Blogging Away Debt Our Journeys to a Debt-Free Life

by Ashley

Hi friends! I missed you guys (even though I had posts scheduled, I feel like I wasn’t around)!

We have made it back from our road trip and had a great time! It was so fun to be together so much (husband works a lot so it was a treat to have a big chunk of time together), and to be able to talk about how great it feels to be credit card debt-free (remember – one of the reasons we decided to take this trip was to celebrate being free from credit card debt). We have so many plans for our future and it looks so bright knowing that one day we will be debt free!!! It’s an exciting feeling!

Originally, I had planned to write a post about the “numbers” of this trip (similar to this post, but for the costs associated with the road trip). But I paid for all of our gasoline with a debit card and my bank account still has the “$1.00 – pending transaction” label for all the gas costs from yesterday, so I’ll save that post for Friday when I have a fully updated view of things (spoiler alert:  I think we did really well in keeping our costs super low!!!)

But, in case it helps others (since I know I took a LOT of advice from you guys in the comments of this post), I wanted to post a little about my experience with roadtripping with toddlers and what I thought about the experience….

Keeping Sane While Roadtripping With Toddlers

First and foremost – it CAN be done!

We go on a LOT of 12-14 hour roadtrips so we’ve got some experience. I honestly think it was MUCH easier now that the girls are walking (compared to when they were younger babies). I think it helped that they could walk around and stretch out their legs, and there are more toys, songs, and games to keep their attention and keep them occupied compared to when they were younger. I also think the commenter who mentioned the importance of the parent’s perspective hit the nail on the head. I had totally been dreading this experience and fearing it would be awful. So I made a conscious decision to put on a happy face, think positive thoughts, and go into it like it was a fun adventure (as opposed to a dauntingly-long road trip).

I should also note that the way there (when we split the drive into two 6-hour days) was a total breeze. If we had unlimited time and money, I would definitely do this every time! But we’re constrained by both, so sometimes its necessary to have 1 long day of driving (which we did for our return trip). All of the things I’ll write about here really pertain to the long day.

Here a couple of the key suggestions that I think saved our sanity:

1. Start early. We left at 4:30am, which gave us a solid 2 hours drive-time before the girls even woke up (they’re good about being transferred from bed to the car without waking). Once they woke we gave them milk sippies and snack-cups with Cheerios and kept driving another 2 hours before our first stop. That solid 4 hours of drive-time was crucial, as it turned out to be the longest uninterrupted stretch of the trip.
2. Break often and as needed. We found that we had to stop more frequently as time went on, such that our first leg of driving was the longest, followed by the next leg, and then the next leg,  and so on. We hadn’t planned our breaks ahead of time (trying, instead, to see how the girls were doing and go-with-the-flow), but they ended up working out nicely. Our first one was at 9:30 and we walked around and ate a light breakfast at a bakery (the girls had already eaten cereal in the car). Our next stop was 12:30 and we walked around and ate at a fast food place. Our final stop was at 2:30 pm, where we stopped for gas and walked around the parking area/gas station for a bit. We finally made it home by 4:30pm (there’s an hour time change, so our trip was actually 13 hours long).
3. Bring fun toys. I did two things that really helped save us sanity (and money!). First, I took away some of their favorite toys and hid them a couple weeks ago. I wanted them to feel more special when I brought them on the trip so I purposely removed them from the toy bins and kept them hidden until the road trip. Second, I went to Dollar Tree and bought $5 worth of new toys:  2 music-maker toys, 2 necklaces/bracelet packages, and a package of party-blower things (like these, but only $1). I also brought stickers, crayons and coloring books from home. I saved the toys for opportune times when we really needed to make it a little bit further before our next stop.
4. Let ’em eat crap. This was the girls’ first time to ever eat a sucker (I bought a bag of ring pops). That sucker took my girls an entire HOUR to eat, and they were happy and quiet the entire time. Score! On top of that, we brought lots of other snacky foods like my homemade fruit leather, animal crackers, cheese crackers, Cheerios, pretzels, the list goes on. The toys worked better than the snacks for the most part (aside from those miracle ring pops), but they did help.
5. Sing and dance.  I don’t know about your kid, but mine LOVE to sing and dance! When they’d start getting cranky, I’d sing fun songs with them that have hand motions (like itsy bitsy spider) or put on some music and do silly dances. The girls would laugh and dance and play along and we had a good time with it.

I had many, many people recommend that we buy or borrow a portable DVD player, but we ultimately decided against it. Our girls have never really watched TV and never ever watched a movie, so I didn’t think it would work for us. About a month or so ago I was sick and tried to have them watch cartoons so I could lay on the couch and wallow in my misery (I had terrible food poisoning), but they would have none of it. They just don’t have the attention span for it so I think it would have been a waste of money for us. I certainly think this could help with kids that are older though!

All-in-all, I certainly think its possible to do long road trips with toddlers, even when you’re trying to be budget-friendly. Hiding your kids’ favorite toys so they seem new and fresh is a great option! The ring pops (which cost $1 for 4) were another little miracle, and the girls’ favorite toys were the party blowers! They played with those on-and-off for the entire 13 hour trip and we had gotten a package (I think 6 or 8 total) for $1! They thought the blowers were hysterical and had such a blast blowing into them!

I also think its nice to be able to stop places where there is some sort of attraction. On our second day driving to Utah (remember we split the drive into 2 days on the way there) we happened across a totally random and FREE petting zoo!!! There was no place for donations so I have no idea how they operated for free, but it was such a cute and fun thing for the girls to get out and stretch their legs! There were also plenty of rest areas (some with incredible views), so I think that’s a great option, too. We happened to plan our stops mostly around food and part of me feels guilty that we purchased food on the trip (instead of making/bringing our own – though we did bring all our own drinks), but it worked for now. For future trips, I can definitely see us bringing PB&J sandwiches and eating at one of the rest stops along the way. I was really shocked by how nice many of them were!

What’s your experience like traveling with toddlers? Any tips to keep costs down?

Ashley

Hi, I’m Ashley! Arizonan on paper, Texan at heart. Lover of running, blogging, and all things cheeeeese. Freshly 40, married mother of two, working in academia. Trying to finally (finally!) pay off that ridiculous 6-digit student loan debt!