vacation

Cruising with Kids

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After each trip, I typically summarize how much it cost us. I like talking about money, mostly to work towards eliminating the stigma about talking about money. The more information you have, the better informed you are when it comes to decisions, so here’s a reference point to file away. We sailed Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas. I loved it!

COST BREAKDOWN

Flights – 25,000 miles + $273
We looked at several different flight options now that we’re a family of 5 flying and that adds up quickly. The first night we were looking to book the cruise, there was a group of 5 tickets for just under $700, which we thought was a great deal, but once we were ready to book, it wasn’t there anymore. We ended up going with Frontier for one direction and using American Airline miles for the other direction. When booking with miles, you only need to pay the taxes on it, so that’s what we did.

The flight options were very limited for the way home. We ended up just sucking it up and picking a 9 pm departure. Not long after the booking, we received an email saying our itinerary was changed and now the departure is 12 pm. While that seemed concerning at first – to get off the cruise, through the airport, and to our gate before noon – I had hoped it would be just fine, and it was. We got off the ship around 8:30, took an Uber to the airport, and arrived too early to check in for our flight. They built the airport expecting this isssue, so they sent us to the waiting room. We sat there for about 45 minutes and then checked our bags and got to our gate. We sat at our gate for a couple of hours and got home on time.

On the way down, we each got a checked bag because of our American credit card. However, we still needed to prepare for “carry on” status on the way home with Frontier. Then, once we were already packed, Frontier offered us to upgrade all our bags to checked bags. Had I trusted that they wouldn’t have said “no, you have to check a carry on size,” I would have happily changed our 3 carry on bags to one big bag to make traveling through places with 3 kids easier. So while some parts were harder because we had 3 rolling suitcases to account for, it was nicer through the airport to not have suitcases to manage.

Hotel – 34,000 points
If you’ve ever had to fly into a cruise port, you know it’s less stress-inducing to fly in the day before. I went on a cruise a year and a half ago, and we were flying out during a snow storm that was affecting travel all over the area. We ended up arriving at our hotel near midnight, so we were happy to know we were there for the cruise boarding time and not stressing about delays that morning. That means there’s a cost for a hotel one night.

The hotel was booked with points, so it wasn’t a literal cost to us. We stayed at the Tru in Dania Beach. They had a shuttle from the airport to the hotel, so when we arrived, Mr. ODA called the hotel to come pick us up, and it worked out well. We had to wait 20 minutes for a crib to arrive, even though it was on our reservation as a request. This isn’t a huge deal, but when it’s 10 pm and I’m just setting up a crib to get over tired kids to sleep, I’m not thrilled. Otherwise, the hotel was nice and it provided a good breakfast.

Uber – $58; Airport Parking – $70; Dog – $289
The hotel provided a shuttle from the airport to the hotel, so we didn’t have to pay for that part. Then we needed an Uber from the hotel to the port, and then from the port to the airport. We requested a car seat in the Uber on the way to the port, so that limited our options. Then she was 23 minutes late to our pick up time, didn’t get out of the car to greet us or help set up the car (pick up the 3rd row to fit our 5th passenger we disclosed ahead of time), didn’t acknowledge being late, and generally didn’t speak to us except to say get our IDs out for the port. That’s not an Uber issue, it’s a specific driver issue, but that was not a great experience. On our way from the port to the airport after our cruise, we got charged a wait fee, even though the wait was because security was stopping our Uber from getting to us. Uber removed that charge though.

The CVG airport parking is $10/day for economy. That’s my first economy experience instead of the ValuPark lot, which is $12/day. I didn’t really think anything of it, but it wasn’t a great experience. I always thought it odd that the ValuPark lot has shuttles that pick you up at exactly your car, but the economy lot has the shelters. I didn’t properly account for the time to wait for the shuttle and then to have the shuttle drive through all the shelters.

Food – $44
Obviously most of the food was part of our cruise fare. We had McDonalds on the way to the airport, Burger King during our layover, and then McDonalds on the way home.

Cruise – $3,099
The big one! We did not prepay gratuities, so that was billed as we left the ship. Gratuities are $18.50, per person, per day. We had $50 on board credit. Ironically, and just coincidentally, we spent $50.40 between drinks and child care (the babies room (0-3 years old) is $6 per house before 7 pm and $8 per hour after). Royal Caribbean only requires $100 per person as the deposit, and then the balance is due a few months before the cruise departure. We booked right at that threshold, so we paid our deposit and then a few days later paid the balance.

LOGISTICS

The booking of the cruise could have been a bit more forward. Cruises are not family-of-5-friendly. There’s an option on Royal Caribbean to book a “guarantee” or GTY room. You get a discount for allowing them to assign you in an open room (of the category you picked (e.g., interior, ocean view balcony)) about a week before the departure. I did this for a cruise I took in January 2024, and it worked out perfectly fine. So we see these prices quoted online for GTY rooms, but they always make you call to book for more than 4 people. We’re expecting the cost to be just the taxes and port fees for the 5th person, but when we call, the difference is over $500.

We tried to explain how that feels like a bait and switch and that there’s no indication of that on the website, and they basically said “well, that’s the way it goes.” They can’t guarantee a 5+ room available at the time of sailing. This makes sense, but it also eliminates our ability to use that cheaper booking option. We asked if there was something they could do to help make us feel whole since we were being forced to spend $500 more than if we could be put into the guarantee-pool, and they gave us $50 on board credit.

Mr. ODA’s parents book Celebrity (same parent company) all the time, and if they book their next cruise while on their current cruise, they are given OBC. Turns out Royal Caribbean doesn’t have the same philosophy, and they hardly give OBC. We tried to see if there was a special deal for a cruise if we book on the ship and they had nothing to offer.

