Rich Girl Roundup: Planning Group Travel Without Breaking the Bank

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Trying to plan a group trip with friends who make wildly different incomes? We got you—here are Katie and Henah’s best tips for balancing fun and financials.

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Mentioned in the Episode

• Episode on How to Define “Enough”

• Blog on the “Feeling Bad for the Joneses” Economy

• IPUMS US Census Data on median family incomes for the 100 largest metro areas

• Average net worth for people in their 50s

• Average cost of housing in the US in 2022, per the Motley Fool

• Episode on the “Perfect” Save Rate

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Katie:

Welcome back, Rich Girls and Boys to the Rich Girl Roundup weekly discussion of The Money with Katie Show. I’m your host Katie Gatti Tassin, and every Monday morning we discuss a relevant money topic a little more casually than we do in our Wednesday deep dives. Here’s a quick message from our sponsors before we get into it. This week’s upcoming main episode is about how women negotiate differently and some specific tactics you can use to get that raise or promotion this year. So we’ll have on a negotiation expert and as we head into the annual review period for most companies, we will give you the 411 on making sure you are being competitively and accurately compensated for your work. Alright, onto the roundup Henah, how are we doing today?

Henah:

I’m good. This week’s question came from Rich Girl Kayla, how do I plan for travel with friends or family when we’re all making vastly different amounts of money and I’ve been in this situation many a time. To me it comes down to setting expectations up front and being really clear about a budget and what’s comfortable and what’s not. But Katie, is there anywhere that you usually like to start this conversation?

Katie:

So the first thing that you’re going to do is assume control of the group, hostile takeover. You need to become the quarterback of the trip and then reign supreme with an iron fist. Okay, just kidding. Henah, I feel like this is the, it relates a little bit to your setting expectations piece, so I feel like you probably kind of know what I’m getting at here.

Henah:

Yeah. I’ve actually more times than not volunteered to plan a trip because that means I get a little bit more say in what feels reasonable for everybody and people are just so happy to not have to do the work that they’re usually fine with it.

Katie:

Exactly, and I think that this is usually hardest for things like bachelorette trips where the entire thing is ostensibly being planned by someone else, so you can’t exactly opt out easily of things or go stay somewhere else alone and that really probably wouldn’t be very fun anyway. I personally cannot wait for humans to evolve past the bachelorette trip. I have a theory that everyone hates them except for the bride and maybe the rich friends, but literally every person I talk to is I secretly resent the hell out of these things. I dread going to them.

Henah:

I can totally understand that. I feel like there’s one that I’m thinking of in particular where everyone was like, yeah, it’s only going to $1,200 for four days and then we got there and it was way more than that. When everything else was added in also

Katie:

Only $1,200, I would be like ahem what?

Henah:

To be fair, it was to a very cool destination, but I was like this was a lot more than I had budgeted for. And so yeah, I think one of the things that has really helped is taking ownership and being the quarterback of the trip.

Katie:

Being like, don’t worry ladies, I got this. The spreadsheets will be in your emails tonight and

Henah:

That’s what I’m saying,

Katie:

You have four hotel options, all of which are approved in budget for me.

Henah:

I don’t know how you hacked into my actual email, but that is what they all say. No, I think because I have a track record of being so organized, people are like, yeah, okay. We just trust her to do it and so that usually helps because then I’ll get to be like, well, none of us want to spend $400 a night except one person, so lemme pick something a little bit more reasonable.

