Last Friday, Heather wrote about how to Make Traveling With Your Spouse Easier. Reading her post reminded me of our early married days, and how our different approaches to money nearly ruined a vacation, and perhaps all vacations to come. We lived in Seattle at the time and took a short weekend trip over to Spokane. Although we are still fans of having a budget, in those days we definitely counted the pennies. Pennies in: good. Pennies out: bad. This was a budget trip.

And so we found ourselves on the sidewalk in front of our hotel in Spokane, on a sunny, brisk morning, arguing about the coffee and paper my husband had just purchased across the street at the coffee shop. Purchased! There was free coffee in the hotel lobby! And newspapers! Okay, sure, the newspapers may have been discarded by a previous reader, but they were still today’s news. I didn’t get it. In that instant, I saw us pouring a barrel of money into the trash can, and ending up poor and disheveled, all because of a $2 cup of coffee.

From my husband’s perspective (and maybe yours) I was crazy. We could afford for him to buy coffee and a newspaper. What was the big deal? But as always in love and money, there are bigger issues at hand (like power, and security, and eventual homelessness).

So right then and there, we decided on a Vacation Per Diem. Part of what made me uncomfortable was the thought of wasting money unnecessarily. Part of what made it a vacation for him was enjoying fresh, hot coffee. By settling on a total amount we’d spend each day, buying coffee and ending up homeless became non-issues. If I knew we could afford it, that the expenditure was planned, I could live with that. If he could forgo something little, like a bagel, but enjoy two cups of coffee without giving his new wife hives, he could live with that. Peace ensued.

Compromise is often found at the center of marital harmony, and the agreement we struck in Spokane was no different. To this day we’ve allocated a per diem on our vacations. Want to take that glass-bottomed boat trip? No problem. We’ll probably have bread and cheese and wine for dinner that night, but that can lead to martial harmony, too.

photo credits: ZoofytheJi, RicanGeek and roctopus