Our departure experience was horrific, and I’m not even sure how we timed everything so poorly. At CVG, the kiosk jammed printing our tags, so we had to wait in line to get to the counter for the last luggage tag. Well, the line took forever because there was a large group in front of us that couldn’t speak English, so the workers couldn’t get everyone checked in quickly. Then we were too late for her to print checked bag tags because it was 30 minutes before the flight. So now we’re stressed trying to get through her attitude, us being late, and having to get through security and run through an airport with 3 little kids. This is the first time I’ve ran to my initial flight (ran for connections countless times!). I’ve never had this issue before, but everything along the way took just a few more minutes than I had planned for, and the luggage tag issue stole about 15 minutes of time from us (plus, our flight was delayed by 20 minutes and then 45 minutes before the original flight time, they said it was on time… we hadn’t delayed our departure from home, but it was wiggle room we thought we had and then suddenly didn’t). After the attitude from the ticket counter, then we encountered two more attitudes from the gate agents. It was a rough start, but the flight attendants were nice, and we had plenty of time to catch our breath at our connection.

Child care is provided on the ship. They have a few hours in the morning (maybe 9-12?), then 1-5 for the afternoon, and then 7-1 am. For the kids 3-12 (split between two rooms of 3-5 year olds and 6-12 year olds), it’s free until 10 pm; then it’s $10 per hour per kid after 10 pm. For the babies (0-3 years old), you need to make a reservation for times when you arrive on the boat. We prioritized the buffet, so by the time we got to the kids area, lots of time slots were booked already. She offered me 6 hours worth of booking, which I split between 3 days. Our youngest is 7 weeks shy of being 3, but he wasn’t 100% potty trained (although we did try) so they wouldn’t let him move up. If he was potty trained, they would have let him go up to the 3-5 room. The first 2 hour block, we only used 1.5 hours worth of it based on the activities we were trying to get done. The second 2 hour block, we only used 1 hour worth. And then we didn’t use our final day worth of time because he got sick, and I didn’t want to contribute to the spread of it. We dropped the big kids off a few times and just took the baby with us to activities, which worked out fine. He’s so good when he’s alone, but the 3 kids feed off each other!

I brought lots of hook magnets. I used them to hang everyone’s lanyards with their seapass cards, hats, and to dry bathing suits. I also used them to hang from the ceiling and utilize curtains that I brought (actually, I bring these curtains everywhere we travel because a really dark room is important to getting the kids to sleep past sunrise when bed time is 2-4 hours later than usual). There were 2 hooks in the shower, 3 hooks on the bathroom door, 2 hooks in the bathroom with 2 towel bars, and 2 hooks outside the bathroom. We’re going on another cruise next year, and I’m going to bring more hooks because we could have used more space to dry out bathing suits. Having the curtains hanging to separate the kids from each other and then from us was great.

I also bought a pack of decorative magnets. This is very unlike me; I don’t like anything extra. But I put them on the stateroom door, and it helped the kids identify which one was ours. The door is textured, so they didn’t all fit. I put them inside the cabin on this big blank wall, and I actually really appreciated the decoration.

You’re allowed to bring on 12 cans/bottles that are less than 17 ounces each, so we did that for Mr. ODA’s sodas. We didn’t buy any drink packages. I don’t know what sodas cost on the ship. At the buffet, we have lemonade, iced tea, and water available. At some of the included restaurants, they have other flavored water type drinks like strawberry melon. At breakfast they had apple juice and orange juice. There are enough options for variety if you’re not looking to buy a package. I had Mr. ODA bring a non-diet/zero type drink in case I wanted some variety, but I was so full that I didn’t end up wanting any sodas and had a couple of lemonade and juice options throughout the week. The alcoholic mixed drinks are about $15 a la carte. They offer a happy hour special of margarita (and maybe one other option that’s $6-7) and have a drink of the day that’s $8. I didn’t know about the drink of the day special until day 3 and didn’t know about it at all on my last trip, so that’s a positive to know. I think the Truly/beer type option was around $8-9 each.

When buying the drink package, that’s your baseline. Are you going to drink 5 mixed drinks or 8 beers/Truly each day to make paying up front worth it? I’ve heard some people say “I just like not having to think about what I’m ordering.” But, do you enjoy paying $65 for 2 drinks? I understand it’s vacation and many people have the mentality that money is no object, but it is something to pause, have the perspective, and make an informed decision on.

The app is really good. There’s a little room for improvement, but everything you need is there. We’d like to see a search feature, where you can search “bingo” or “laser tag” and see the offerings instead of scrolling every day and hoping you catch the times. I like the daily tips they post about what’s happening that day and some good reminders. I also like how many activities are offered. I wish there were a few more things in the 6-8 timeframe for those with a 5:00 dining time, but I understand that’s not the worst problem. There is so much offered for other times, and I found myself juggling wanting to do all the things, but also not wanting to be on a schedule.

A few weeks before your cruise, the app will have most of the shows and activities available. One example that we didn’t have until we were on the ship was laser tag’s schedule. But you should get on your app a month in advance and keep checking for the show reservations to be opened. They seats go fast. We were able to reserve the ice skating show and Cats, but we weren’t able to get a seat at the aqua show. I was really bummed about that, but we went to the aqua theater at the beginning of the show and were able to get a seat.

We did not pay for a wifi package, nor did we set up our phones for an international plan. I was looking forward to being completely cut off from the world for 4.5 days. To my surprise, iMessage worked the whole trip. It wasn’t too bad, and I got to share stories as we went with some people.

