This post is brought to you by my friend, Amy. I first met Amy while Dik and I were living in Seattle, WA. However, Dik's relationship with Amy and her husband Ian goes all the way back to Elementary School--small world eh? Turns out we both had a lot in common:
1. We worked in Long Term Care with elders. Amy an Occupational Therapist (OT) and me a Social Worker.
2. We love these two crazy men from Brookville, PA who were equally in a "bromance" with one another.
3. We love the North West.
4. Amy and I share a lot of the same values and beliefs, rarely do we not see eye to eye on a topic.
5. We love each other's kids, Amy's kids are my Hetrick babes.
6. We love the outdoors and camping.
7. We understand the value of family and both come from big families.
8. I like Amy, she's a good listener and good to converse with on the phone (though it has been a long time).
9. We learned that we both like to play cards, especially "Hand & Foot" whenever we get together.
10. I can't think of a #10, but Amy if you've got one let me know.--Amy's #10 Our oldests are "officially" married. In a ceremony I will never forgot on your GA front porch. :)
Dear Sarah,
So how about your opinion on this debate.
Many of my friends go, yearly, on lavish vacations. Regardless of their finances, these trips are budgeted in.
And the reason they are is because of the "FAMILY FIRST" mentality. Meaning you spend money on what is important to you, and family time should top that list.
My husband is on board with this mindset. He thinks it is totally valid to spend upwards of thousands on a family vacation, simply because we haven't been on a real vacation. In a long time.
I cannot tell my frugal heart to shut up and go along with it.
For many reasons:
1. I don't think we need big and expensive, to create meaningful and fun.
2. I think it sends an irresponsible message to the kids. Spend money on something you WANT to do...even if your current finances don't support it.
3. I would rather go on bigger trips later in life when the kids can enjoy them.
4. I also don't really like the ONE WEEK a year mentality for family time. I would rather do smaller trips more often.
Thoughts? Am I being cheap or responsible?
And P.S. It wouldn't be Disneyland.
No desire to go there.
Amy
Dear Amy,
I admire your frugality. Frugality does not come naturally for me, it is forced, at best. My love of doing things closest to nature, like gardening and canning are often seen as frugal but for me, I just think it's the only way to do things. However, I do agree that a yearly vacation is a wee bit fiscally irresponsible for most of us.
Dik and I didn't go on a honeymoon, I was 7 months pregnant when we married and we lived in downtown Seattle, it was expensive just to live, let alone vacation. We took our first BIG family vacation when we spent a week at Ace Adventure Resort in WV last summer. It cost us about $2300 for our family of four. We saved $ by renting a cabin with a kitchen and cooking almost all of our meals, tickets to the lake and water park attractions was included in the cabin rental, we drove there so travel was affordable. Bryce asks routinely, "When will we get to zipline again?" He remembers this vacation with great joy and that makes me one happy mama! Would I love to do that every year..yes, but it's not in the budget this year for several reasons. It's not in our time budget; with Dik in school full time he doesn't have a whole week off at the same time BTM does. It's also not in our financial budget because our two goals this year are to pay off my car and build our savings account. No where in our goals could we find room for a vacation. :(
I've tried on several occasions to convince Dik to plan for a trip to Disney. Every time it comes down to it, I just can't write that check. I think $5,000----I could pay off my car, or our savings account could use a boost or heck, Dik could use that for a couple of root canals.
I do like small 3 day weekend trips to, but I tend to turn those into more expensive vacations than they need to be. Unless we go to Washington, D.C. or something. D.C. is my very favorite place to visit and it's great for kids because there's a lot to do; all the museums are free and if the weather's nice you can paddle the canal or bike along The Mall, or walk from memorial to memorial. Come to think of it, we haven't seen the new MLK Memorial, we'll have to plan a trip! :)
I love to "get away." I am plagued with the idea of making our childrens' summers memorable. I remember lazy summers; for some reason I don't want BTM and MLM to remember them that way. I want them to remember summer as a time for camps where you make new friends and learn all kinds of new stuff, a time for family vacations (ROAD TRIP), BBQs, family reunions, lots of swimming at the beach and building sand castles. I have trouble with "idle time." Always have, I think it may be genetic, just ask my Mimi. (Amy, you met her, she buzzes around like a freakin' bee all the time!)
I think you are being cheap AND responsible. If you can budget for a big family vacation every year, go for it. If you can't then don't. It is completely irresponsible to plan a vacation just because "everyone else's family is doing it." I think my Hetrick Babes get plenty of family time and would enjoy much more a 3 or 4 day weekend camping with their cousins OR visiting their McBride counterparts (who live near the beach by the way:), catching frogs, making hot dogs and s'mores, building forts, baking cookies, picking berries and playing make believe then they would going to Disney anyway.
Dear Amy and Sarah,
First of all, thank you Amy for being our guest blogger while I was on vacation.
