My father-in-law passed away a few weeks ago. He had dementia, and his health was failing, but it was still a shock when he died. We had to quickly make travel arrangements so we could attend the funeral.
In the past, we would have made the 10 hour trek by car. This would have been our only choice, because we never had extra money for an emergency. Flying wasn’t even an option for us. But for the first time in our adult lives, we had the money to fly home last week – cutting our travel time from 10 hours to 2 hours.
This is great example of how being debt free truly improves the quality of your life. We don’t have the newest phones or technology. We rarely ever eat out. We drive an older minivan. But despite how we appear to the outside world, we have money in our savings account. We are no longer living paycheck to paycheck. When we need to be with our family, we can now get there quickly, without racking up a ton of debt on our credit cards.
Although I was thankful for the quick flight home, I do realize how expensive it is to fly. Between the cost of the flight, checking 2 bags, long term parking, and renting a van when we arrived at our destination, we spent about $1,500. We definitely wouldn’t have spent that much if we had drove.
Going forward, my gut reaction is to always fly. Man, the convenience can can’t be beat! But logically, I know it’s smarter for us to drive when we can. Fortunately, our youngest baby is getting ready to turn one, so I anticipate that travel will get much easier in the coming years.
We typically fly when going to FL from OH. But we drive when going to places that are a $300 and we have a family of four. So, we’re saving about $2,000 just by driving.
Great post! It is definitely an inspiration for me to work towards debt free.