And, We're Back!

This is what we spent our days looking out at. The lake was beautifully warm, even if there were some waves for a few days. The kids loved the waves though.

This is the area where we enter the beach. The cottage was about a five minute walk from this point.

The beach at dusk. We took a few walks in the evening, and were treated to some glorious views.

Like this one. :)

This is DD2 and my great-niece, who are the same age, tanning. They spent so many hours on the beach, just talking and having fun. And digging holes, lol.

This is my Cub, running around on the beach with some seagull feathers he had found. He was trying so hard to take off into flight. ;)

This is my Grand-Cub. Isn't he precious? The sun was especially hot that day, so we were playing games with the towel trying to keep him from getting sunburned.

Cub and Grand-Cub playing together.

This is DD2, Grand-Cub, and DD1. I loved having all my kids with me for a whole week!

And this is me and hubby. We didn't get a lot of alone time, but we did make time for one another. And Bailey's. ;)

We ate most of our meals at the cottage, which we prepared. DD1 made dinner at least 2 nights to take the pressure of having to do all the cooking from me. I found that having raw, cut-up vegetables at the table is an easy way to get the kiddos to eat more veggies. We had them with almost every meal. DD1 celebrated her 22nd birthday while we were away, so everything was very low-key.

However, while we were away, DD1 got a text from her BF, who had stayed home, to say that his father had suffered a stroke, and was not expected to live. Thursday night, John Waram passed away.

I was sad for the passing of a man I had known (many years ago), and for our mutual grand-son whom he had never met.

I can't even get away from death when I'm on vacation, try as I might.

But I enjoyed every minute of life that we had last week, and I am feeling recharged.

I'm ready to tackle the world again.

We're in Debt ?!?

What I wouldn't give to be 12 again, with a world full of opportunity ahead of me. I would change so many things, make different choices (like attending the J.A. week long daycamp on becoming an entrepreneur). My darling daughter, who just turned 12 this week, is starting to open her eyes to some of the goings on in the world around her that she just didn't see before.

We talk a lot in our home about debt, savings, paying of bills, and all sorts of financial related activities. Goals and dreams of things we would like to do and buy once we have saved up for it.

I was talking to DD2 the other day about trips we would like to take, places we want to take the kids to. Special trips. I mentioned that once we were out of debt, we could focus on these things a little more and take those trips.

She looked at me quizzically, and said, "We're in debt?" She sounded sort of surprised.
I replied that yes, we were.

What an innocent, yet thought provoking statement from a child. She asked me how that happened, meaning how did we get into debt. I gently explained that we don't always know what we are doing as grownups, and that we had made some bad choices, and that our debt is a consequence of those choices.

"Kinda like getting a punishment, a time out, or getting grounded you mean?", she asked innocently.
"Yes. Exactly like that, only with money", I answered.

She walked away, mumbling about never getting debt, and I smiled. I have tried so hard to shield her from my financial troubles, and may have missed out on the opportunity to teach her the perils of debt. No more. I will no longer wait until she is out of earshot to have financial discussions with hubby about bills and things. But I will be careful to keep from scaring her, and if need be, show her that we have a plan to make it better for our future.

We are still working daily on getting out of our money 'grounding'. One day, we will be out of 'time-out', and we can take her on those special trips. And that day cometh soon.

Sunday Thoughts

Several months ago, hubby and I planned a week vacation to somewhere warm (read no snow) for the final full week of February. We decided to take advantage of last minute vacation/flight prices. We had saved the money for said vacation. And we knew we'd be needing it by then.

I mentioned it briefly way back in October 2010 in a post I wrote about getting hubby more involved in our finances and budgeting.

One person commented on that post, and ended that comment with this:

"I just don't think vacations are reasonable when someone has debt."

This comment had me thinking. A lot. At first, I was mildly offended that someone who knew almost nothing of our personal circumstances made a judgement like that. I am the type of person who tries very hard not to judge others at all. Then I thought about the amount of work and sacrifice that that person and their family endured so that they could go on a vacation, and return to no consumer debt. Then I thought about all the financial challenges that we have in our lives, some recurring, others being more of a one time thing.

Every time we discussed 'going away' for a much needed vacation to recharge our batteries, that single sentence would pop into my head like a ticker tape announcement on the bottom of a television screen. That's when I realised that after I peeled off the layers of my feelings, underneath the offense and justification and defensiveness, I actually really agreed with the commenter.

I don't think that a $2000-$3000 vacation is reasonable when our family has so much consumer debt. Over the course of the next three months, hubby and I talked a lot about our time away. We agreed that it wasn't right to go to an all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean or wherever when we still have some $21,000 of debt that we had incurred. We had spent our future income on things we wanted, doing things we wanted to do, and the time has come to pay the piper.

We applied the $1200 or so we had saved to pay down some of the debt, and to keep current on our monthly bills. We bought groceries, and restocked what we needed to. We continued to talk about us 'going away', but in much different terms.

We're still going to go away, but only for one night instead of 6. Instead of flying off to a far away place, we'll be driving within 3 hours of our home town. Instead of paying people to look after our kids and our business for 7 days, it's only going to cost us for 2 days. We are looking at getting a free overnight stay, and the free & inexpensive things to do in that area instead of blowing a gob of money. The vacation budget has gone from $2000 to $250 that we both can live with.

This coming Wednesday, hubby and I will be leaving after we drop DD2 off at school to spend about 36 glorious hours together, doing whatever we want to do, sleeping a bed I don't have to make, and eating at least one meal that I don't have to cook, and leaving the work phones with someone else for awhile.



We also decided that we would pare down the summer vacation with the kids from 2 weeks to one. We reduced our outlay for the cottage from $1000 to $400 by getting only one week, and choosing a less expensive cottage. We'll cook our own meals and share the expenses with DD1 and her bf. I will have made a list of 'entertainment' for us all that is free or inexpensive, and work our way down the list when the kids want to do something fun.

The big goal will be to save up for a surprise trip to Disney in Florida once the debt has been done away with. We won't be telling the kids about it until we are leaving to get on the plane to go. That trip will be our reward for becoming debt free.