Learning new words is still an activity that I enjoy today as much as I always have. Perhaps that love of words helps to explain why studying journalism and Spanish at college was such a good fit for me.
I was reading an article on CNN’s website earlier this summer when I came across the word “doom spending.” The word caused me to pause, as I’ve never seen or heard it.
Turns out it’s used to describe a person who spends money — perhaps to cope with stress — despite concerns about the economy or world affairs.
“Doom spending” appeared in an article about travel. More specifically, it was about Americans who would rather go into debt than miss out on a good vacation.
Some 25% of Americans reported that it’s worth it to go into debt for a good vacation, according to a 2023 study from the financial website WalletHub. The majority of Americans going into debt to travel do so by financing their trips on a credit card, the CNN article explained.
“I don’t have a budget,” said one of the sources quoted in the CNN article. “I have a rough idea, but if I go over it, then I go over it. I won’t ever stop myself from having what I want on holiday.”
It will come as no surprise to those who read this space each Tuesday that I love to travel. Wanderlust has led me to many different parts of the world, and I hope that longing toward travel will be with me until I reach the “no-go” phase of life — a term I’ll borrow from Mark Miller’s Saturday column.
But taking a trip that I can’t pay for?
That’s a no-go for me.
And financing a trip that I can’t pay for by charging it on a credit card that charges some 20% interest? That’s a definite no-go, especially at a time with Americans owe some $1.14 trillion (one trillion has 12 zeros after it) on their credit cards.
I love travel as much as — or more than — anyone else, but I am thankful that I don’t have that frivolous mindset of knowingly spending money one doesn’t have.
I still remember coming home from school in the fall of 1996 when I was 16 years old and asking my parents if I could go to Spain with my high-school Spanish Club. They were all for the trip but said that I would need to contribute some toward the $1,400 cost. (In today’s dollars, that trip would be about $2,700.)
My friends and I spent a good part of that school year fundraising by working at the concession stand during BHS football and basketball games, by selling candy, and by selling port-a-pit chicken tickets. I think I made a few hundred dollars from our year of fund raising while my parents paid for the rest.
I didn’t realize it at the time but they were teaching me a valuable lesson about the importance of hard work and saving up before buying something.
Several years later, a friend and I decided that we wanted to travel for eight months after graduating college — two months on a road trip to Alaska and six months living in South America.
My parents were a bit cool to the idea when I first told them but eventually warmed up to it as time went on. Paying for the trip, however, would be on me.
We still had two years before we graduated college and right away I started saving for the trip by working in the summers and finding jobs on campus during the school year. We came up with a budget for what we thought the eight-month adventure would cost and worked for two years to save up for it.
In July 2003, we were off to see the world. And surprisingly enough, our budget was spot on as we had saved enough to pay for the entire trip. I remember spending my last $100 in February 2004 during our 12-hour layover in Washington, D.C., on the way home from Brazil.
Travel is by far my favorite pastime but the buy-now, pay-later approach that some 25% of Americans seem to be OK with is a foreign concept to me. Going into debt to travel is not wise — a message that seems to have been lost in translation for some.
jdpeeper2@hotmail.com
