Wealth: Happy Hour

Making sure that you have additional income for investing while still having a fun filled life can be tough sometimes. Whether it's batting away friends that want to go out to eat or simply trying to work more to gain more income, making sure that there is money left at the end of the month can be harder than it sounds. That's why there is happy hour.

No, I don't mean happy hour in the bedroom sense. Although, that is definitely a happy hour! What I mean is going out to eat while the local eateries offer discounts during their "slower" hours of the day. Where the restaurant benefits from gaining a customer where there normally wouldn't be one, you benefit from the nice price deduction on the same or somewhat lesser portion sized meal.

Happy hour has many possible origins. Some say that it originated from the United States Navy in early 1913 when a group of stay at home mom's (homemakers?) organized a get together semi-weekly called the Happy Hour Social. Others believe that it was simply made by restaurants as yet another hallmark way to make some more dough!



Regardless, I am glad that it exists! Happy hour is an important thing for us all to remember. Where the dividend investing community tends to be a frugal bunch, we can sometimes be a little too frugal. It's easy for the mind to travel to places that we never imagined - places where no money is spent whatsoever! I think however that it is important to still spend money. After all, we could all die in our sleep and never wake up. What then is our money good for? Life is all about experiences. Where we are saving and investing to retire sooner, we need to remember that life could be cut short and we could ultimately have no use for that resource. That's why we must have balance.

That I believe is where happy hour comes into play. Even though restaurants can be a pretty good hit to the budget, happy hour can make it a very reasonable hit. My wife and I for example have been trying our damnedest to find the town's most bang for your buck happy hours. So far, we've been frequenting a local eatery called Old Chicago but we've also branched out to some new sushi eateries to make sure that we're not just limiting our fun to one place - even if that one place has staff that now knows us as well as the cast of "Cheers"!

Just try to remember that hard earned cash can be saved and used at the same time. Balance is key in everything in life, including balance. So as long as you don't live in Ireland (where happy hour is as far as I know illegal), get out there and find yourself a good place or two where happy hour proves to be a good deal. Meet some people, spend a respectable amount of side cash, and enjoy a well deserved night off from saving. You've earned it!