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July Financial Update

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Well, we started the month with way too many things hitting the credit card: 2 insurance policy renewals, a new insurance policy, air conditioning fix at a rental, and bathroom replacement at a rental. That eventually led to a $1500 charge for bat removal at another rental.

PERSONAL

My big news this month was handling my HOA’s annual meeting. We’ve been working so hard for the last year, and I tried really hard this year to increase communication between the Board and community. I think I did a good job because there wasn’t any contentious point of this meeting and there were very little questions. I received nice feedback on how I presented the budget and that I did a good job throughout the year. It was a welcomed win since there was a lot of heat in the previous couple of years.

The family’s big news is getting passports for a trip this Fall. The parents already have theirs, but we got the kids their pictures and submitted their application. So our credit card balance is higher than normal because we paid for flights and the cruise itself.

It took us until the last week of June to meet our deductible on our health insurance. It’s only $3,300, so that’s quite the impressive feat. I’d point out that my March surgery took until then to get processed correctly, but at least we eventually got there. I have very little faith that it’s all processed correctly though, so it’s on my to do list to verify that we’re not overpaying into that deductible, which they don’t make easy because they don’t show me prescription fills clearly.

We went on a trip for a long weekend to visit Mr. ODA’s aunt in WV. They have a vacation house there, so we didn’t pay for lodging. Unexpectedly, they provided all our meals. I bought them a gift card and some beer. So between that gift, gas, and the meals on either end of the trip, we spent about $200 for a trip, and it was one of the best vacations I’ve been on.

Two of the kids spent this past week at camps. One was 3 hours per day at a dance studio, and the other was 9.5 hours of all outdoor time for the week. He had a blast, and I’m kind of jealous that he got to play all those games and have a great week.

RENTALS

This month, I received an email from Rent App that a tenant was paying their rent. She didn’t give me a heads up, so I wanted to verify things with her. She said this app pays me in full, but it takes the first half of the payment from her account at the beginning of the month and then the second half of the payment in the middle of the month. They’ve lived with me for for 8 years, so I’m surprised she sought out this option instead of talking to me about a payment plan. The program was extremely sketchy and I didn’t feel good about a single step of it. I gave up the registration process at the point that it required untethered access to my phone, but I wish I would have followed my gut at the first personal information step, as if it wasn’t bad enough I had to give my bank account details for the transfer to happen. The payment eventually came through on the 10th, but I didn’t feel good about it.

Another tenant paid late with the late payment. And another tenant paid late with little to no communication and several follow up conversations. I can’t stand when I have to hunt down money. I’m willing to work with everyone who reaches out. She paid the first one with a (1/3), so clearly she knew the plan. And yet, on the 6th, I had to ask where the rest of the rent was. She said it would be done that day. A partial payment was made on the 7th. Then another partial payment on the 8th to finish it out.

We hired someone to clean out the gutters at two houses. Both houses are inundated with trees over the roof, so it’s something we need to stay on top of because they back up every 6 months. We could add gutter guards, but just didn’t see the point since we could do it. Now we don’t live there. He is also going to cut trees 10′ back from the roof on one of those houses.

And then the bats. One house had a bat show up last Monday. My property manager didn’t think much of it, so we didn’t do anything (I wasn’t even told about it at that point). Another bat showed up on Saturday. The tenant went for rabies shots and got boosters for her dogs. She then took a bat to get tested, which came back negative. She said she wasn’t comfortable staying there, so she stayed with a friend. We had traps set so bats could get out of the attic, but they couldn’t get back in. The pest people will go back next week to check on things.

We have two houses that will be vacant at the end of this month. We were supposed to have one at the end of June and one at the end of July, but the June one asked for an extension. I let them have it, but I’m not thrilled about my timing now. We won’t be able to truly get to work in there until mid-August, and it’s going to require a lot of work (not hard work, just time consuming). Then for the other one vacating at the end of the month, we don’t intend on renting it again. We’re going to let it sit over the winter and sell it in the spring.

NET WORTH

The way that I update our net worth each month involves overwriting the numbers from last year. So I can easily see that we’ve gained over half a million net worth since July 2024’s update. What’s nice about that is that it’s all appreciation, paying down mortgages, and the stock market with continued savings. We didn’t make any large financial moves that would have adjusted our net worth in one large move like buying a house. I had a conversation with someone about our net worth and goals recently. It would be nice to cross the $5 million threshold, but we’re not actively managing our funds in a way that will cause drastic swings outside of market movement. We crossed $4 million in March 2024.

