Natalie Slagle (00:00):

Anything travel related goes on … so, when we book the flights months in advance, that's going on the travel credit card, being paid off from the travel account. When we get the Uber from our house to the airport, that's a travel expense, and then it’s just kind of fun. Because then it's like, ooh, we're spending money and it feels like we have to, we set it aside. So, there's no guilt when we go on vacation.

[Music Playing]

Natalie Slagle (00:31):

Welcome to Money Dates, the podcast that makes money conversations with your partner feel a little less taboo. I'm Natalie Slagle, a certified financial planner, and I'm joined by my husband and business partner, Dan Slagle, also a certified financial planner. Say hi, Dan.

Dan Slagle (00:46):

Hello.

Natalie Slagle (00:47):

In each episode, we'll share honest stories and practical tips to help you and your partner feel more connected and confident on your financial journey. So, grab your drink, get comfortable, and join us for our money dates.

Natalie Slagle (01:01):

Hi, Dan.

Dan Slagle (01:02):

Hi, Natalie.

Natalie Slagle (01:03):

We have a fun topic today.

Dan Slagle (01:06):

Of course, it's fun. Everyone thinks traveling is fun.

Natalie Slagle (01:10):

Traveling is fun. What isn't so fun is financially preparing for it.

Dan Slagle (01:16):

That's true. Like how do you feel about when people travel? Majority of clients we work with or your friends, family, how do they go about preparing for travel? What do you think is going through their mind as they're like, “Oh, we need to pay for these certain things either upfront or when we get there,” and how are they going through spending when it comes to travel, when they're actually traveling? That seems burdensome.

Natalie Slagle (01:42):

I think people just spend the money.

Dan Slagle (01:44):

Yeah, they just spend money. They're like, “I don't really care, I'm not keeping track of it.” And then they wait until the end of the vacation where they're like, “Oh, we spent a lot of money on this vacation.”

Natalie Slagle (01:54):

Yes. I think there is very little planning that goes into the financial aspects of traveling, and rightfully so, because it really does wreak havoc on your finances.

Dan Slagle (02:08):

Yeah, it for sure does. Let's go back to before you and I had this way of how we went about traveling, which we'll share here in this episode, how to financially plan for travel, I should say. Do you remember how we first went about it, and what caused us to be like, “We should probably change something?”

Natalie Slagle (02:29):

I think what happened is we would travel, which one of our first trips, where was that? Would you counter our trip to the Black Hills in South Dakota?

Dan Slagle (02:41):

That was probably our first trip together. I think we were still dating, so I probably paid for everything.

Natalie Slagle (02:49):

Wow. Well, I did make you pay for a lot.

Dan Slagle (02:51):

And to be fair, it was a camping trip. I just had to pay for the overnight registration and that was about it, and groceries.

Natalie Slagle (02:57):

And the gas, and anyways, what I was realizing when we started to merge our finances and we would travel – I mean, it kind of all happened at the same time. We got married kind of young in our mid-twenties, and then we started to make more money, which means we could afford to travel.

Natalie Slagle (03:15):

So, once we could actually afford to start traveling and spending this money, I think we started to realize how do this totally … we think we're going to spend a certain amount this month, but then we traveled, and how do we account for it? And maybe some people, they're hearing this and they're just pay it off with your savings. True, true.

Dan Slagle (03:37):

Or I'm sure we have some listeners who are also like use your points.

Natalie Slagle (03:41):

Use your points, all about the points. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love when we get to use our points.

Dan Slagle (03:48):

Absolutely.

Natalie Slagle (03:49):

But ain’t nobody got that much time to do all of that. So, at some point, you do have to just put in thought on how much do you want to spend on travel, how are you going to plan to spend it, and all of that without it messing up everything else going on in your financial world.

Natalie Slagle (04:10):

So, let's get into it. Let's talk maybe about how we approach it, because this has been a really big topic for a lot of our clients, is organizing the finances around travel.

Dan Slagle (04:24):

Okay, let's start. So, what we do when it comes to planning for travel, and we actually wrote a nice blog about this, I feel like, and it's titled, We Are Financial Planners, This is How We Travel. And I feel like everything we may share in this episode is going to be captured in that blog. So, we'll make sure to link that in the show notes as well.

Dan Slagle (04:46):

How we go about planning for travel – I feel like you and I try to find some dedicated time in December. I would say December where we think about the year ahead, what's going to happen. So, in this example, it would be like December 2025, we're going to sit down and talk about what are our goals for – well, all goals like personal, professional travel goals (hashtag travel goals).

