My goal isn't necessarily Early Retirement as I absolutely love my job, but I do want financial independence. I'd like to pay off my house (we owe to the tune of 170K), but we're debt free except for that and we have about 30K in the bank and 90K for retirement.
There are places in my budget we could cut back that I feel guilty about (mostly eating out and paying for a gym membership we don't use).
We're also traveling quite a bit lately. We have 3 children: 3, 6, and 9. We're going on a Caribbean Cruise for Spring Break. We're surprising them with a trip to Legoland after school gets out. We spent Thanksgiving on the beach. We're going camping on Easter.
Now, we also travel very frugally. Our Legoland trip is with free hotel points (for all 5 nights) from opening a credit card and we have free flights from all my work trips, but we are still paying almost $800 for tickets, and we will eat out often on the trip, I'm sure. We use points and miles and open credit cards and look for deals. (For example, our week at the beach just cost around $400).
Part of me thinks, just for a moment, "You could be saving that money. You could be paying off your house. You're not really frugal." But part of me knows, deep down, that if I died tomorrow I'd be glad for every trip I took with my family.
Should I feel guilty, or should I go for it?