We’re over $200k from last month’s update. Our credit cards are much higher than last month because of trip purchases and rental work that was unexpected, but needed. Here’s to the last month of summer.

February Financial Update

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PERSONAL

I’ve been busy getting started with a new job that should officially begin in the next couple of weeks. I’ve still subbed at the preschool a few days over the last month. I’ve been working on financial consulting work for a school in Virginia. I’ve also been trying to get our homeowners association documents in order while I execute a transition I initiated for a new management company, as well as getting the budget in order well before it’s presented to homeowners months after the start of our fiscal year. Anyway, laying all that out makes me realize I’ve juggled a bunch and have been pretty happy about all that activity going on.

In addition to what I’ve been juggling, Mr. ODA is a federal employee. So the current climate has been hanging over our heads. The uncertainty of what the future holds is more concerning than it has been in the past. Luckily, we’ve set ourselves up for success, but it still is hard to manage that we may not be in control of that decision.

RENTALS

We had multiple houses pay rent late this month, and I’m still working with another house that has been late for the last 3 months and isn’t fully caught up yet. We had one house break the screen door (claiming the wind grabbed it and slammed it against the railing), so we replaced that for $400 with labor. Another house had a faucet leaking and a door knob that wouldn’t twist. I also have to get out to a house here in KY that had lattice under the deck fall down. It’s supposed to rain all weekend, so I think I’ll head out there tomorrow and handle that before the rain this weekend.

NET WORTH

We recovered from last month’s slump, but we’re still slightly below December’s number. Other than the last two months, we’re still greater than any other net worth calculation we’ve had. Our investment accounts raised slightly, and our debt amounts decreased slightly. Both sections trending in a good direction. There were no major purchases or adjustments to our accounts this past month, and mostly our spending was fairly low.

Expense Analysis

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Back when I spent my days working in front of a computer, it was easy for me to analyze our spending. These days, with 3 kids in tow, I’m lucky to record our finances timely. There’s no time for analyzing. But over the past two years, I haven’t been happy with our spending total for the year, so it was time to look into it a bit more. It’s hard to know what has changed since I don’t have month over month, or year over year, trends to compare this data to, but it’s a start.

There are some caveats.

  • I don’t include any spending that isn’t on a credit card here. That means some of our rental property bills aren’t captured (they’re paid via Venmo or check), but I decided that’s ok because I can see that in a different way (a separate spreadsheet). Those expenses are reactive and a necessity to running the business, so it’s not like I can change a spending trend there. I’m more curious about our actual expenses and where our money is going for personal decisions. There will be some rental expenses captured here though.
  • I’m doing this analysis for the first half of the year. If this was for a month at a time (which is a goal), then I’d be able to dive deeper into spending at each place. For instance, at Walmart, those expenses aren’t always ‘grocery.’ However, I don’t have the time to go through all the purchases and siphon out non-food purchases. I did go through most of the Amazon purchases and categorize them.
  • If a purchase was made at Lowe’s or Home Depot, it’s classified as home improvement. It may have been rental property work, but generally it’s related to something we’re doing at our house.
  • If a purchase was made while on vacation (such as amusement park, tolls, hotels, dog sitting) , it’s categorized as ‘vacation.’ If we were on vacation and purchased food, it wasn’t labeled as vacation. All fast food or restaurant purchases for the first half of the year are categorized as ‘restaurant.’
  • If we did an activity from home, it’s labeled as ‘entertainment.’ If we did something related to sports (this includes swim lessons, ticket purchases for performances, etc.), then it’s labeled as ‘sports.’ The entertainment versus sports delineation is because something like a single tournament could be considered entertainment, but I kept all sports items as ‘sports.’
  • None of this includes whether we were reimbursed by someone else for a purchase. For example, we purchased tickets for 15 of us to go to an amusement park on vacation, but we only paid for 4 tickets of that personally. Mr. ODA is a personal shopper for restaurants, so much of our restaurant shopping around town is actually later reimbursed in that process (but not captured here because it’s not a credit card line item).

