Making your Staycation into a Vacation

I've been on vacation from my full time job this week. Since we're watching our pennies, we decided not to head out of town. From all reports, many families have made that exact same decision. After we decided to have a "Staycation", Wes received a week long contract.... for this week. Now, it's kind of a bummer to be the only one on vacation. It feels more like I am a SAHM for a week instead of getting a vacation. NOT that there is anything wrong with being a SAHM. I think it's a wonderful career if that's your preference. It's not mine.

So far, on my vacation, I've washed 18 loads of laundry, reorganized the book shelves, developed a website, wrote some more on my book, locked myself out of my car in a 90 degree parking lot while grocery shopping, and worked diligently on paying bills and handling taxes. (Honestly, I don't know how you SAHM's do it!)

So, exactly how do you keep your Staycation from being just another day at home to do chores and errands? I read an article at Fine Living this morning that details quite a few ways to have a relaxing vacation at home. While I can't see doing some of the things they recommend, like hiring a chef to come cook at your home for you, or hiring a cleaning service so that you don't have to clean the house while you're on vacation, they did have some great ideas.

For the four days I have left on my vacation, these are the things I'm going to do to turn my vacation into..well.. a vacation!
1) Drink my coffee on the front porch every morning.
2) Read a fluffy mindless book just because it amuses me.
3) Have a date night with Wes.
4) Play in my square foot garden!
5) Have a mid-day nap.
6) Stay up late and watch the 2nd season of The Tudors. (totally have to do that after the kids are in bed!
7) Have a glass of wine at 2:00 PM... just because I can.
8) Turn off my cell phone.
9) Read blogs, leave comments, and Tweet as much as I want to!
10) Tease and romp with the kiddos.

Some other tips for making your Staycation something RELAXING:

• For those of you who just enjoy that kind of thing, make your home town a tourist destination.
  
• Go to that museum or restaurant you've always meant to go to but never got around to it.
  
• Watch all of those shows in your TiVo that you never have time to watch, but really want to.
  
• Take walks in parts of the neighborhood you haven't been to.
  
• Learn a new fun craft.
  
• Invent new games with your kids.
  
• Cook that food you have wanted to make for months, but it takes half the day to do.
• Is it raining? Grab that line-dried blanket you just washed and wrap up on your front porch with a cup of coffee and a good book. If that doesn't relax you, you need more than a vacation!

Ok... I'm going back to my Staycation folks! Don't call me, I'll call you :)

Summer Vacation

For the first time EVER, I will be taking a vacation. Not a long weekend, but an actual vacation. Usually, I spread out my paid vacation days into 3 day weekends so that I could stretch the time out for the entire year.

I just talked to my boss and I'll be off for 10 whole days (5 days of vacation, 1 paid holiday, and 2 weekends). I've never (can I say again EVER!) had this much time off from work with my family without being unemployed and stressed out.

My next task is to figure out my frugal vacation. I don't necessarily want to travel, but we probably will. I'm going to throw out some of the suggestions posted at Bible Money Matters to the family and see what they think. Either way, I'm just looking forward to the time off. I will be writing the book, and reading more books, and relaxing.

I can't wait to have this time with the kids. Maybe camping at the beach again.....

What do you think? Anyone have any suggestions at what to do with this free time? I'd love to hear from you.

Results of Planning

The convention was AMAZING! Wes and I got to spend loads of time meeting new folks and reconnecting with old friends. There was so much to see and do, we didn't even get to 1/2 of it.

The planning ahead really paid off for us. We didn't spend any money on restaurant food or drinks of any sort. We did end up buying a few impulse things from the vendor room, but I budgeted money for that "on the sly" so that when Wes found something he just had to have, I was able to indulge him.

All in all, we spend $95 in the vendor area, $75 on food and drinks for 3 days (and had enough leftovers that I have not had to shop for breakfast or lunches at work for 3 more days), and $202.28 on the hotel room.

