Saying "No" When Budget and Social Life Conflict

B and I are Ballroom dancers. I love teaching my classes every week, and we love dancing together as often as possible. But B really loves the social aspect of dance. There's nothing like the buzz of 40 couples on a crowded dance floor, trying to look killer while not getting their Cha Cha partners killed. It's also usually a relatively inexpensive activity we can do together as a couple and with friends.

This week, we had an opportunity to go dancing with a couple of friends we don't see often. This venue is priced a little bit higher than where we normally dance, but a couple bucks isn't a huge deal, right? AND they were going to have a live jazz band! Entertainment in more ways than one.

Well. We found out that it was going to be even more expensive than normal, (plus the gas to drive 45 minutes there and back). On top of that, the end time was 11:30 pm, plus the 45-minute drive home, which would leave me with about 5  hours of sleep before work in the morning.

I wasn't 100% on board, but I could tell B still wanted to go. Since the entrance fee fits strictly into the blow money category, we took a closer gander at our blow budget. We'd already spent half on holiday gifts, and another third on an unforeseen banking expense. Going to the dance would have left our blow budget at a couple of dollars to last the rest of the month (which includes some pre-committed date nights with friends).

Of course we tried to come up with other options, like "we could give ourselves an advance on next month's blow budget," but that would just leave us perpetually pulling future funds. Obviously borrowing from our Emergency Fund would not do, since this was in no way an emergency.

Thus, the choice. Spend or save? Friends or Finance? Budg-it or Blow-it?

We decided to nip bad habits like spending unbudgeted money in the proverbial bud. We told our friends we couldn't go, which really sucked. We were both disappointed. But ultimately, the beginning of the climb is where we have to make the hard calls and stick to the budget like it's law, even if that means missing out on activities we love. Because being debt-free is totally worth it.