In the process of going line-by-line on my expenses, I discovered that I never received a refund for something. I placed an order on Etsy for a personalized gift for my niece’s birthday. A few days later, I went to check the status of the order, and I discovered that the shop I ordered from was no longer selling on Etsy. I was frustrated that I received no email that told me my order wouldn’t be fulfilled. I contacted Etsy customer service. At the time, I misunderstood Etsy’s billing process. I assumed it was charged when the item shipped. As I was just going through charges, I realized that the amount was charged on the date of purchase (e.g., not when shipped), and I had never received a response from Etsy. After another frustrating round of attempting to contact customer service this morning, I finally received a resolution. Now my ‘to do list’ has to keep track of this refund appearing. It’s $10.01, so it’s not the end of the world. However, it would be nice if Etsy shuts down a seller (their words), that they manage the outstanding orders without me having to take my time to get it corrected. Plus, if I let every “it’s just $10” go, it could add up quickly.

FIRST HALF OF THE YEAR SPENDING

By far, our largest slice of the pie up there is for rental expenses. Honestly, I’m happy to see that so much of our credit card expenses are taken up by rental expenses we had. I pay our insurance premiums (where they aren’t escrowed) via credit card, and I can pay our county taxes for one house with a credit card, which I do for the cash back rewards. There was flooring replaced at one house, which was a significant amount of that slice.

The ‘home improvement’ category includes new patio furniture we purchased, but were reimbursed by insurance (a tree fell on our deck). It also includes the electrician work and dirt fill purchases that we needed for the deck rebuild. Our house has a few more fairly large projects we want to complete, so I expect that to continue being a larger chunk.

I know that our “grocery” expense isn’t completely groceries. I’d like to focus on this category of spending more in the second half of the year. I want to quantify what’s purchased at Walmart that is actually grocery versus personal shopping type purchases. I think that our grocery purchases are higher than they should be, but I can’t put my finger on exactly why. Historically, I’ve blamed it on ‘bulk’ shopping; Mr. ODA will go to Kroger for the “buy 5” type sales. I’m not sure that’s it though.

We don’t eat at restaurants very often. We usually eat at fast food places while we travel or are away from home at an inopportune time. When we’re at home, we’re usually eating at a “personal shopper” experience where our food cost is mostly reimbursed (although that’s not captured in the chart).

Our health insurance deductible is $3,200 per year, so we expect slightly more than that each year in the medical expense category (and based on how deductibles work, that expense is front loaded in the year). I actually pre-paid a bill at a child’s urgent care visit. I paid them $50, but that visit, along with two more visits since then, came to a total of $12. I’m waiting for their reimbursement of that difference.

PERSONAL SPENDING

I’m going to dig deeper into the ‘personal’ category. I labeled a bunch of things as ‘personal’ as a means of not having too many small slivers of the overall spending pie. This includes all gifts, needs for kids (new shoes), clothing for kids, gym membership, sports, etc. It includes a ‘shopping’ category. I spent some time going through my Amazon orders and categorizing them, but the ‘shopping’ category was too daunting and difficult to parse out further. About a third of the ‘shopping’ category is Amazon orders through Mr. ODA’s account that I didn’t pull up to categorize. The rest is random purchases that were probably related to gifts or kids clothing.

For entertainment, this is small things like going to the movies (which we go for $2 per ticket), bowling, and aquarium. The largest chunk of this pie part here is actually 4 season pass lift tickets for our family’s future winter season. I put the ‘mom’ category to see what I’ve purchased for myself that wasn’t a necessity (e.g., a travel cosmetic bag, baseball shirts to wear to my son’s games), as well as my one hair cut and one pedicure that I’ve gotten this year so far. The ‘other’ category is boring stuff – utilities, car maintenance, professional fees, etc.

Had I gone through my Walmart orders in detail, I would have been able to identify some more purchases that could be removed from ‘shopping’ and put into other categories. For instance, the ‘dog’ category is actually higher because I order his glucosamine and tooth cleaning treats from Walmart most of the time, and that’s a monthly expense. His annual vet appointment is in the Fall, so this will be a larger slice of the pie for the end of the year.

SUMMARY

Our annual credit card payment total for the last three years have been about the same. While it’s a ‘win,’ that it isn’t increasing, it’s still at a number that I don’t like. Mr. ODA has been working towards a ‘retirement’ date. We’ve pushed it back just because his job hasn’t significantly impeded our lifestyle, but the day will eventually come. If it’s next year, I’d feel better if our credit card payments weren’t as high.

I went into this expecting my grocery category to be higher than I’d prefer. I didn’t identify much of what is causing that, so I’ll try to focus heavily on watching that expense each time it hits the credit card, rather than trying to remember what each purchase entailed six months later.

