives, chemicals, guar gum, carrageenan, colors, or preservatives. Simple, relatively healthy, and absolutely delicious.

It’s always fun to take a day off during the week and watch the hustle and bustle of workers and the people in downtown. Especially when you’re hanging out with your significant other on your anniversary!

 

Birthday in Vegas

The last week of October we celebrated my Dad’s birthday in Las Vegas. I told you it was an eventful month!

We took him out to Lotus of Siam, which is rated one of the top Thai restaurants in the United States.

I ordered the vegan khao soi, which was quite tasty.

And my wife had the pad woon sen which was pretty good too.

That weekend, they had an even where kids can trick or treat at the LINQ promenade. We dressed my daughter in a Snow White costume and my entire family (me, wife, parents, my sisters and their significant others) were the seven dwarves.

I might be a bit biased, but she was an adorable Snow White.

Free Travel

For my wife, daughter, and I the trip was almost free. We used the last bits of my wife’s Southwest rapid rewards points and used the companion pass to fly all of us for free.

Not only were our flights free, but so was our hotel. I had a Marriott Bonvoy free night certificate to burn. We used it to stay at the Westin Las Vegas. It was a pretty nice hotel that was off the strip and therefore peaceful and quiet relative to other Vegas hotels.

The certificate was expiring in November so it was a perfect use for a free night.

Interestingly, I have a number of hotel free night certificates because I have a half dozen hotel co-branded credit cards. For example, I have cards from IHG, Hyatt, Marriott, and three from Hilton! That’s a lot of free nights have to redeem. Lately, I’ve been having a hard time using them because with a baby/toddler, it often makes more sense to get an apartment or AirBnb type of place.

Luckily, however, my parents and sisters like to travel too. And they don’t have little kids. Whenever I can, I try to gift these free night stays to them so that they can travel in semi-luxury. It’s one of the ways I give extraordinary and uncoventional gifts to people without buying material things.