LESSONS LEARNED

  • Book any 0-3 year old child care slots ASAP
  • Pack half the pajamas you need (our kids wear pajamas through breakfast at home, so there’s no re-wearing, but they don’t eat anything in the cabin, and they don’t leave the cabin once in pajamas, so don’t use up the space)
  • Prepare accordingly for theme nights (I may have not planned well for my oldest)
  • Bring as many magnets as you can hold (although you may get flagged for a bag check in security)
  • Read the daily tidbits in the app each morning
  • Don’t pack lots of snacks (I thought I’d be looking for breakfast faster than everyone being ready to go, so I packed granola bars. I also thought we’d want more snacks, but we’re so full from eating bigger meals and being on a different type of meal schedule that eating in the room was never a thought)
  • If you’re on the cusp of 52″, 48″, age 3, or age 6, I may wait until those milestones are hit. While it’s not the end of the world and doesn’t kill your cruise, we had kids disappointed they couldn’t do some things based on height (water slides) or age (rock climbing).
  • Drink the happy hour or daily special beverages if you don’t have the drink package

THE CRUISE

We took a 5-night cruise. It was more time than I had planned for originally. I didn’t want to be stuck on a boat in case the kids didn’t take to sailing well, but the price was $1000 less than the 3-4 night offerings, so we went for it. It worked out well. Everyone’s first question seems to be, “were you afraid of them going overboard?” Turns out, there are very limited options for that to even occur. We were in an ocean view balcony, but the glass goes higher than the littlest ones, so that wasn’t an issue. Most decks have the staterooms on the outside, so the only real place they could attempt to get overboard is on decks 15 and 16, and a little spot by rock climbing on deck 7. It was barely a thought of mine the whole week.

The biggest hurdle of the week was getting the kids through crowds. There’s a lot of people on the boat, and people tend to congregate in certain areas. Keeping 3 little ducklings together in a crowd could have been worse, but it wasn’t the easiest either. The cruise ship gives you bracelets for your kid to wear with their muster station on it. I wish there was more information on it, so I put their names and room number on the back. The youngest didn’t have a yellow bracelet, and I wasn’t happy about that. Luckily, I had packed a bracelet that I could put his information on. I used a regular sharpie and the lettering was legible until about the last day. I could have rewrote the information, but by then I was feeling more comfortable.

We did not push too hard to get to all the activities. We made a concerted effort for a few activities, but I didn’t want to be tied to an agenda all week. We generally started the day with breakfast. We ate in the main dining room twice, which was quieter and calmer, but also slower. One morning, I ordered a small breakfast, and the waiter pushed me to get the “express” breakfast. It came with 2 things I didn’t want, and I was frustrated that he pushed me to waste food. We usually then went to the pool or splash area (the splash pad is pretty cool with slides and activities within it for the kids). Ice cream opened at 11:30, so that worked well as a way to get out of the pool and start drying off for lunch. We ate lunch in the buffet (Windjammer). I personally liked the variety of options with the kids, but it wasn’t the easiest process. Apparently kids really struggle holding plates flat. We only lost one apple once, but it was stressful every time trying to make sure they kept the food on the plate while walking. Our afternoon was spent either with the kids in the kids club area (Adventure Ocean) while we did trivia, or they came to trivia with us. We rode the carousel, the big slide (Abyss), and participated in some random activities (family festival, scavenger hunt). We would get back to the room at about 4:55, rush to change, and then run to the main dining room for our 5:00 dinner. On my last cruise, there were only 2 dinner times, so being on time seemed less of a priority. This sailing had a 5:00, 6:45, and 8:00, so I felt the push to be as close to 5:00 as possible so we didn’t delay a 6:45 sitting. We ate all our dinners in the main dining room. I truly appreciated the themes, but perhaps only 50-60% actually participated.

At Cozumel, we got off the boat, had a beer at a tourist trap, and got back on the boat. I don’t think we were off the boat a full hour. There was swimming available in some pretty water just next to the cruise ships. There are shops for trinkets and a few places to eat or drink. It was an area that clearly catered to cruise ships and I felt perfectly safe.

Our second stop was Royal Caribbean’s island, CocoCay. I can’t sing enough praises about this concept. All your food is available. There are servers just like on the boat if you want a drink. It’s clean. There were some concerns about jellyfish while we were there, but we didn’t have any problems. My youngest was struggling with the sand concept (and not touching the sand and then rubbing his eyes or sucking his thumb), so we eventually moved over to the pool. The pool was packed, and I almost said lets just go, but we got in. Once you were in, it wasn’t uncomfortable at all, and there was plenty of room. There’s a 0 entry area with water fountains, which kept the kids entertained well. There are life vests on the island for your little swimmers. I did hear that snorkeling was sold out when we arrived around 10, so you could keep that timing in mind. The ship staff give you towels as you get off the boat (you sign them out with your seapass card), and there are towel stands on the island if you want to swap out your wet, sandy towel for a new one.

I will note that we had a medical emergency just hours into the cruise. It didn’t affect us at all. We heard the “alpha alpha alpha” call while we were at dinner, and about an hour later, the captain came on the loud speakers and announced the plan. We departed Ft. Lauderdale, but we were going to return to Miami to get this patient off the ship. They were making a plan on whether we’d have to fully dock or if the coast guard could come out to us. They announced a bit of time later that they decided the coast guard could come out. Then about a half hour after that, they said that the swells from the tropical storm we were near were too rough and the coast guard couldn’t get close to our ship to safely transport the patient between the two boats. So then they decided to send out a helicopter, and that happened just as the sky opened up on us at the aqua theater and we gave up and went to bed. So even though the course changed, it really didn’t affect anything we were doing on the ship. The patient actually got off and received emergency coronary bypass surgery that night and was recovering, so that was a blessing. There was also supposedly a death in another cabin, which I knew nothing about until after I got back home. I share this just to say – things happen, and there’s so many people, so it’s not surprising, and it didn’t affect the rest of the trip.