I was surprised to see the gas category such a small sliver of the pie. We’ve done a lot of trips (although, I suppose a majority were in July, which isn’t captured in this data). It appears living in a smaller city and doing things mostly on this side of town means we’re not having to fill up our tanks too often.

Overall, I didn’t notice any egregious spending. We don’t spend for the sake of spending. This year we traveled more than we had the previous two years, but mostly our spending is the same. Now that we’re two years into our house, there are less projects that we’re putting money towards. I’m encouraged that now that I’m looking at this, I’ll be able to identify areas to scale back.

Hitting our Goals

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I mentioned at the beginning of the year that our general financial goal is $4 million net worth. I acknowledge that this is not a specific goal that most people can relate to. But I also pointed out that we weren’t always sitting with nearly that amount in our accounts, and that made me start thinking about where we were. This is long, but I didn’t think it worth splitting into multiple posts. I’ve gone into the topic in general, but this is our actual story and the steps we experienced.

This is just meant to show you that you can grow each year and slowly chip away at a goal. Everyone makes fun of the “don’t buy Starbucks everyday” philosophy. It’s not that saving that $7 per day is literally going to make you a millionaire in itself. It’s saying that if you’re willing to spend that $7 daily, that’s likely indicative of other spending in your day, and you should be more deliberate with your spending. I saw a meme on Instagram that said something similar about buying decor for your home, and if you’re willing to spend “just $25 on this lamp,” those little expenses add up over the year. I’m a broken record in saying make every purchase a deliberate, thought-out action; I went into how much effort (and years) I put in to purchasing a $4 tape dispenser on this post.

The background here is to first show you how I had no money, but I’ve been diligent on my spending and working towards goals. Mr. ODA was more of a saver and more prepared for the big life expenses in your early 20s. The part where we work towards buying a house is where we really buckled up and made life decisions that kept us on that track. Our money philosophies have gotten us to where we are today – every dollar has a purpose.

MY FINANCIAL HISTORY: COLLEGE, WHERE I STARTED MY INDEPENDENCE

I never liked relying on other people, so I was interested in making my own way as fast possible. My parents gave me an ultimatum during my sophomore year of college – either become a resident assistant for free room and board, or take out loans to help pay for it in the next two years. I didn’t want to take out loans, so I started looking for off campus housing. I didn’t mind living on campus. I have no idea why I was so dead-set against taking out loans and how that would have been ingrained in me at that time. But living off campus would allow me to pay month to month, instead of living on campus where I’d have to pay each semester’s housing costs up front.

On top of that, my dad offered me to buy out his car. He had let me drive the car to college that year, but around Christmas time, it started acting funny. It turned out that second gear in the transmission needed to be replaced. He said I could pay for the fix, and then it could be my car. I didn’t like the idea of being 3.5 hours away from my family and having a car that appeared unreliable. So I went car shopping, and I leased a Honda Civic. My car payment was about $300/month. I leased it instead of buying it because I didn’t need to put any money down.

I worked three jobs that summer after my sophomore year of college. It was so hard. I was working 40 hour weekends, and then I’d put hours in during the week. I remember getting burnt out and being overwhelmed because I had to miss my sister’s graduation party. I was working at a catering hall, which meant late hours on Friday and Saturday, and early hours on Sunday. I was also working at a bagel shop (big on Long Island), which was a 5:45 am call time, but at least I’d be done by 10 am. Then I was working as a cashier at K-Mart, which was Monday through Thursday in the afternoon or evening, and sometimes on Friday.

Even though I was working all those jobs, I still struggled with paying my bills once I got to college for my junior year. I paid too much for rent because I wanted to live on my own. None of my friends were interested in living off campus, and I was too afraid to live with someone I didn’t know. My parents ended up giving me $100/month for 6 months so I could pay to run my heat. I remember it being October, and I told my mom that I hadn’t turned my heat on yet. So she sent me the money each month to cover the heating bill instead of trying to live in layers and blankets because I didn’t want to pay for it.

When I moved back up to college, I was working at JCPenney while going to school. I did pretty well. My grades didn’t suffer, and I still felt like I had a life so I didn’t get burnt out with only work and school. I took on extra shifts and stopped going home for the smaller holidays (e.g., Thanksgiving) so that I could work.

