Hello I first want to admit I am not a true "mustachian". My husband and I do live below our means, but we are spendy in comparisons to people here (especially on grocery/restaurants) and I save 10% of my income plus 5% matching. We also recently emptied our emergency fund of everything except 3K in order to re-roof our house and some carpentry done.
We did elope and didn't really have a honeymoon. It will be our 20th anniversary next spring, and I would like a "nice" trip.
Typically we spend 1-2K max per year on trips and vacations (few days to beach, camping, staying at family cabin, or plane tickets to visit family). However I think my hedonic adaption has gone up, in that his parents in law have treated us to 3 really nice vacations, so maybe my expectations/entitlement have gone up? I would not mind just doing a couples trip (which would save money and be more romantic) but he insists if we do a nice vacation the kids are included so they will not miss the experiences.
The two trips I have in mind (staycation at nice resort in Tulum area, or 7 day carribbean cruise) both work out to be around 3600, which will probably be a little more when you include tipping, etc. That is more than we have ever spent on a trip. However I think it is a decent value from all the research I have done, and will tick off some bucket list items (rainforest, snorkeling in the Caribbean).
Debt is 3K (long story, something I'm paying in installments over the next year), efund again is only 3K, have (edited) 168K in retirement accounts. Because my husband is working more we are clearing 1.5K more than we spend each month, which up until this month has been used to either put towards the additional house expenses and also pay for specialized tutoring for youngest over the summer.
Typically we save up for something before spending it. Here, I feel I need to decide, because some of the booking, specials, are time sensitive. But I am thinking my husband is going to balk, and maybe I am being unreasonable.