Tony and I have spent a good deal of our young lives being responsible. We save our money instead of spending it. We take short weekend trips instead of traveling to exotic far-away lands. We spend our weekends at home watching movies instead of drinking at bars with other 25-year-olds.

I’m not complaining. This is the life that I want, the life that makes me happy. There’s only one thing about it one thing I would change: I want to travel more.

Neither of us was very responsible with money in college, but we didn’t travel, either. We didn’t go on extravagant spring break trips or study abroad. It remains my only real regret about the way I handled my education.

Now that we’re so close to finally settling down, it’s made me think a lot about this one aspect of young life that I feel I missed. I know that we’re still young. We still have plenty of time. But I also know how much will change.

Because we know what’s coming, we’re trying to pack a lot of young living into a very short time. It’s why we decided to go to Europe. It’s why we spent much of the summer taking short little trips to the beach and the mountains.

All of this is to tell you that Tony and I did something a little crazy last week. We booked a 3-day cruise to the Bahamas. We’re setting sail in just 52 days — roughly two months before the week that we’ll move and board a plane for Europe.

We paid in cash, and we can absolutely afford it even with the trip to Europe and the move coming up. And yes, we got a very good deal.

We can afford it because we spent the last three years hoarding money, saving as much as we could for what will come once we arrive in Indiana. We’ve worked hard to put ourselves ahead of the curve when it comes to our finances. It won’t hurt our long-term goals to make a few spontaneous decisions in the short time we have left as a married couple without children.

I’m not saying that we’re going to spend the next few months blowing our hard-earned savings. I’m well aware of our limits and our goals. But we’ve got a little extra money, probably for the last time in a long time, and I intend to have a little fun with it. The important thing is that we keep our goals in mind, and we enjoy ourselves without getting too far off track.

We plan to pack a lot of living into the next few months. :)

Photo by rednut