Dan Slagle (05:17):

We're going to have that conversation and think about where do we want to go next year? List out all the places, whether it's obligation or no obligation. When I say obligation, I'm usually tying that to family or weddings or whatever. I mean, we have conversations with our clients all the time where they're like, “I have seven weddings this year.”

Natalie Slagle (05:35):

Right, right, or-

Dan Slagle (05:36):

So, those things come up.

Natalie Slagle (05:39):

Yes. And for us this year, we have a lot of family obligation travel, and that still comes out of our travel bucket, and you and I have sat down and had a lot of conversations about that. So, to your point, part of the financial planning is just the time planning. Where do you want to spend your time when you have time off?

Dan Slagle (06:01):

Time planning, that's good. I've never heard that before.

Natalie Slagle (06:04):

I just made it up.

Dan Slagle (06:05):

I know, I know you did.

Natalie Slagle (06:06):

But that was for you and I, Dan, and talking about all these family obligation (that word obligation sounds a little harsh). We live in Portland, Oregon, our family is mostly in Minnesota, and so we have events and reasoning to go to the Midwest quite a bit in 2025. And that eats at our time, our travel time, and our travel budget.

Natalie Slagle (06:34):

And so, I think the point of this step one, having conversations, is figuring out where do you want to go? Where are you obligated to go? How much time do you have off? Dan, you and I, we can't discount the flexibility that we have, in that I don't have to wait for you to go check with your boss to make sure you can take PTO the same week that I get to take PTO.

Natalie Slagle (07:00):

We just get to decide together, hey, we're taking time off this week. That's a big thing that a lot of our clients, they work for employers, and so they have to coordinate that aspect of it. So, I think a lot of this is the time perspective and as well as the financial perspective.

Dan Slagle (07:17):

Yeah, 2025 is a big family year for us, which is totally fine, and it's great at the end of the day. We're halfway across the country, we don't get to see family as much. And now having a daughter, our perspective on that has changed quite a bit.

Dan Slagle (07:32):

Let's go back to the different steps. Step one, sit down, have conversations about what does travel look like? What are your known travel expenses that are bound to happen with things that are pre-planned, and then what's left on the list?

Natalie Slagle (07:49):

Well, the next step is setting the budget, and I mean the macro budget. How much do we want to spend on travel? For 2025 for you and I, Dan, we said $15,000. And what's interesting is most of our travel this year is local or at least domestic, and we're going to places where we have a place to stay, so when we go back home or visiting friends, things like that.

Natalie Slagle (08:20):

So, we set a budget for 15,000, and we've also then set budgets for each of our trips along the way. And I don't know at what point this is important to bring up, but when we set our travel budget, we make sure we don't plan for everything because you love your weekend getaways?

Dan Slagle (08:39):

Yes, I'm a planner, but I don't love everything to be planned. Sometimes, it's really special to say during the week, “Hey, we should spend the weekend at the coast or at the mountains.” I think there's some spontaneity to that and something I really enjoy, and it also allows us to have, I feel like better a little more … I don't know, the quality time feels a little different when you do a trip like that, versus a bigger vacation where you're going across the country or you're going home with family. The idea of the weekend trip is literally for you and I and our family to connect.

Natalie Slagle (09:18):

Yeah, it's usually like it's spurred from the lack of the family connecting or this desire to be outside, and it's like, “Hey, we need a refresh, we need a family refresh.” And so, making sure that that's a part of our plan, that's kind of like a glimpse in how we do financial planning in general.

Natalie Slagle (09:39):

Be smart with where things go, and then also give yourself flexibility because that's life. And so, making sure there's flexibility even within our travel budget is really important to us.

Dan Slagle (09:53):

The weekend getaway is one example. The other example is just one off, you get a text from a friend and it's like, “Hey, want to go to this event in a city where neither of you live in?” And it's like you're going to go travel there to hang out with your friends unexpectedly.

Dan Slagle (10:12):

So, to your point, it is just giving you some added flexibility, and knowing your parameters for each vacation, knowing the total bucket that you're going to spend for all vacations, and then leaving yourself some leftover dollars to say, “Oh, I can do this. I can do this one-off thing.” That's been really helpful for us.

Natalie Slagle (10:32):

Yes. I appreciate you bringing that up because it literally just happened. We had good friends invite us to their home in Denver. They'll know who they are when they hear this, and we have a lot … our travel budget's kind of the same as what it's been, and that usually includes kind of a bigger, maybe international trip, but everything's local and domestic.

Natalie Slagle (10:55):

So, we kind have a lot of money this year that's unplanned, but we're still going to fund with 15,000 because I want us to spend that money on travel. I don't want it to go somewhere else. So, it was really fun getting an invite to a friend's house this fall, and it's just an easy yes. We don't have to think about, “Oh, do we have enough money? Will we have enough money?” We've already planned for it, we've already planned for the unexpected travel.

