Memories Over Money: What a Spontaneous World Cup Trip Taught Me About True Wealth
While financial security is important, the real secret to happiness is building a "memory balance sheet" of unforgettable experiences with the people you love.
The above picture was taken from my seat in Seattle at (sadly) the U.S. soccer team's last 2026 U.S. World Cup game.
I had tossed around the idea of going since the U.S. qualified for the round of 32, but I came up with too many excuses to take it seriously. It wasn't until the day before the game when my wife said, "Memories over money — just do it." More on that later.
The best emails I get from clients at Exit 59 Advisory, where I am president, feature phrases such as:
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"I just got back from…"
"I just booked…"
"I just committed to…"
The best, best emails are the ones that include the part above and then the same quote from my wife: "Memories over money."
Now I know this seems counterintuitive coming from a financial planner, but let me explain.
Think of money as the base of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I am not diminishing its importance. I am not diminishing the need for financial security to be happy in retirement.
Basically, every academic study agrees that we need financial security, along with health and social connection, to experience true happiness in retirement.
What is diminishing, to use that word once more, is the return you get beyond the security point. Beyond security, money can:
- Buy you freedom
- Buy you time
- Buy you memories
To be clear, all of our clients have financial plans. All of those plans have a line item for expenses like those. If you want to build your own, you can access our planning software.
When my wife and I were first married and had no kids, we caught the travel bug. When we had kids, we thought we would press pause, at least on the bigger trips. We didn't.
Many people told me that the kids wouldn't remember the trips. And we felt OK about that. We were still enjoying the trips. Our kids are now 8, 4 and 1:
- Our oldest, Vivian, recently brought up the name of a bunny on a farm we visited in Austria
- Our middle child, Lucy, talks about seeing the Statue of Liberty in "Yew Nork"
If my young children remember these trips fondly, even when everything didn't go exactly as planned, I would bet they'd be even more impactful for your adult children and grandchildren.
Carl Richards, a fellow financial planner who is part of my speaking agency and is a former New York Times personal finance columnist, has a Venn diagram sketch with "experiences" in one circle and "people you love" in the other, with an arrow pointing to the overlap and the label "spend money here."
So this is not just about travel. It is about spending money to create memories or creating memories that don't require spending.
My extended family has been gathering for Sunday dinners almost every weekend since 2011. Experiences, whether they involve a trip, a meal or a walk, provide more bang for your buck than material purchases.
You get the benefit of anticipation, the actual experience and the memory — bang for your buck from experiences in three phases.
So the Sunday night before the U.S. squared off against Belgium in Seattle, I booked a flight, one night at a hotel and a ticket to the game. As you probably know, the game did not go our way, but I have no regrets about going.
There are two more important lessons here.
First, even bad experiences or experiences with bad parts can become good memories. Three years later, we are able to laugh about my daughter getting sick on a transatlantic red-eye.
The last lesson is the concept of "contrast." One reason I got so much joy out of such a ridiculous itinerary is because of how much it contrasts with my day-to-day life. If this were something that was normal or not special, I would have been one of the five people in the front row scrolling their phones during the game.
As you know, I spend my days looking for every avenue to help you accumulate a healthy balance sheet, to save you money on taxes and otherwise optimize your financial situation.
I've also been doing this long enough to say that those who convert their financial balance sheet to a memory balance sheet tend to be happier.
Memories over money!
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