To Vacation or Not To Vacation?

Don’t you want a nicer car? Don’t you want a bigger house? Shouldn’t you be saving for your retirement? You’re going on ANOTHER vacation? Your kids do how many activities?!

My spouse and I get asked these questions a lot. The not so simple answer is yes…and no. Do I want a nicer car? Who doesn’t?! Do I want a bigger house? Maybe a little bigger, definitely in a better area. Should we be saving for retirement? How do you know we aren’t?

We do a lot of vacations as a family. We try to do one a year. If we aren’t able to do one big vacation a year, we do a bunch of long weekends in a year. In addition to vacations, we do local experiences. We will see some local venues, go to the zoo, go to baseball games, go to museums, etc. Because we do this, some other areas in our life might seem mediocre to outsiders. The truth is that we live within our means. We live comfortably. We don’t live paycheck to paycheck. Who wants to spread themselves that thin and work for only material things?

Our family prefers to be happy with an ok car that gets us from point A to point B. It’s not the best cars. They’ve got rust and dings on them but they runs. Our house may not be large but it fits our family, keeps a roof over our heads and allows us to make memories in it. We manage to save a few bucks for retirement along the way but what is the point to our jobs if all we see are material things?

We choose to have experiences rather than items. We choose to see our country, and others, instead of keeping up with the Joneses. There is plenty of time to save money when the kids are grown and no longer want to spend time with us. Until then, we choose to see the sights and experience different things. Travel makes for well-rounded people and isn’t that what we all want for our children and ourselves? We choose to give our kids these experiences in hopes of when they have their own families, they will do the same with them. We choose to give our kids these experiences because they still talk about things that we did years and years ago. Toys and objects don’t stand the test of time like experiences and memories do. Time with our kids is so fleeting, make the most of it while you can.

I will never tell my kids they can’t do an activity that they want to try. I am blessed to not have to parent alone so we are able to do many things and have our kids in multiple places at once. If I were a single parent, they wouldn’t be able to do so many things. I will never not indulge their curiosity about sports or extra-curricular activities. If they want to try it, they are given the opportunity. Is it expensive? Most of the time. Does the experience outweigh the cost? Every single time! How do we expect them to grow as an individual if we don’t indulge them and allow them every opportunity to try new things? If they don’t like it, they tried but at least they are trying. Parenting is the most selfless thing one can do, so we go without so our kids can have and try everything.