Katie:

There’s something to this though. Sometimes if we’re talking about where the trip even is, maybe you don’t have a lot of say or maybe you’re being invited on a trip somewhere. Sometimes the destination itself is going to have implications for how much stuff is going to cost. If you have a bunch of rich friends and they want to go to Aspen, there’s not really a Ramada Inn in Aspen, you know what I mean? It’s like the destination itself implies a lot of bougieness. So I think to the extent you can get ahead of it and when the trip is being planned, suggesting things that are not known for being exorbitantly expensive. Again, this is assuming you’re the person who’s trying to spend less or suggesting trips that are within driving distance and pitching it as a road trip because that is so fun to cut out the airfare component entirely. But I think even just that initial phase of where are we going and how are we getting there, that’s where 75% of the cost is going to come into play because you’re either going somewhere bougie or everyone wants to go to a destination that takes 10 hours to get to, and so guess what? The airfare is crazy expensive. That I think is where you can have a lot of influence.

Henah:

Totally. Yeah. I’ll probably pass on your Santorini New Year’s Eve trip if that’s where people are going, but that is totally fair. If people are set on a destination and there’s not that much flexibility, I feel like then you can get a little creative with either points hacking or splitting Airbnbs or VRBOs or house swaps even for bigger groups. Then you can kind of make sure that there’s enough room for everybody. Everybody gets their little private space, but nobody’s trying to spend a thousand dollars a night so one person can use a hot tub.

Katie:

Go to the Ritz Carlton. I also think that there’s an element of that where you can go to the same place as everybody, but if, I mean it depends on the friend group and the dynamics, but not everyone has to even stay in the same hotel if you have friends that are like Four Seasons….

Henah:

Did you watch Selling Sunset this season?

Katie:

No.

Henah:

Oh, there’s the whole drama because two of the girls decided to stay at a different place than the rest of the group and they were like, we decided to stay here. We didn’t want drama and instead it created so much more drama because they decided to stay separately. But I also wrote that, yeah, there’s power in going to the same destination but not necessarily staying in the same place. If I want to stay at the Ramada Inn and you want to go Four Seasons, that’s totally fair.

Katie:

Yeah, sometimes that’s the vibe and sometimes it’s not. I think that that raises for me too. Okay. Assuming that you are the one that is more budget conscious or you are traveling and with a group where you are maybe one that is trying to save money more, it doesn’t even necessarily mean you make less money, you just might not be as much of a spender. So I think that’s another kind of funny consideration here, but I wonder if there is a potential solution that basically suggests traveling a little bit less so that when you do go, you can fully participate and spend as much as you want to. So if you are normally someone who does a lot frequent trips that are maybe a little more inexpensive and for whatever reason this is a scenario where you do not have a lot of say in the location or if it’s a scenario where it would be really uncomfortable for you to be like, Hey, I’m actually going to go, but then stay somewhere else by myself while everyone else is in this house or who knows what the situation is.

If you were to save money that you would normally spend on say two or three trips and just devote it to this one trip, devote more of the travel budget to the group trip so you can spend more freely without financially disadvantaging yourself. I think that’s another scenario. If someone’s like, yeah, there’s no way that I’m going to, in this particular case, raise my hand and either plan the whole thing or if everyone else in the group wants to go somewhere really fancy and I’m the only one and it would cause an issue. That I think is another different way to approach it if you need one.

Henah:

Yeah, you’re basically reallocating the travel budget in months one and two to go HAM in month three, so to speak, so that makes sense to me. I also think sometimes even with just going somewhere together, maybe I don’t want to fly business class with you guys on points. Maybe I’ll just meet you there and maybe I’m going to take a detour and do a day trip at a stopover before I get to you. I think that’s also fair game or that I’m going to bring my own car and if I want to dip a day early because I need to make something else, that’s fine too. Yeah, I think flexibility is the key here for both sides of the equation.

The other thing too, which also in terms of setting expectations a lot of the day-to-day activities you can be upfront about as well. So for example, I don’t drink very much alcohol, and so I’ll usually try to be upfront about that when we’re going out to dinner in groups on a trip or I ask, can you charge it on your card and you can get the points and you’re so excited. And then I’ll just Splitwise for my share of things. Being upfront about meals…and can you turn group meals into themes or something that is really fun that you could do in your Airbnb or your condo timeshare, whatever it is, so that it doesn’t feel as much like a cost saving measure as just something to have fun with.

