Blogging Away Debt Our Journeys to a Debt-Free Life

by Hope

We will arrive home today. We’ve been on the road for exactly two weeks. On my last travel update we had just arrived at the Lakehouse where we would stay til the end.

I don’t have all the exact numbers put together yet, but here’s how it went in general to give you an overview:

• Gas – 6 tanks of gas at approx $80 a piece = $480 (includes 3 trips to TN and 2 to GA due to the camps)
• Hotel – 3 nights = $300 (had only budgeted for 2 so this put me over a bit)
• Groceries – $65 (additional $55 gift card spent that I had been saving for this occasion)

Total cost of two week vacation = $845

I can write off some of this as it would have fallen into my regular budget $300 for two weeks of groceries and $160 for weekly gas money.  So with that in mind, the cost of this trip was around $385 over our normal budget.

I look at that number with my debt payoff in mind and think would be a nice payment towards debt, but then I think about all the intrinsic payoffs:

1. Two of the boys got to attend specialty camps that they are committed to pursuing at this time. (I didn’t count this in the expense for the vacation because 1) it comes out of a monthly budget line item and 2) was paid for in previous months.)
2. We got a nice long relaxing visit with my parents who visited the Lakehouse at the same time from TX.
3. It’s just relaxing to be away from home and not have your day to day to do lists hanging over your head.
4. The kids had some quality time together away from distractions from the world.

For the next two weeks no one has any extraneous activities and then we will start additional summer activities which will carry us through August, more on those later, but for now I am satisfied that this money was well spent and the memories made will last a lifetime!

Hope

Hope is a creative, solutions-focused business manager helping clients grow their business and work more efficiently by leveraging expertise in project management, digital marketing, & tech solutions. She’s recently become an empty nester as her 5 foster/adoptive kids have spread their wings. She lives with her 5 dogs in a small town in NE Georgia and prefers the mountains to the beaches any day. She struggles with the travel bug and is doing her best to help each of her kids as their finish schooling and become independent (but it’s hard!) She has run her own consulting company for almost twenty years! Hope began sharing her journey with the BAD community in the Spring of 2015 and feels like she has finally in a place to really focus on making wise financial decisions.