Natalie Slagle (11:22):

And what a great use of our money to go see our friends. We get to bring Jay, they have a little one as well, going with another couple with a … I think a lot of what we do is making sure that our resources are aligned with what's important to us, and my love language is quality time. I can't think of a better way to spend our money than by going to see really, really important people in our lives.

Dan Slagle (11:52):

Yeah, you say 15 grand, and there's probably a camp of listeners who are like, “I just went to …” what do they call it? Ibiza and spent 15 grand. So, what I meant with that joke is like you have to align your travel budget somewhat to your financial resources or your income.

Dan Slagle (12:16):

I grew up in a household where we never traveled, we never traveled. We had an annual trip up north, two and a half hours away, for Friday through Sunday. That was our vacation for the year. So, that piece is interesting within our generation of the amount of people that love traveling right now and the accessibility, versus maybe how at least I grew up. Did you travel a lot growing up?

Natalie Slagle (12:48):

Yes, I did. We did one big trip a year, but it was always domestic, and we drove a lot, but I went to Mexico, Branson, Washington, D.C., trips like that. So, yes, we did travel, which was a different experience than yours.

Natalie Slagle (13:06):

And so, now, you're making me think, is it a generational thing that people want to travel more than our parents, or was this a unique experience that you didn't travel as much, maybe compared to the people in your natural network? I don't really know.

Dan Slagle (13:25):

I don't know either. I don't know that answer.

Natalie Slagle (13:28):

I do know that you and I like to travel, and we are likely going to continue that as a family with our daughter, and she's still under two, so we don't have an extra flight to pay for. But that $15,000, if that was designed for the two of us, that's naturally going to go up now that we have another human to pay for.

Dan Slagle (13:54):

She has a passport. She got a passport when she was six-months-old. I did not get a passport until I was 27-years-old. That's wild to me. And now, I feel super old, and I feel like the curmudgeon dad who's shaking his fist like, “Ah, spoiled kid!”

Natalie Slagle (14:13):

Spoiled kid – back in my day, yeah, absolutely. So, we talked about we got to make plans, you and I have to have conversations, and through those conversations, we also uncover, hey, this is a really important place that I would like to go to. And I think you and I have done a good job at making sure we're going to places that is maybe a little bit more important to the other person or stands out.

Natalie Slagle (14:45):

And so, I like how having the conversations also just make sure that both partners are getting fulfilled from a travel perspective. So, have the conversations, set a budget. We don't really have a percentage or anything like that. I feel like one time a client wanted a percentage, 0and I said, “Don't do more than 5%.”

Dan Slagle (15:05):

Does the math, math with that though?

Natalie Slagle (15:07):

It does, it does for us. It does for us. So, 15,000 would be a little less than 5%. For a household making 300 or a little bit more than that, it would be about 5%. So, if you're looking for a percentage, that's what it is. And then you have to set up a plan on how are you going to fund it.

Natalie Slagle (15:31):

You can come up with a number (great), but then there's the organization piece of it. And so, for us, with the way that we're compensated, we have larger amounts of income that comes in quarterly, and so because that happens quarterly, what we do is the first three quarters, we fund it with 5,000. And the reason why we do it, the first three, is because usually, you need to have all of your travel plans booked by the year, and so that's just what worked for us.

Natalie Slagle (16:01):

I have other clients who I think of one who tends to get a larger refund, a larger tax refund, and even though a part of our tax planning, we've said, okay, we could reduce things to make sure your refund is a little bit lower, but they're like, “I actually use that refund …” Since it's kind of bonus money to them, they're like, “That's how I fund travel expenses for the year.”

Dan Slagle (16:23):

Yeah, I think there's multiple other ways to go about it. There's so many different ways to create the plan to fund for your travel throughout the year. The two examples you provided – clients who have stock compensation, like restricted stock units of vest; monthly, quarterly, annually, whatever it may be – taking a percentage of the proceeds and just moving it into a high yield savings account dedicated to travel, and the money's just there.

Dan Slagle (16:52):

Or we have clients who – and I'd say I feel like most clients go about it this way now, where they understand the income, what's coming in, expenses, what goes out. If you're left with dollars and want to have some intention to those dollars and travel is a big value to your household, then you may turn on an automatic transfer at the end of each month, 500, a thousand, 2000, however much you're able to do into that travel account that is dedicated to spending on travel, and that account allows you to spend it guilt-free in a way. I think that's a big piece of making sure your money is being used with purpose or intention.