Preparing for the Weekend

BIG BIG weekend planned! Wes and I are going to a convention this weekend. We've been planning it for a year and are so excited. I mentioned, in previous entries, that one of the biggest reasons I work so hard to live on less is because we enjoy traveling. This is no exception.

How we're doing it different this year than last year:
Last year
- Driving long distances home at 2 AM just to go back again at noon the next day
- Eating out at sit down restaurants 3 meals a day (and fast food late night munchies)
- Paying Per-Drink prices for cocktails
- Buying tons of stuff from the vendors
- Paying full price at the door
- $ for babysitters

This year
- Staying at a hotel room, on site - a great deal at the group rate
- Packing a cooler with sodas and 2 boxes of wine (yay boxed wine... no corkscrew)
- Bringing the coffee pot and coffee - those little 2 cup pots at the hotel are worthless when you've got 8 people who are running on 2 hours sleep!
- Bringing muffins and croissants for breakfast - No sit down breakfasts
- Bringing chips, snacks, and the all important crock pot & ingredients for making Wes' famous queso dip!
- Sharing food with friends for lunches and dinners - no gigantic food costs
- Bringing the mattress pad in case the beds aren't comfy
- Bought tickets a year ago for 1/2 price
- The children are going to grandma's house for Easter, and are thrilled to be rid of us. No babysitter costs!
- Not shopping at vendors - we have taken stock of anything we might actually want to buy, and determined that Ebay or online in general will have better prices and we can plan those purchases in advance.

All in all, it won't be a FRUGAL weekend, but it won't be the spendfest it has been in the past. Most of all, it'll be a great time with old friends, meeting new friends, and seeing all there is to see.

Happy Easter!
Not The Momma (this weekend anyway)

Weekend at Disney

Wes and I are sometimes super smart people. Other times... not so much. 3 of our children (the youngest 3) have birthdays in a two week span in January. They turned 10, 10, and 12 this month. This year, we took them to Disney World for the weekend. Taking 4 children to Disney World is not the cheapest way to celebrate birthdays. Nor is driving 8 hours one way to spend one day at The Magic Kingdom the smartest way to expend energy. But we did... and are oh so glad that we did.

To take the sting out of the normal travel expenses, such as snacks and fountain drinks and the ever present McDonald's drive-thru, I did a little pre-planning. I packed a cooler full of non caffeinated drinks for the children, and diet cokes for Wes and I. I picked up a huge container of peanut butter filled pretzel nuggets and portioned them out into snack baggies. I even made Nutella & Jelly and PB&J sandwiches. This definitely saved us at least $70 for the weekend in snacks.
*Quick note: When you make several different kinds of sandwiches and want to make sure you can tell them apart quickly, cut them in different ways. I did PB&J diagonally, and Nutella & Jelly down the middle.*

We stayed at one of the Disney properties, in the cheapest rooms they had. We know that the rooms aren't well appointed and the beds are like boards, so I made sure to pack our memory foam mattress pad. This works incredibly well and makes the beds in even the most economical hotel chains comfy to sleep in.

We made sure to get the Meal Plan when we made the reservation. It was so nice not to have to worry about how much extra money we were going to have to shell out for food while we were there. With the meal plan, we were able to enjoy a fantastic character breakfast, lunch in one of the park restaurants, dinner in a nicer Downtown Disney restaurant, and breakast at the hotel before heading home. The greatest part was that there was no big surprise bill at checkout.

Now, granted, Disney vacations (even for one day at the park) are not cheap. But if you are careful and plan ahead, it's definitely possible to go and have a good time without breaking the bank.

The kids had a fantastic time! We were able to ride all but 8 rides in the entire Magic Kingdom park in one day and didn't wait much longer than 10 minutes in any line all day (which Wes says is unheard of). The weather was cool enough for us to be comfortable in sweaters. The characters are amazing! The customer service is fantastic. OH.. and Cinderella's Castle lights up at night.. and changes colors. *happy sigh* January is obviously a good time to see The Mouse.