MY FINANCIAL HISTORY: MY BIG GIRL JOB

My guidance counselor told me that financial firms would be expecting internships on my resume. This was 2007; financial firms were fat and happy, so they weren’t paying interns. I kept my eye on the job boards (which were literal bulletin boards) in the financial building. I found an internship with the Federal government that was paying $13/hour! I applied in August. I heard nothing for weeks, so I gave up hope. Suddenly, I received a call asking me to come in for an interview on Halloween! I had never interviewed before, so this was scary. Then the guy told me that they didn’t even know if they were going to hire a mid-career hire or go the internship route, and they had never had an intern before. That was the second time I gave up hope. A month later, I received the job offer, and I started working in December 2007.

From the start, I put money into the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP), which is the government’s 401k equivalent. My parents told me to take each raise I got and put it right into there also. If I was used to living on the lower amount, then keep the rest in savings. I followed that advice until I maxed out the contributions. I didn’t have trouble paying my bills, but I wasn’t saving as much as I should have for rainy days.

MY FINANCIAL HISTORY: MEETING MR. ODA

Mr. ODA showed up in my office in October 2009. Shortly after meeting him, we were hanging out, and next thing I knew, he was asking me my social security number. He was signing me up for a rewards credit card, since I had a credit card through my bank that was getting me no incentives. By the time I met him, I was living comfortably, but I wasn’t saving with a goal in mind. Whatever was left over became savings, and it didn’t matter to me what that number was. I was maxing out my TSP and paying my bills comfortably, and that seemed good enough for me.

OUR FINANCIAL HISTORY: IN A RELATIONSHIP

Mr. ODA came with a lot more money than that into the relationship. He had always been planning to save for two big purchases: an engagement ring and a house. To me, buying a house was somewhere down the road, but I didn’t have the confidence to move forward on that. I hope to instill that confidence in my children because that would have made a big difference.

Mr. ODA designed my engagement ring at a little mom and pop jewelry store in Harrisburg, PA (long story on where we’ve lived, for how long, and why). He proposed in November 2011. In December, I moved to DC, and Mr. ODA joined me shortly after. We lived in an apartment. We lived halfway between where he and I worked, but I admit we paid way more for rent than we prudently should have. Even though I grew up in the shadows of New York City, actually living in a big city was scary to me. We went on a house hunting trip, and I struggled with anything that didn’t look really nice/new. We were able to get a reduced rent rate, but at about $800 per month for each of us, it was significantly more than the $450 per month I was paying in Albany, NY.

The goal was to rent for a year while we scoped out the area to find a house to buy. We didn’t know anything about Northern Virginia, and we wanted to go to open houses to learn how far our money would go. Newsflash: not far.

OUR FINANCIAL HISTORY: A WEDDING

While we explored the area for a house, we were also planning a wedding. We paid for more than half of our wedding. My parents gave us a chunk of money towards it. If I had been married in Kentucky, it would have covered most of the wedding. However, I grew up on Long Island, and a wedding is a very different kind of event there. I probably wouldn’t have known any different had I not attended several weddings in South Carolina, where weddings were low key. After looking at venues in both Kentucky and New York, I ended up breaking down one day that I had always dreamed of a specific type of wedding, and Kentucky just wasn’t it.

I saved as much as I could in all the other areas since the venue was so expensive. The venue cost included all the catering, staff, and cake. I went cheap on invitations, my dress, favors. I just didn’t have the cash on hand to do a lot, and I wish I had done more. I also wish that I had been married on site at that venue instead of in my hometown church, but it is what it is. I also went cheaper on the photographer, and the day was terrible because of him. I recommend to everyone to get a good photographer and really check their portfolio (and if they do crazy things for photos, don’t trust that they’ll not do crazy things when you ask them not to).

We got married in August, after our November engagement. We had to lay out over $12k for that. The unexpected part of that was that we found a house to buy earlier that summer.

OUR FINANCIAL HISTORY: OUR FIRST HOUSE

Mr. ODA was a good saver. The problem was that he didn’t expect to pay for a wedding, and he didn’t expect to live in Northern Virginia. He was expecting to buy a house around $150k. We were struggling to find a house with walls and floors (literally) at $350k.

We lived a meager state for that year. Our goal was to spend less than $5 per day on food. That meant we weren’t spending money at restaurants. We were packing our lunches for work days. We were living off of macaroni and cheese. We weren’t taking trips. And yes, we were literally tracking our expenses on food each day.

THIS IS IMPORTANT: We were preapproved to buy a house up to $750,000. THAT IS STUPID. We didn’t want to pay PMI, so our purchasing power was based on our down payment being 20% (if you don’t come to the table for a conventional loan with 20% of the purchase price, the bank tacks on PMI). Between loans we could take from each TSP, cash on hand that we projected to have with our savings over the year, and possible liquidation of investments, we projected we could have about $70,000 on hand. That means we were shooting for $350,000 as the purchase price.