Katie:

I like that.

Henah:

For a bachelorette party, the last fling before their ring, you can have some sort of theme dinner. I’m trying to think of the clever phrases that people use, but you could do it inside your house and have it be a fun thing or I’ve heard people do camp style where one night three of the friends are making dinner and the next night the other three friends are making dinner and it becomes an opportunity to bond rather than being like, oh, we’re trying to be cheap and save money. It’s more this is on purpose and it’s really fun and low key.

Katie:

Yeah, I get that. I also think that it can be tricky because a big part of travel I think is going out and eating locally that can be a big part of it. So it could be that if you’re doing the dinner, the big meal at home, but then getting treats out for breakfast or lunch or getting away from the framework where you’re eating every single meal away from the hotel or condo, if that makes sense.

Henah:

Yeah. I usually, so my friends and I’ll usually do breakfast at the wherever we’re at and then we’ll go out for the rest of the day and that still helps to cut $20 bucks a person usually. And I know sometimes with larger groups you can also get group discounts to activities or you can even split up and do low cost and free options versus high end, high quality, everything. I like to balance my trips with maybe one nicer activity or excursion and then a bunch of lower cost ones, like a free walking tour, that’s a pay what you can donation or just going for a hike because hikes are normally free. Those things I think can also be a way to save money even if you don’t have the chance to save money on accommodations.

Katie:

Yeah. I think too, if you find yourself in this situation where you are the person that is willing to spend more and you think that maybe parts of this trip are going to be a stretch for other people in your group, is there an opportunity for, depending on how big the disparity is for you to cover some of it for people, for you to be like, oh, I’ll get one night of the Airbnb or I’ll get the big dinner the night we get there. Can you basically pay a little bit more as the person who’s maybe a little bit more able to treat your friends?

Henah:

Yeah, that makes sense. My best friend actually, we really wanted to go to Florida together. She wanted to stay at a high end place. I did not have the money on a nonprofit budget, and she just paid for the whole thing and said, just pay whatever you can and we’re just happy to spend the time together. And now the tables have turned where I am a higher earner than she is, and I’ve been like, well, why don’t you just pay whatever you can and we’ll just do it that way. I think for me, how can you do it in a tactful way so that everybody feels like they can be a part of it without feeling left out?

Katie:

Yeah, that’s lovely. I think the only last thing that I keep thinking about airfare maybe because everywhere I’ve had to fly recently, it feels like airfare is so expensive this year abnormally high. I think the getting everyone to agree to a road trip or somewhere that is just driving distance is so nice because now that I’m thinking about it, it cuts down on two costs. It’s not just airfare, but now it’s ground transportation when you get there too. When we went to Colorado for Thanksgiving, we had to fly, but then we also had to rent the car and because we were driving through the mountains, we had to get an SUV that had four wheel drive because it’s very sketchy passes where it’s at elevation and it’s snowing and it’s just dicey. So it ended up being a really expensive trip just in transportation alone, and we live an hour from Tahoe, so we probably could have tried to strong arm the family into coming to us, but there’s something there that I think especially in the beginning phases of planning, sometimes it’s not going to work. Sometimes it’s like, no, we want to go to Mexico. It’s like, well, you probably are not going to drive to Cancun, but there are.

Henah:

Don’t try and stop me.

Katie:

There are other beaches in the United States that you could maybe do instead, or there are other ways to get the same type of experience without going to those far-flung destinations that just by nature of how you get there end up implicating other costs. And hey, like I said, if you’re the highest earner, maybe you’re the one that’s like, Hey, I’ll cover the shuttle from the, it’s an hour drive from the airport to the resort. I’ll organize that transportation and just pay for it. That kind of thing. You can just treat people, but it doesn’t feel, I don’t know, patronizing.

