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Spending ‘Free’ Money…

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My company has a very generous per diem rate for traveling employees. You’d think after all this time spent penny pinching, I’d be pretty awesome at spending other people’s money – especially on the one item I tend to pinch the most… FOOD.

On my first night out, at a restaurant chosen by my coworkers, I could have ordered the filet mignon.

Totally covered in my per diem rate? Yes.

Something I love and haven’t had much of… OK, OK, haven’t had any of for as long as I can remember? Yup.

Something I didn’t order because I couldn’t wrap my silly little brain around the concept of spending nearly $40 on instead of the$12 veggie plate?

Yes.

The veggie plate was fabulous by the way.

In the whole scheme of things, our company is HUGE and very few employees are paid to travel. Will my week of penny pinching someone else’s dollar make a difference? Not in the very least.

Admittedly, I should have loosened up and ordered something I REALLY, REALLY wanted at least one of those days but I guess my frugality isn’t as easy to ditch as I thought.


10 Comments

  • Reply Jenn |

    Do you at least get to keep the per diem that you don’t spend? Because then I would absolutely scrimp. My boss used to eat nice one night when he was traveling, and at Burger King the rest of the time so he could pocket the extra per diem when the reimbursement check came in.

  • Reply KLM |

    I do the same thing…. but also because I don’t think I could regularly eat enough food to use up all the per diem.

  • Reply Starr |

    Throw that frugality out the window on your trips! When I was traveling for work, I’d always go for seafood, since the budget at home doesn’t allow the nice stuff. I would be licking the plate and regretting not one bite.

  • Reply Tracy |

    I don’t believe in sticking the company for things just because you can. After all, you and the company are a team in making money: The company for itself, and thereby enough to pay you, and you money for the company so it can pay you. Would you advocate wasting money on a project at work, just because they’re willing to spend the money, even though there’s a cheaper way to do things?

    Now, if the company gives you the per diem regardless of whether you spend it, that’s one thing, but if, as at a previous employer, they only reimburse you for actual expenses, it strikes me as a bit unethical to deliberately go for the lobster (as an example), when something more along the lines of what you normally order will suffice, both to feed you and to satisfy your taste buds.

  • Reply JMK |

    My husband travels at least 1 week per month. In his case the customer he’s visiting pays all his travel costs and they are quoted an amount in advance for his daily auditing rate, flight, hotel, an estimate for taxi/car, set costs for meals and a $17 per diem for miscellaneous expenses. In his case the customer has preapproved the costs and isn’t expecting them to come in lower. The company’s profit and what pays his salary is his daily auditing rate and that’s the one unchangeable cost. His company doesn’t incur any of the travel costs and just reimburses him for invoices for hotel, taxi or car/gas and the set rate for meals and $17/day for every day he’s gone.

    On a typical week long trip we normally make a profit of ~$200 because he doesn’t go for the lobster and rarely uses any of the $17/day miscellaneous. At 12-18 trips per year it really starts to add up.

    We know in a normal year we’ll make $2400-$3600 in travel expense profit, but we never include it in our spending plan, just in case something changed in their policy or his travel routine. Sometimes we use the extra to boost our extra mortgage payments or contributions to our retirement funds. He’s had 3 trips in the past 6 weeks, and all the profit has gone to fun non essentials for a change. We did some local activities with the kids on their school break last week, we bought our son a used drum set last night and in a few weeks we’re taking them to a monster truck show. Yup, totally non-essential spending but a couple of times a year we take a break from being sensible and use that extra money to have a little fun without taking a dime from our normally frugal spending plan.

    The other benefit of business travel are the flight rewards earned. In addition flying one airline as much as possible to accumulate the mileage, he bills his work travel expenses on the company provided AMEX. The bills come to us and we pay it off with expense reimbursements, but more importantly, for $100/yr (paid with our travel profit) he earns a mile per dollare which can be transferred over to the airline’s points plan. For our family spending virtually every dollar we spend is charged to a credit card that is also tied to that airline’s points plan. His travel earns us one flight to Europe each year and our personal spending earns us another, so every two years the four of us head out on free flights.

  • Reply Debt Donkey |

    Frugality is a way of life. It’s good to be in the habit of avoiding extravagance and wastefulness no matter who is paying. Good for you!

  • Reply Edward |

    Really…
    Do whats best for you.
    just be able to sleep at night.
    Me. probably would have had the steak, with a mashed potato, (garlic style) a salad, some bread with butter (the real kind) and just passed on desert…

  • Reply Becky |

    This sounds like me – I never spend my full per diems when traveling (usually because someone else like a pharma rep ends up paying for dinner etc.), but cant seem to justify claiming them/spending them just “because I can”. So, I often claim 2 per diems only for a 5 day trip or something like that…and I should get over this as someone previously mentioned: the company doesnt notice/has planned for me to use these per diems so Im not “harming” anyone by doing so….

  • Reply Brian |

    I do the same thing when on business trips. My bosses even questioned if I was eating at all, because the cost of all my meals was less then one of their lavish dinners out.

So, what do you think ?