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by Tricia

Against my better “debt reduction mode” judgement, I went on a special date with my son this past weekend. Of all places to go, we went to a local place that is similar to a Chuck-e-Cheese’s where you spend money to play games and win tickets. You redeem the tickets for some very cheap prizes.

This was something brand new to my son, and I haven’t been to a place like that since I was a teenager.

We played the games and even won a 760 ticket jackpot on one of the games. You should have seen the look on my son’s face as the tickets kept spewing from the machine. “When is it going to stop!!” he asked.

Then he won a jackpot on another game and won 199 tickets. He jumped up and down in excitement. Even mom caught herself clapping in excitement. That’s a side of me that doesn’t come out very often.

Yes, I could have used that $30 for debt reduction, but my guess is that I still would be in a funky mood if we didn’t go and have some fun. It helped to perk me right up. I would go as far as to say that I needed this experience with my son. So often I am working late and time with him is being lost. I feel a tremendous amount of guilt about that. I also get very tired of being focused on making money all of the time.

For me, spending $30 to have fun with my son and to forget about all of my worries for a few hours was worth every penny. We certainly can’t do it all of the time, but this one time was very helpful because I needed a recharge.

My funk is officially O-V-E-R!! Time to kick some debt booty!