Henah:

There’s also those hidden costs of traveling internationally. For example, I had a friend who said yes to a trip and then they couldn’t come because they had to renew their passport and that costs $200 because they had expedited, and they were like, well, that’s just too much money that I can’t, and I was like, okay, that’s totally fair, or checked bag fees. All of those things really quickly add up, and so when you are able to do a road trip and you are then by default forced to pack everything you need, I think that’s really valuable. And also I would say my husband and I too in Covid, we just noticed there’s so many local destinations we had never been to, so we’ve been using that time to kind of knock those out. We went to Savannah, we want to go to Charleston, and I think there’s just as much value in doing those trips as there is in going to Ibiza.

Katie:

I also love what you said about framing it as something that’s fun, not a cost saving measure, even if for you it’s about money, the way that you pitch it to the group being like, oh, it’s a road trip that’s so fun. Versus like, Hey, to save money, everyone, let’s do it this way. Totally. The way that you frame the group dinner, it’s like, Hey guys, I have the best idea. We’re going to do a themed dinner night where the theme is foods that you can eat off a stick. I don’t know

Henah:

Why was that the theme?

Katie:

I have? No, it was just literally, I just saw kebab in my third eye center, so I went with it. But there’s something about approaching it creatively versus as though it’s coming from a place of restriction, and I think that that’s really nice.

Henah:

My wedding was in New Orleans, so I knew everybody would have to fly in or drive in essentially because my family’s not from there, my friends aren’t from there. And so we did a local bachelorette party in upstate New York and we got snowed in. Actually, we didn’t leave once for the whole weekend, which I’m sure everybody

Katie:

That’s so fun. I actually love that idea.

Henah:

Yeah, it ended up working out great. Nobody was like, oh, I feel like I’m spread thin on the money. We didn’t have to go to these fancy restaurants, but the

Katie:

First, the theme is quarantine.

Henah:

The first night we got there, they threw, it was like a pizza party and then they put out every sort of snack item, all those candies that you grew up with that no longer, you wouldn’t just buy on a whim usually like gushers and nerds candy. It was just so fun, and I’m sure I did not break the bank for most people to have pizza and a bunch of junk snacks. So yeah, I obviously love that idea. I think it’s great, but

Katie:

We’re just putting pressure on the healthcare system, but other than that, guys, we’re so good. We’re so good. No, I love it. I love it. I think that’s amazing.

Henah:

The triangle where it’s like you can pick two. It’s like finances, health, and fun. Okay. I can’t do all of the three, all three at the same time.

Katie:

Alright, amazing. Anything else to add on this one before we wrap up?

Henah:

No, but in honor of our little crazy money story tidbits, I did hear of my friends who went to Greece for 10 days.

Katie:

Oh, financial tea, let’s go, baby.

Henah:

And they spent $5,000 just on food and drink in the time, which was mostly alcohol. I’m probably sure in the 10 days they were there, so that was kind of wild to me.

Katie:

So 500 bucks a day.

Henah:

Yeah, I mean they tried to justify it with, we had a private chef for one of these nights and this and that, and I was like, I feel like the Victoria and David Beckham meme where I was like, be honest, be honest.

Katie:

No, talk your shit, Henah. That’s crazy.

Henah:

I was like, I dunno, it seems kind of high. They were like, yeah, there was a lot of bottle service. I was like, I mean, go off. If you can afford it, that’s great. But that blew my mind.

Katie:

Hey, you know what? Live your rich life, but bottle service is like financial Darwinism. It’s like if you’re going to spend $2,000 to have someone bring you a bottle of Grey Goose, I don’t know what to say.

Henah:

Again, I was like, you guys can afford this. Go off. That’s great. But that was to me, financial heresy.

Katie:

We’re both like, no judgment, but judgment.

Henah:

No judgment.

Katie:

Amazing. All right, well that is all for this week’s Rich Girl Roundup. See how fun that was. Send us your financial tea. We will see you on Wednesday to talk about all things negotiation.