In a recent national poll with two choices – keep your current debt level or gain 25 pounds and have your debt erased, 72% of Americans said they’d rather keep the debt than put on the pounds.  A fascinating statistic considering the average household’s debt is 112% of disposable income.  So for most of us, vanity trumps financial peace of mind.  What other financial trade-offs might we be willing to make?

Here is one for consideration.  What percentage of your current savings would you give up to spend a one-year sabbatical, family experience abroad complete with rich learnings?  This question hits close to home for me as we are trying to capture the following things on our experience abroad.

For some context to answer this question here is some food for thought.

A one-year excursion to a foreign country is very expensive.  Without real intentionality and financial planning, it will never happen.  And all the advanced planning and budgeting still doesn’t ease the pain of seeing investment dollars (and Colones) go through the drain (especially while the faucet is temporarily shut off).  There are the cash costs such as school, rent, a car, monthly expenses abroad, monthly expenses back home, etc.  Add on top of this new foregone savings (you don’t really give up salary on a sabbatical, only the savings/investment that would have resulted from that salary).

Assessing the value of an abroad “experience” is very difficult. It’s kind of an expense and it’s kind of an investment, but not exactly either.  Keep in mind that there will be storms along the way, so your notion of the “experience value” will likely shift throughout the experience and well after.  And the value placed on a particular experience will vary by as many people as you ask, so perhaps consider the questions below:

• What would be the value to you in reclaiming a year with your oldest kids?
• How about the value of your family knowing a second language and culture?
• How about the value of personal reflection time vs. a never-ending to-do list?
• How about the value of pursuing and mastering a long-desired hobby?
• How about completing all of the above things at the same time?
• Are you ready to weather the storms that come during the experience?

In our current situation, the immediate costs are much easier to determine than the collective long-term benefits, which makes the process a struggle at times.  Regardless, this was our dream and our gut feel is that it will pay off in many multiples over time, and likely even in some unexpected ways.