Getting on the ship and off the ship on the bookends of our cruise was extremely easy. I had a similarly easy experience at Cape Canaveral (actually probably easier). On the way there, we went through the security check points. I was flagged for my magnets, and in the process, they found my extension cord. Honestly, it wasn’t clear what the rules were about the extension cords. I wasn’t worried about the number of plugs as much as I was the extension to an outlet. They’re quick to say “there are plenty of outlets,” but they don’t address the fact that 3 outlets are on one end of the room and there’s only 1 at the bed. It didn’t matter though. We plugged in a phone overnight by the bed, and the sound machine was over by the kids with that 3 outlet option on the desk. They confiscated my extension cord, but they tagged it, and I got it back at the end of the cruise. After that, we went upstairs to a huge waiting room. We were told to sit in order as we entered. The place was packed; I expected this to take a while. It was less than 2 minutes. We scanned our boarding passes and walked right on. On the way off, everyone just left when they were ready. We walked right into the main dining room, scanned our seapass cards, and left the ship. There was luggage areas to pick up any luggage you had carried off the ship overnight, but we hadn’t done that. Then you go through the immigration check where they take your picture and approve you to continue. And that’s it. There was no queuing through either process except for the 2 minutes we sat in the waiting area at the port on the way on the ship. It’s incredible to me.

SUMMARY

I was a reasonable level of nervous taking 3 young kids on a cruise for 5 nights, but it went significantly better than I expected. Our next cruise isn’t until this time next year, but I wish it were sooner! I highly recommend cruising, especially with Royal Caribbean.

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.

EV vs Gas

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I’m late to this comparison, but I didn’t have a reason to pay attention to electric vehicles (EVs) until our trip to Denver in July. As seems to be the case regularly there, the rental car company didn’t have any available inventory of gas vehicles, even though that’s what we booked. I’m actually starting to wonder if they have any gas vehicles because it’s suspicious that they thrust these EVs on customers so consistently. Here are some quick thoughts on an EV after experiencing it, but also the gas usage versus electricity usage math comparison we did while there.

EV EXPERIENCE: THE NEGATIVE

It started out stressful. Had we been given a tutorial or any guidance at all, it may have started out easier. However, we started the trip by having to wait in a 90 minute line to even get the car. Then we were greeted by a disgruntled employee who had no intention of helping us. Then when Mr. ODA tried to talk to a manager, she just kept saying “we don’t have any gas vehicles. I can’t do anything for you.” Well ma’am, you could maybe take 2.5 minutes and quell all our fears of the unknown, in a foreign place, while traveling with 3 kids that are 5 and younger.

The biggest issue was our timing. We arrived later in the day, needed to get the kids fed and their bedrooms set up, while also allocating enough time for them to just play and have fun since we’ve been traveling all day. The next morning, we planned to get out of the house and head to the mountains. That’s the problem. We don’t know our range. We don’t know where to fill up or how to fill up. We do know that charging it is not a 4-5 minute process like filling up a tank of gas. We do know that there aren’t super chargers everywhere. There was a lot of “I don’t know what I don’t know.”

Luckily, a friend of ours recently had a similar experience, and she shared some tidbits with us. For instance, there are multiple charger apps you need to download. Then once you download all of them and use the map to figure out where in town the closest one is to what you’re doing, you have to figure out what the data means. “6.6,” $ vs. $$$, “fast charging.” There were different filter options in different apps, but no legend on what these terms mean.

The first charge came while Mr. ODA dropped us off at McDonald’s, drove down the block to a “fast charger,” ran down to eat with us, then ran back to get the car and pick us up. This wasn’t ideal. This was really affecting our trip with this dark cloud hanging over us trying to figure out how to efficiently charge this thing. Plugging a car in while trying to entertain 3 kids for 45 minutes wasn’t how I expected our trip to go.

EV EXPERIENCE: FIGURING IT OUT

ChargePoint ended up being the easiest to use. They have a lot of stations around Denver, especially free ones. We looked for places to eat a meal where we could utilize a free charger and take advantage of the “down” time. It involved walking a block or two each time, but it gave us the peace of mind to get through the next phase.

One morning, we went to Red Rocks. There were a few free charging stations in the parking lot. We plugged in, spent two hours exploring the place, and received about 80 miles on our range, which was plenty for the next day of our trip. That night, we went to a concert at Ball Arena. Instead of parking where most of the other concert-goers parked, we went one block further and parked a well-lit, clean garage. We had to pay to park in the garage, but the charging station was free.

We also learned how to utilize the charging available within the car itself. EVs don’t “coast.” They have regenerative braking. You basically drive the car only using the accelerator, and don’t use the brake. You slightly hold down the accelerator to keep the car moving as you approached a stop, and it charges as that happens. There were different levels you could put the car at to take advantage of this charging process.

GAS VS ELECTRIC COSTS

We spent time figuring out the apps and the types of chargers. We avoided the chargers that had flat fees on top of the kwh charge cost. Almost all of the chargers had a “parking fee,” which meant that if you remained plugged in after the car was fully charged, they’d charge you by the minute for taking up that space. It makes a lot of sense since charging spots are limited, and you want to disincentivize people just walking away from their car for hours.

After we figured out the process of how to use the vehicle and the charging locations, we were able to do some math on the cost per mile. We specifically charged the vehicle either at free locations or in off-peak charging time (there is variable pricing on some chargers). We calculated that the cost per mile came about a few cents higher than if we were in a gas vehicle. However, that could be higher if you were charging during peak time or you needed to use the fast charging locations more often based on your vehicle distance/use. Gas prices in the Denver area were in the high $3.20s to low $3.30s, and we calculated a charge equivalent of $3.34.