This is a great topic, considering we just got back from a family vacation!
I do think vacations are important...if you can afford them. They are a luxury in life, not a right or obligation. If you are struggling to pay your bills month to month, you should not take a vacation. Period. If you have paid days off, try taking a stay-cation. I've done them...they are nice. Restful. And CHEAP!
We are very lucky, because most years we are able to go to a beach for vacation. I live in the Midwest now, but I grew up on the east coast. My parents still live in Virginia Beach where I spent most of my childhood and my sister lives in a small coastal town in SE Georgia. So we typically have those two options for a summer getaway that includes free lodging. But even so, we do not get to vacation every summer, here are my rules about planning vacations:
1. If you really want to take a vacation, save up for one and then take one within your budget.
For instance, in July 2009 we met my family for an extended weekend at Ace Adventure Resorts (Holla Sarah! Don't you just love that place?!). We made our cabin reservations in August 2008 with a small down payment and then put away $50 a month over the next year to save for the balance of our share of the cabin (we were splitting one of the big cabins with two other families) and the rest of the activities (Superman did the zipline, white water rafting, mud obstacle course, etc, while I hung out at the lake with the boys). Once the trip came, we had saved up $600, so all we had left to pay for was gas and groceries. We were able to sock away $50 a month to save for the vacation. Otherwise we would not have gone.
2. Cancel a vacation if needed.
Last summer we were planning on a week long vacation in Virginia Beach, it's not an incredibly expensive trip; we don't have to pay for lodging, just gas, meals out, and any activities we want to do. But in early June, our HVAC unit at our house died. Ugh! Luckily we had a 12 month 0% interest credit card with a high credit line to pay for the new unit. However, this meant that all of our extra income would need to go to paying off that credit card, so our yearly summer trip to the beach was cancelled. It was hard for me to cancel that trip, since I really wanted to visit my friends and family, and technically we did have the money and we had a whole year to pay off that card. But there was no way we were going on even an inexpensive vacation. Instead we did a stay-cation, and put the money we saved directly towards paying down the credit card. Because of this, my kids went from December 2010 to November 2011 without seeing my parents. It was a tough decision, but if you can't afford it...you can't afford it. Period.
3. Never vacation on credit.
In May 2009 my oldest nephew graduated from high school, and we were planning on attending his graduation. Since we lived in NW Ohio at the time and my sister and her family lives in SE Georgia, it was also a perfect opportunity to take a few extra days and make it our big summer vacation. The problem: In April 2009, I was offered a job back in Indiana (where we really had been wanting to move back to), so we spent May 2009 planning our move to Indiana in June. And we were not just moving (which costs money), but we were buying a house (we couldn't pass up the low housing prices at the time) and I was actually taking a small pay cut (ouch! but we did what we felt we needed to do to live closer to family). My sister was very upset that we were canceling our plans, even going so far as to encourage me to just take the vacation and figure out how to pay for it later. I love her, and I wanted to be there for my nephew (and Superman wanted to get a tan in SE Georgia), but there was no way I was taking a vacation, even an "inexpensive" one right in the middle of this major life event. Did I have empty credit cards I could have used? Yes, but that kind of thinking right there (Spend now, worry how to pay later...) is how people end up in massive credit card debt. We do not play those games, we spend now and pay now.
4. Plan ahead.
I am not shy or embarrassed to admit that I want to take my kids to Disney World. I went as a kid and loved it. I went as a teenager and loved it. I went as a young adult, with my young nephews, and loved it. I want to go as a parent with my children and love it! When is the big question, because we want to take them when they are old enough to be able to do most of the attractions, but young enough to still "believe". I want them to see Mickey Mouse and freak out like a pre-teen at a Justin Beiber concert. I want them to meet the Disney characters and get excited, as if they were meeting celebrities.
Because of this, a few years ago, I signed up for a Chase Disney Rewards card. I use this card every day. I pay everything and anything I can on this card. I pay for groceries, gas, my cell phone bill, doctor's visits, Superman's grad school tuition, etc. As long as you pay off the balance before the billing due date (which we always do), you never pay any APR. And for every one of my purchases, I get 1% back in Disney Rewards Dollars. It is a very slow accumulation, but a gradual one. And to date, I have earned $436 towards a Disney vacation. These can count towards food, lodging, tickets, etc. My goal is to earn enough points to pay for our tickets and lodging costs, so that all I'll have to save cash for is gas and food.
These points start to expire in September 2014, so as long as we plan our trip sometime before then, we will be able to take full advantage of all our points. And considering the boys will turn 7 in June 2014, I'm convinced that anytime we take them before the points begin to expire, we will be well within age range of them really enjoying it!
Could I just say "Hey let's go to Disney" and put it all on a credit card? Sure I could do that. But it is much more financially prudent of us to plan out this trip years in advance, slowly paying for it just by charging a card with our typical monthly expenses that I'd be spending anyway.
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