Natalie Slagle (17:37):

Exactly. Once we established our separate … our bank account, a big thing for us has been to work with a bank that allows us to have separate checking accounts, or I know some platforms just let you earmark money within the account itself. So, whatever you're able to do – because again, creating purpose and intention around the funds is so important.

Natalie Slagle (17:59):

So, once we established for us a separate checking account within our bank account and we label it travel and we fund it 5,000, it made it so much easier, and then it does allow us to say, “Hey, we've got money in here, or we know we're going to get more money in here through our savings plan, and we don't have a lot of plans to spend it.”

Natalie Slagle (18:24):

It's an easy yes to this trip that my friend just invited me on or whatever it may be. So, yeah, having this separate account just earmarked for your inflows and outflows of travel has been really helpful. We put our travel spending on a separate credit card than our typical monthly expenses, and that just kind of, again, we're just taking all of that out and separating it because it feels like it just creates easier organization and planning around.

Dan Slagle (18:58):

You say we separate out travel expenses, when you're on vacation, you go to restaurants, right? That's put on the separate card compared to the card we use for everyday normal outside of travel time, right?

Natalie Slagle (19:11):

Exactly.

Dan Slagle (19:12):

That’s what you're saying, yeah.

Natalie Slagle (19:13):

Yeah. Anything travel related goes on … so, when we book the flights months in advance, that's going on the travel credit card, being paid off from the travel account. When we get the Uber from our house to the airport, that's a travel expense, and then it’s just kind of fun. Because then it's like, ooh, we're spending money and it feels like we have to, we set it aside. So, there's no guilt when we go on vacation.

Natalie Slagle (19:39):

We're not like, “Oh, how are we going to afford this?” It's like, “Oh, we already planned for this.” And there's so many studies and I can't think of it off the top of my head, but there's something about when you are enjoying something that costs money and you already planned for it or you already paid for it, you just enjoy the experience more because there's one less thing that you have to think about.

Dan Slagle (20:04):

Interesting.

Natalie Slagle (20:05):

Not only does all of this organize from a financial perspective, but it actually lets you be more present and enjoy the traveling that you're doing because you don't have to worry about the finances of it.

Dan Slagle (20:20):

Yeah. I mean, I feel like you have to worry a little bit in terms of not going over that total amount that you set for the trip, right?

Natalie Slagle (20:30):

Yes, of course.

Dan Slagle (20:31):

That's still a thing, but that's where I think the idea of setting realistic parameters of how much you're going to spend on a trip … don't set the parameter at $500 and you're going to Mexico for a week or Spain for … like it's just not going to happen.

Natalie Slagle (20:51):

Right. Know your spending, know your habits, know your taste, all of that. And I know that you and I, we don't get the nicest room you possibly can get, we don't spend that much money on alcohol – there's just random things that you and I just aren't … so I know that even though we're spending guilt-free, we still have our parameters. I just trust that you and I aren't going to go over those.

Dan Slagle (21:21):

Honestly, even if you go over or if you're under on a specific trip for your overall budget of that trip, then you have extra money that gets shuffled into that unused pile for the rest of the year. If you go over, well, it's got to come from somewhere. You set that total amount as your overall parameter. That's still the goal, so if you go over on a specific trip, then it's got to come from somewhere else. It's how it's going to work out.

Natalie Slagle (21:49):

Yeah, you got to know yourself. Well, we have clients who, it was just the two of them and their travel bucket was $50,000, and they're like, “We want to go somewhere almost every month, and we want to stay in the nicest things.”

Natalie Slagle (22:03):

I really appreciated that about them, is they were like, “We know what our style and desires are, and so, we are going to be realistic with our travel bucket.” And I think 50,000 was above and beyond that 5% I was saying before, but it's because they had all these other things in place that allowed them to spend $50,000 on travel.

Natalie Slagle (22:26):

So, the dollar amount has to make sense with everything else going on. So, retirement savings, saving for your kids’ education, just making sure that we're taking care of those things first, and then the travel bucket kind of aligns with your spending bucket in general, and you get to tailor it towards what makes sense.

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Dan Slagle (22:49):

I love it. Cool. Alright, well, thanks, Natalie.

Natalie Slagle (22:52):

Thanks, Dan. We'll see you next time.

Voiceover (22:57):

Hey, if you've enjoyed this episode and are looking for personalized financial guidance, schedule a free complimentary consultation using the link in the description below. Natalie and Dan Slagle are the founding partners of Fyooz Financial Planning, a registered investment advisor. The information provided in this podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not be considered investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any securities. Investing involves risk, including the potential loss of principal. Advisory services are offered to clients or prospective clients where Fyooz Financial Planning and its representatives are properly licensed or exempt from licensure. For more information, including our disclosures, please visit our website at www.fyoozfinancial.com.

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