Our Realtor knew we were approved for double that, but we held our ground on our price range. We considered several properties. We put an offer in on a house at $380k. It was a bank owned foreclosure that they had flipped for resale. The flip was bare bones, but the house looked ok. We wouldn’t need to put immediate work into it. Our offer was declined. Then later that day, the bank called and asked if we still wanted it. We were instructed that the previous bidder attempted to counter the bank, and that’s why we were given the offer. We weren’t willing to lose it and accepted. We were under contract for a $380,000 house. That meant we needed at least $76,000 by closing.

Mr. ODA and I each took out TSP loans, we were gifted money from our parents, and we used our savings. Our final closing costs were just over $78k. We got our 20% down, so no PMI. We then spent the next 3-5 years paying ourselves back in our TSP. The loan payment amounts were adjustable, so we paid more when we could, but we had the flexibility to back off some of the payment totals if we needed to.

OUR FINANCIAL HISTORY: SELLING OUR FIRST HOUSE

We bought our first house in July 2012. We sold the house in September 2015. In that time, the house appreciated by $70k. On top of that, we had the 20% equity we had put down, and we had the equity for the principal payments we made over the previous 3 years. We were moving from the DC area down to the Richmond, VA area. We ended up purchasing a new construction home for about $360k. After putting 20% down on that purchase and paying off some debt (I had a car payment, and even though it was 0.9% interest, I wanted to manage less payments per month), we needed to decide on what to do with the rest of the money from the sale. Mr. ODA convinced my to put that towards rentals.

OUR FINANCIAL HISTORY: RENTAL PURCHASES

With that extra equity we had sitting in our account (which we had in an interest earning account), we purchased 3 rental properties (all with at least 20% down). The leap of faith we took into a landlord role, while figuring out things we didn’t know as we went is why we’re where we are now. We created a semi-passive income stream with these rental properties. Our savings continued to grow, which we used to purchase several more rental properties (again, with at least 20% down each time).

OUR FINANCIAL HISTORY: MRS. ODA ‘RETIRED’

By 2017, we had several rental properties, had paid off all our debts (e.g., car, TSP loans, IVF cost), and the net from the rentals was enough to replace my six-figure income. At that time, we had no kids, so there was no ‘real’ reason for me to not be working. As I continued to work, we kept it in mind that we’d be losing my regular income in the near future. I kept working, drawing down my leave balances, until our son was 8 months old (May 2019). I’ve worked a few random jobs here and there since then, but that was for something to do and not because we needed money.

MAKING GOALS

Mr. ODA had a goal of $1 million by 30. He exceeded it. At no point did we say “reach $4 million by 40” or anything like that. However, we’ve regularly tracked our net worth and made smart moves with the money we have. We don’t keep money in a liquid state for long. We make sure our money is working for us as much as possible. We take calculated risks that allow for interest earnings.

We also keep our ears open for extra income opportunities. We’ve been secret shoppers before, and I’ve taken on different short term work roles. That extra income isn’t meant to be frivolously spent; it’s income that we still utilize to move our family’s goals forward. We don’t buy the latest gadgets, but it’s not like we don’t have nice things. We spend will intention within our means; we don’t take out personal loans (e.g., furniture loans, layaway loans).

A goal that keeps moving due to preference is that Mr. ODA will stop working a full time job as well. The lack of insurance options is keeping that from becoming a reality, but if we really wanted to push it, he could quit tomorrow because we’re in a good financial spot. Nearly a year ago, we set up a separate bank account to have his pay check go into. It’s nice to know that we can live without his income, all the while having that bank account as a safety net.

Vacations & Their Cost

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Here’s an unpopular opinion: you don’t need to buy all the amenities to have a good vacation.

Our financial advisor has a saying in his family, “we can’t afford ice cream.” If they wanted to, they could clearly pay for their family to have an ice cream night on vacation. However, they choose not to spend their money in such a way for the sake of the big picture.

The point I’m trying to make here is that you need to stop and think about an expense. I can’t remember what the item was, but when I went to pay for it, it was $8. It’s not that I couldn’t afford to purchase something at $8. It was simply that this item was worth $2 to me. The value of it was not $6 more of my money.

This post (or rant) started because of this Facebook post that was made in a local mom’s group. Apologies for the large image, but you couldn’t read the numbers until I got it this big.

