Fiscal Fridays: travel!

In last month's Fiscal Friday post I showed a chart of all my accounts. As I explained, my paycheck goes into my account I call day-to-day spending, and I immediately funnel most of it out again.

As you can see here, one place I set aside money every paycheck is my travel account. After retirement savings, this might be my highest-priority account, and I certainly manage to spend as much as I save.

I think it's important for me to have a specific pool of money for travel purposes so I can figure out what travel choices work - it's what made it possible for me to go to New Zealand earlier this year on a near-whim, and is what lets me know it's okay to take a week off to go on a road trip, and still know I can plan to go to New Mexico, Honduras and Greece next year - especially if I do manage to work out a free plane ticket to Greece!

However, it also firmly alerts me to the fact that I can not ALSO do some glamorous trip for my 40th birthday later next summer! 

And.. it's possible I have a spreadsheet tracking my vacation balance - time has to be budgeted just like money, I'm learning, and while we can make choices to do what we want, so far I'm unable to figure out how to do everything I want every time.