There is the opportunity cost of your time. It only takes a few minutes to fill your car with gas. You’re not walking away from an EV charging location in less than 20, and it’ll likely be longer. If you have the ability to charge at your house, while the car is in the driveway, then it changes the equation. Since we were at a rental, that wasn’t an option available to us.

EV EXPERIENCE: END RESULT THOUGHTS

After the initial anger and fear of the unknown subsided, I’m not against EVs. If you can charge them at your own home, they’re great. They’ll get you around town just fine, and you’ll have the convenience of it charging while you’re home and comfortable. Your home charger won’t be a fast charger, but having it plugged in overnight for that 10-14 hour charge wouldn’t be an inconvenience.

I wouldn’t take them on long road trips. There would need to be careful planning of your charge range compared to where charging stations are. Unless it’s a truly a fast charger (15-20 minutes, and more expensive), you’ll need to plan to be somewhere for hours to get a charge. Then there’s the fear of availability when you arrive there, and whether you’ll get a spot because it’s not likely you can just travel down the road a few miles to find another station.

I wrote the initial draft of this in August. So it’s interesting to say – we bought an EV.

Fall Break: Smoky Mountains and Gatlinburg

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We’re now on school schedules with our oldest starting kindergarten. We wouldn’t have typically taken an October trip without such prompting, but we decided to take advantage of the “down time.” We also became a Central KY cliche, and went down to Gatlinburg.

We aren’t the type who save up for years to go to Disney. We prefer exploring different trails and different towns around the country. We’ve dabbled a bit more in theme park type adventures as the kids are getting older. I had planned to visit Ober. Their ticket prices start at 5 year olds, so we’d only have to pay for 3 out of 5 us. Of all the bigger attraction places there, Ober seemed to give you the most for your money, and I thought it would be entertaining to see the kids attempt ice skating again.

But then with all the hikes we wanted to do, and the National Park Service opening up a main road in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, we decided to skip that. I really wanted time to explore the town itself, and it didn’t seem we’d have time to do Ober and the town. The kids enjoyed walking through the town because there were a ton of pumpkin-head-people, so it became a game to find the next one and get your picture taken.

I was surprised to see that the town’s main road was mostly restaurants and hotels. I thought we’d run into more activities along the way. By the time we found a mini golf place, I didn’t trust that the kids would have held their emotions together to make it enjoyable. We got some ice cream for a job well done and went back into the park for a short hike to a waterfall.

TRIP COST: $656

Our lodging was the east of Gatlinburg in a cabin community. It was $541 for two nights. I’m still at a phase where the kids need a decent bed time, and the baby is still in the high maintenance (needs to be pitch black) phase of sleep. When we book a place, I’m looking for a room that the kids can go to sleep in while Mr. ODA and I aren’t ready for bed, and then a place (closet or extra bathroom, ideally) where I can put the baby. This was a two bedroom, two bathroom cabin.

I brought all our meals with us. So we paid $10 to be in the park for 3 days, $45 for food (treats and travel day food stops), and filled up our gas tank twice while traveling ($60).

GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK

In case anyone’s interested in a similar trip, here’s what we did.

We traveled from central KY, so our first stop before we got to Gatlinburg was the Foothills Parkway. Mr. ODA actually worked on the Foothills Parkway when we were first dating (14 years ago – yikes!). We ended up going the wrong direction to see the bridges he worked on, but we did find a nice little hike. We went up to Look Rock. It was a quiet trail that wasn’t too long, but it was a nice stretch of our legs. The fog was thick, so we couldn’t see much in the observation platform.

Then we drove to Cade’s Cove Loop in the park. I have zero pictures of this because it was not interesting whatsoever. It was prairies and zero animals except two turkeys. People praise it on all the travel blogs, and we couldn’t figure out the hype. We were hopeful when we reached a choke point that the backup of cars was because we’d see something up ahead, but nothing came to fruition. It was just a waste of over an hour to go 11 miles.

Next we traveled to the Sinks. It was a cool waterfall that you could park right next to, so no hiking necessary.

To finish up the day, we hiked the Laurel Falls Trail. It was really pretty, and I thought it was cool that you could walk right up to the waterfall based on how the water flowed. The trail was 1.2 miles one way, with an elevation gain of 420+ feet. The trail was well traveled. It claimed to be “asphalt.” At some point, it was probably all asphalt, but there have been a lot of washouts. Either all of the trail is missing in some places, or just half the trail in other places. I wouldn’t go into this trail thinking it’ll be easier because it’s paved. Look up a video of what the falls looked like during Hurricane Helene because it’s crazy to see just how much water was flowing only a few days prior to us seeing it. It took us about 90 minutes to do it with 2 little kids walking.

On day 2, we went to Cataract Falls because it was a short walk off the parking lot and we had a little extra time to kill. The kids liked this one too because they could play in the water and rocks at the base of the falls.

The hurricane had closed one of the main roads in the park, but it opened up the second day we were there. It was a nice surprise, so we were able to do Clingman’s Dome. This was a wide, paved trail in great condition. The leaves were starting to change colors, and it was pretty on the bottom half. Near the top of the hike, we were hardly able to see anything because the fog was rolling in and really thick. It was cool to see the clouds float right by you though. It’s 1 mile, round trip. It being relatively short and fully paved is misleading though because it’s basically a hill straight up for a half mile (332 foot elevation gain; their website says it’s about a 13% grade). There are multiple benches along the way for plenty of rests. We made it to the top in about 20 minutes. We then spent about 20 minutes at the top of the tower before heading down. It took us about 20 minutes to get down too. We stopped at a pull out with a NC/TN line marker and explored there for a little while too.