Quite a few people echoed my point – stop with the add-ons. You can have a great day without the additional amenities/activities, and without the all day dining options. We had a season pass to the Cincinnati Zoo. We ate before we entered, packed snacks, and then ate on the way home if needed – at McDonald’s, with deals (we lived over an hour away from the zoo, so sometimes we couldn’t plan it to have only one meal while out). At a similar place to Kings Island, I know people who have packed coolers and left them in the car because you’re allowed to exit and re-enter.

Not buying extras holds true for any event. Your kid doesn’t need a $20 light up wand, that will be promptly forgotten about at the 48 hour mark, at Disney on Ice. The show itself was exciting and a “treat,” so let it stand alone. Your kid doesn’t need a $15 ice cream at the theme park. Simply let them enjoy the experience without developing a sense of entitlement or expectation that they’re going to get a “treat” every time you’re out.

I completely understand the mentality of “go big” for vacations because it’s a special time. But what is that worth? I know some people spend all year saving up to go to Disney, and they want the “full” experience. Disney itself is very expensive, but then you start spending on gift shop paraphernalia and food in the park, you’ve now spent a small fortune for hours of entertainment.

DISCIPLINE

Instead of only being disciplined for those few days per year, focus on the question: what is each individual dollar worth? I have an entire post where I share the thought process and conundrum I faced for purchasing a $4 weighted tape dispenser. Seriously. While you’ve “saved” for this vacation, what if that saving mentality helped you be able to pay your regular bills along the way? Or what if instead of spending extra money on vacation, that money went towards paying for school supplies? It’s all about creating the mentality and discipline to ask yourself what the value of something is, both to you and to the economy – if you’d pay $2 for a water bottle outside a stadium, is it worth paying $6 inside the stadium? Or could you plan ahead and bring your own water?

This irritation isn’t only for vacations. A friend of mine would leave their house to go to a nearby gas station to buy gatorade and soda bottles. You were at home! If going to the gas station is a regular occurrence, and you enjoy drinking soda out of a bottle, why don’t you get a multi-pack and keep it in your refrigerator? Then there’s the person I used to live across the street from who would order door dash regularly. It probably averaged to once per day; some days there was two deliveries, and some times she may skip a day. Then she posted a GoFundMe for help to pay for her tuition and books to finish her RN. She also posted all the amazing toys (excessive and expensive) she got her kids for Christmas, while also complaining about her son’s behavior being out of control, and that her daughter was being so bad that she got tv in her room taken away – wait, why does a THREE YEAR OLD have a tv in her room? So tell me again how you can’t make ends meet, and how you need help finishing your degree, while you have zero discipline on spending the money you do have. Why is it everyone else’s problem to fix for you when you’re putting no effort yourself? I’ve digressed.

OUR RECENT TRIP

We just went on a trip to Jellystone. My son had asked to go back to a cave since we left a cave last year. He’s obsessed with space and Earth. He was 4 at the time of this trip. For 2 adult tickets, all 5 of us were able to take a 2-hour tour at Mammoth Cave (children 5 and under are free). That was $40 worth of entertainment. I figured it was a good time to take advantage of their pricing structure before it would become $60 next time we’d try to go. While I felt the $40 was worth our time and money, I mildly regret it. His excitement for the caves was worth it, but we missed out on activities at Jellystone that I think they would have enjoyed. At 4 years old, we could have easily skirted the cave desire because he doesn’t know that a cave is 20 minutes away when we’re at this location.

We paid $433 for a 4 bedroom cabin for two nights, and that included a $50 charge for bringing a pet. We packed all our food for all the meals. My choice to allow the kids to stay up way past bedtime and for the two older ones to share a room cost us on day 2; I promised them ice cream if they powered through the cave, so that was $14 for all of us to have ice cream, which wouldn’t typically be an expense we incur. Other than the cost of gas to go 260 miles roundtrip, we spent nothing else.

There were opportunities to pay for things. We could have rented a golf cart for $70 per day. We could have paid for the mining sluice, which didn’t have a price advertised, and would have been 3 minutes of entertainment. We actually did try to do their obstacle course, but none of our kids were tall enough. Instead, we took advantage of their amenities. We drove pedal cars, played at their numerous playgrounds, went swimming, went to their beach to play in the sand and swim, ran around the splash pad, did their craft times, attended their character greetings, played bingo, played minigolf. We probably just sat at the cabin for a total of 3 hours between 3 pm check in on day 1 and 11 am check out on day 3; we even let the kids stay up until 8:30/9 (their usual bed time is 6:30).

UPCHARGES

So let’s look into amenities at GWL. I’m going to look at Mason, OH’s location. First, because it’s the one closest to me, so I’m familiar with it, but also because whenever there’s a Groupon for $99 nights, Mason is always $149. That tells me that Mason’s probably on the middle-to-higher end of amenities and their cost.

For a weekend in October, my room options range from $410 to $1035 per night. They provide a rate calendar option for you to see the rates on other nights because you may feel that $1035 for a night in a water park and hotel is absurd (I hope you do….). I also encourage booking with a code (there’s a Facebook group that shares active codes for deals), using a Groupon, or planning in advance and being flexible on dates.

You select a room option (I picked $410), and then it offers you a late checkout option. Check out is 11 am. For $50, you can stay in the room until 2 pm. What are you going to do with your room between 11 am and 2 pm? When this option is presented to you on the screen, what are you thinking? Are you thinking it must be a necessity because it’s being offered? Are you thinking that it’s needed because you don’t want to “leave” at 11 am? Or are you really thinking about the cost/benefit ratio of this charge? Are you expecting to be done with the water park for the day at 1:30, so you’ll go shower and change before the 2 pm check out? If I’m spending the day at the resort, I don’t see where I need the room between 11 and 2. I have one exception, which is very specific right now. If I hadn’t just paid $400 for a night there, I may consider the upgrade because we still have a napping kid from 11-1, so that could be helpful, but that’s not worth the additional $50 to me, personally.

GWL does a good job at pushing their pass options. There are 3 levels, ranging from $50-70. The options include a variety of: MagiQuest, Build-A-Bear, Mining Sluice, mini golf, bowling, GWL goggles, $5 to the arcade, candy, and an ice cream. Purchased individually, the price for the pass is a better deal by a few dollars than if you purchased these individually. However, do you have the time to do ALL of these activities and enjoy the water park? If you’re staying one or two nights, you likely don’t have the time to get the most out of everything. Don’t forget that they offer several ‘free’ activities (e.g., yoga, character greetings, bed time story, crafts, etc.) each day as well, not to mention that you’ve just spend $400 on the stay to play in the water park.

Don’t forget that on top of the room rate, there are taxes and a resort fee. If I wanted to stay for two nights with 2 adults and 3 kids (even though one is less than a year old), with no extra purchases, my total is $1,023.70. That’s $820 for the room, $124 for taxes, and $80 for resort fee.

These options that are presented don’t even include all the options you can pay for. For instance, you can rent a cabana. You have to call to book it, but I’ve seen it priced at $200 and at $500 for it. It’s not private. It’s not secluded. It’s not secure for your belongings. Make sure you ask yourself what you’re getting for that cost and if that money could be put to better use.

As a kid, we used to go to Lake George. We joked that it was our vacation from our vacation. The point of Lake George was to do nothing. You played in the pool at the hotel, walked the town, and got ice cream each night. It was relaxing. I remember lots of our trips, but Lake George sticks out as a favorite. Even our trips that were busy – it was busy because we were sightseeing and driving far; it wasn’t busy because we were paying for activities and trinkets.

We went to Disney on Ice, and my son still thanks me for the experience; he didn’t get any trinkets while we were there, and he still loved the experience. Your kids will remember the time they spent with you. That’s the point of the vacation – spending uninterrupted time with your family, not making it an exhausting, jam packed few days where kids are overstimulated and sleep deprived.

This isn’t a parenting advice post. It’s simply a moment to stop and think about your spending. Take the time to determine whether a dollar spent on an activity is worth that dollar’s cost in your day’s/week’s/month’s/year’s goals. The tape dispenser. Truthfully, I didn’t know it only cost $4. Regardless, I still took the time to consider whether buying this thing that I need for 1-2 days per year was really worth spending our money on, or could that money be put to better use.

In 2021, we purposefully took trips each month. We had looked into buying a vacation home, and we decided that we’d rather go to different places each trip than the same place over and over. The mortgage was going to be about $1200, so we allocated that much as our trip budgets. In May, we spend $618; June was $200; July was $690; August was $1069. I say this for perspective.

Take the time to analyze the spending that you’re doing, independent of the deals being offered. Will that one trip be worth the cost of it? Will the money spent for that trip be worth anything that you may have to give up to make that trip happen?