On Day 3, we did Grotto Falls. You take a one lane road to the parking lot, where there are about 10 parking spaces, and they were all full. Since it’s a one lane loop road, there was no waiting for something to open up. We kept driving and parked about 0.4 miles down the road in a pull out. The trail itself was 1.4 miles to the waterfall, so the kids hiked with us for a total of about 3.6 miles. They did awesome and didn’t complain once about the distance. We took our time on the trail and stopped for a while at the top to eat lunch and explore. From the time we left our car to getting back to it was about two hours, so not bad at all.

During our drive back, we drove the other end of the Foothills Parkway and saw all the bridges that Mr. ODA was part of building. No hiking around there, and the pullouts were nice, but didn’t take much time to explore the view.

Summer Trips

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In 2021, we looked to buy a lake house. We tried so hard to find something, and we almost settled on something that didn’t fully make us happy. It was March or April of that year, and we finally stepped back and said, “instead of buying a house here that we feel pressured to come to every weekend, what if we just went on vacation more.” Up until that point, we traveled a good bit, but it was typically with a purpose instead of just traveling for the sake of seeing somewhere new (e.g., one of us tagging along on work travel). We calculated that our mortgage payment on that second house would be $1200 per month. That was our budget for travel each month. I wrote a whole post about it.

Then I got pregnant and we bought a new primary residence in the summer of 2022. Almost all our ‘travel’ that summer was just us going to the new house to work on it before we moved in. Then the summer of 2023 was spent recovering from the newborn phase of that third kid that was unbelievably painful. I was just happy to be sleeping and in a routine again, and I wasn’t willing to leave home much and risk lack of sleep.

We made up for it this summer.

JUNE: MD, NY, OH, MI $1,251

Our first trip of the summer was two weeks long. I was so nervous to manage 3 kids (one of which is still a high maintenance sleeper) and a dog for that long, but I had hoped it would be fine if I prepared correctly. We hit four states.

Our son was on the Oriole’s for his baseball team this spring, so that became his favorite MLB team. It just so happened that they were playing at home on our drive from KY to NY (meaning, if we really wanted to, Baltimore could be on the way). As an added bonus, they were playing the Braves, which is Mr. ODA’s favorite team. So we made that work. We booked a hotel in Baltimore that was pet friendly and walking distance to the stadium, and then we bought the tickets. Actually, we bought two tickets for 5 of us to go. The Oriole’s stadium has a program where if you buy a ticket in the upper section, you can have up to two free tickets for kids up to 9 years old. It’s an incredible program. The detour cost us more in tolls than we’d typically spend on our route. It was worth it. Our son watched the whole game and was so happy with it.

Then we traveled to NY. There’s no lodging cost there because we stay at my dad’s house. We went to the local team’s baseball game one night, hung out at the beach one night, had two cookouts, and went to my cousin’s bridal shower. The bridal shower was the reason for the trip. The Michigan component then was booked as the other side of the family’s annual trip. It didn’t make sense for us to drive home from NY and then back up to MI, so we just buckled up for the two weeks gone. We didn’t eat at any restaurants while we were in NY, so our costs were a couple of grocery trips and our family cookouts.

The trip from NY to MI was 13.5 hours without any stops, so we didn’t want to push the kids that far. We typically do the KY to NY trip in one day. That takes 13-14 hours depending on traffic and our stops. It would take about 11.5-12 hours without kids. We usually do two quick stops and one longer meal out of the car when we drive straight through. But with it starting at 13+ hours, I didn’t want to risk it. Plus, I wanted to arrive in Michigan around check in time, which would have us leaving NY at about 2 am. I covet my kids’ sleep too much to risk that one!

Our stop on the way was Cuyahoga Falls, OH. Again, we needed to find something that was pet friendly without charging us $175 to have the dog there for 14 hours. We found a hotel that didn’t charge for a pet, and it appears that’s because they don’t really care about cleanliness. The room was disgusting. The mirrors looked like they’d never been cleaned, the counters had someone’s old rice on them, the door wasn’t fully attached to its hinges, and the sinks didn’t drain. At least the bedding was clean (I inspected closely). I was grateful to only be there for 14 hours.

We went hiking that morning and then headed to MI, dropping the dog off at a sitter on the way there. We use Rover to find a sitter, which is where the sitter takes the dog into their house. I appreciate this type of care/attention than a kennel; we’ve used this service for 11 years now.

Our MI trip was Mr. ODA’s family trip for the year. His parents treat us to the house, and the kids’ families cover the food. Usually our trip doesn’t involve many extra expenses, but this year we sought out a place with activities, so there was a lot of money spent. We went on a dune buggy ride, walked a windmill island, went to a little ‘dutch village’ theme park, picked cherries, and spent a lot of time at the beach. We usually eat all our meals at the AirBnB, but we did have two meals out and lots of ice cream this time around. Honestly, it was the best trip we’ve taken in a while. I appreciated the ‘vacation’ aspect of it, where we did things around the area and had fun with activities.

JULY: VA $570

This was actually a work trip. Last summer, we didn’t make it to Richmond to do property walk throughs because our baby was such a handful. We’ve had a lot of work done over the last year, and there were a few things noted by tenants that are just easier for us to handle in a few minutes than pay someone hundreds to handle.

We cleaned the siding on multiple houses, checked some gutters, replaced a few things, and painted a front door and front porch. It was a 3 night trip, and we put about 20 hours worth of work into it. It was hard to juggle the work that needed to be done, having 3 kids in tow, and a heat index of over 110 each day, but we got what we could get done. I wrote a post about the work we did earlier this summer. Our expenses were the hotel ($401), gas, and food. We actually had a surprisingly low food expense on this trip considering we stayed in a hotel (lack of kitchen and time).

While there, we were able to see a few of our old friends. However, we planned this trip fairly last minute and had to fit it around other activities already scheduled at home, so we didn’t get as much ‘play’ time as we’d prefer.

JULY: CO $3,350

Mr. ODA’s brother wanted to celebrate his 40th birthday by hiking 14-ers in Colorado. He invited a few people to join, and Mr. ODA spent the first half of this year getting in shape for that activity. Honestly, in January, this idea seemed so far away, so it was exciting when the moment arrived. Mr. ODA wanted to go out earlier than the trip’s original itinerary to acclimate to the change in elevation. That’s where I came in.

We booked a flight for all 5 of us to fly out there on the 18th (well, the baby was free). We spent the weekend around the Denver area, and then I flew home with the kids on the 22nd, while he stayed to hang out with his brother’s crew.

We had to buy flights, rent a car, book lodging, and buy groceries/meals. We did more-than-average entertainment for this trip with a concert and baseball game, so that increased our expenses.

On our first full day, we visited Mount Blue Sky, which is a drive up to the top of a 14er (a summit above 14,000 feet). It was a really unique and cool experience. On Saturday, we hiked at Red Rocks and went to a concert at Ball Arena. On Sunday, we went to a Rockies game and walked around Denver. It was a great trip, and the kids were troopers through all the fun.

AUGUST: NY $430

My cousin got married in NY. Typically, I’d take this opportunity to get my whole family to NY to see my side of the family. However, our oldest started school already, and I didn’t want him to miss any of that, especially on day 3. The whole family flying to NY is expensive, plus we’d have to figure out the babysitting need for while we’re at the wedding. While I have a few people I could call on, it’s more difficult when the intent is for the closest adults I know to be at the wedding.

We booked direct flights for Mr. ODA and me to fly out Friday afternoon and come back Sunday afternoon. We had the kids stay with grandparents for the two nights, and this way the grandparents didn’t have to manage any kid activities except getting our oldest off the bus. Our two flights cost $376.40, and it included a checked bag if we wanted it because of our American Airlines credit card rewards. Parking at the airport is $11 per day, so that was $33. Our original plan was to take the train from JFK to where my dad’s house is, but we pivoted because he offered to pick us up and take us out to dinner. Our meals were covered except for on the way out and the way back, and one coffee I purchased while there. It was a nice little trip where we had fun and could just focus on that versus managing the kids’ schedule, so I appreciated that.

Mr. ODA had two work trips this summer on top of all that we did as a family. Those net us income instead of expenses, so I won’t go into them. I mention it just to point out how busy and entertained we were. I’d say we’re looking forward to winding down, but now baseball and gymnastics start up on top of managing kids at two different schools. But I’m loving it and looking forward to what this next season brings.

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.

February Financial Update

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RENTALS

The rentals were expensive this month with $4600 paid out. This doesn’t include work that’s currently under way, but not paid for yet.

I paid for a water heater replacement, which was $1,904. I had to pay insurance on a larger property ($793). I paid the balance of the window replacement at one property, which was $1,064. I also paid for a plumber to address a leaking toilet and a rotted faucet ($325). We had a new tenant move into a vacant property, so we had that cleaned before her arrival ($165).

I had to pay for a plumber’s service call ($95) for clogged drains, for them to refer me to a rooter company ($250). I emailed that tenant that preventive measures need to be taken because I’ve not had so many calls to one property. She assured me they have taken appropriate measures and it’s just old pipes. The only problem being that we have several other properties with old pipes that never call for clogs.

We’ve turned over two properties and are about to turnover another property in the dead of winter. It’s so frustrating to be in such a position. All of those stories will be elaborated on in future posts.
– On one property, we charged a lease break fee of one month’s rent to cover our losses (the fee was different based on the month in which they broke the lease). Luckily, that covered our entire month of January being vacant, but we found someone for 2/1.
– Another tenant asked to leave a property because he lost his job. That was handled a bit different because we didn’t know in advance that this tenant would want to leave mid-lease. We told them there’s a fee of $250 (which is what it costs us to pay the property manager to find a new tenant), and that they had to pay rent until we found a new tenant. We didn’t lose any rent on that property.
– Now, we have a newly vacant property because the tenant can no longer afford it. I’m not expecting to recover her unpaid rent at this point. We approved a tenant to start 2/28, leaving us with 27 days of lost rent. However, we sent a lease over for them to sign. They’re currently dragging their feet on signing because they want to pay with their tax return. I don’t love that idea. They’ve been easy to communicate with up until this point, just slow. I’m hoping this gamble works out.

PERSONAL FINANCES

I had to transfer money to Mr. ODA’s account to cover the purchase of our new back door and a new treadmill (although that was only $400). This is an interesting concept for us. Mr. ODA had an account before we met. His account was grandfathered in to new terms and conditions at this bank. He’s kept his checking account and credit card for the rewards (I have access to the account; my name just isn’t on it). Any online purchases go on that credit card. However, that account only receives $250 every other week from Mr. ODA’s pay check (occasionally it’ll receive rent via Zelle). So sometimes, we need to transfer money from our main checking account to cover that credit card payment. All our security deposit accounts are with that bank too. So I had to then transfer from a security deposit account into his checking account, and then have him send that money to our main account. It wasn’t our finest money management moment.

Not much else happened this past month. We’ve gone skiing with the kids some more, I went on a moms’ cruise (which was amazing), took a small trip to piggyback Mr. ODA’s work trip, and have done activities around town. We’re gearing up for a procedure at a local children’s hospital next week, which I’m expecting will wipe out our deductible. Luckily that’s only $3,000, but I’m sure we’ll hit it. We’ll actually be late hitting it this year; it’s usually done in January.

NET WORTH

One of this year’s goal is to hit $4 million net worth. I thought it was going to be a ways away, but the market has been up big recently. We’re only about $14k away from that goal now!

Family Trip

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We went on a trip to Indianapolis last month. We did more activities than we typically would have, so our spending was more than average.

The reason behind the trip was the Children’s Museum. We like visiting zoos around the country, so we used that to fill our other day there. The zoo was $91 for entry for 2 adults and 2 children, while our youngest was free. We had to pay for parking, bought lunch at the cafeteria, two kids rode the carousel, and we all rode the train; that came to $66.70 spent the day of our visit. The Children’s Museum was $90 for entry for the same group of us. It also had a carousel that we let the kids ride, I let them get a flattened penny (they used “their” $1 for it), and we bought lunch (parking in a parking garage was free); that came to an additional $35.88 spent on that day. The zoo’s meals were very reasonably priced, but the Children’s Museum’s meals were ridiculously expensive, so that free parking wasn’t exactly free.

We placed a grocery pick up order when we arrived, and that covered our breakfasts and dinners ($39.10, but we didn’t even use everything we purchased, so that’s inflated). We stopped at McDonald’s on the way there and as we left the city on the last day ($17.68). McDonald’s and Qdoba are sure fire ways to get our kids to eat and eat quickly, so they’re nice when we’re on the road.

On the first day, we went exploring the city. We had to pay to park in a parking garage, which was $5. On the last day, we did a Capitol tour and visited another museum (both of which were free), but we had to pay to park twice ($2.50).

We had booked an AirBnB for the trip. A series of events I won’t get into meant that we received a full refund from the originally booked location, had a coupon code for our inconvenience, and booked a new location right away. We ended up spending $574.32 for our lodging of 3 nights. We specifically didn’t book the cheapest place available because we wanted the comfort of multiple bedrooms for the kids. The two oldest can sleep together, but the youngest needs his own space so that it can be without a night light. We could have managed with two bedrooms because the youngest slept in the master closet, but I can never guarantee that there’s a closet big enough for a pack and play. This place had 4 bedrooms, but we didn’t use one of them. We also wanted a hot tub available, so Mr. ODA and I could hang out and watch tv after the kids went to bed. It’s an amenity we’ve grown fond of, and we even plan to purchase one for ourselves if our deck ever gets replaced.

In total, this trip cost us $922.18 (plus gas) for 3 nights away. This is a higher than normal 3-night trip for us, but we were ok with it since we hadn’t taken our usual amount of trips (newborn life). We could have planned ahead on our two big days to pack a lunch instead of buying there, but we chose the convenience of purchasing the meals over the potential savings, especially knowing that we weren’t spending anything outside the normal realm for our breakfasts (cereal) and dinners (easy, quick pasta meals). Although this wasn’t known at the time of booking, but it was once we started the activities, the concession from AirBnB more than covered our meals and extra activities on each day.

Our kids are 5, 3, and 10 months. The Children’s Museum was great for their ages. There were some exhibits for older kids that we bypassed. I thought the St Louis Science Museum was better at having interactive exhibits throughout (and is free!), but it didn’t mean that this place was bad. The zoo was nice too. There’s a lot of shade, which was appreciated on a very hot day, even in October. It felt smaller than the Cincinnati Zoo, which is where we usually go, but it was clean and the animal exhibits were nice. They had a lot of shows and “ranger talks” included with your admission too. There was a dolphin show that was included with admission that was significantly more than I would have ever expected as a free attraction!

The city of Indianapolis wasn’t great. We didn’t encounter a really nice area of the city; most of it is run down, and there was a lot of homeless downtown. It’s clear that there is a lot of updating underway, and that it’ll probably be a really cool place in a few years. I never felt unsafe, but it was noteworthy that we haven’t visited a city like this since Detroit (although we did find a nice place there, ironically).

All in all, we spent less than we originally projected. A 3 night trip where we were sufficiently entertained, but not overly exhausted (the kids got to bed on time!) for under $1000 was great.

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?

August Financial Update

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We took a week-long vacation the first week of August. I haven’t taken an entire week trip in a very long time. The kids are young, and the daily activities of swimming at the pool and the beach were exhausting for them, but we had a great time. I had projected about $500 worth of food expenses for the week, but we only spent $250 (including a grocery shopping trip). Our daily schedule was dictated by children sleeping, so it was a lot of little meals or snacks at the condo rather than looking to take the time to sit down at a restaurant. It also helped that we paid about $3.45 for gas (which is still terrible, but it’s not $4.30!), so our gas costs for the 11-12 hour trip each way was $190. Our lodging costs were significantly more than we’d typically spend, so the reduced costs in other areas was welcomed.

We’re still working on the new house and haven’t moved. That’s starting to weigh on me. We won’t see much progress this month based on our activity schedules, but hopefully we’ll knock nearly everything off the list next month. Our expenses were high in June and July for the house, but now it’s just a matter of finishing the projects that we already bought materials for, so hopefully expenses will be low the rest of this month. Our HELOC balance increased because we used it to pay for our concrete replacement at the new house (tear out driveway, garbage pad, walkway and stoop to the house, and 3 sidewalk squares; then replace everything in kind except widen the driveway).

RENTAL PROPERTIES

We offered our tenant that has paid rent late 71% of the months we’ve owned the house a new option, and they accepted. They had been paying rent around the 15th and then the last Friday of every month. After several months of this, I spoke up that it was unacceptable. They started paying the first half by the 5th, but the second half was still coming the last week of the month. That means every month, they’re paying $1450 in rent and $145 in late fee. We offered them the ability to pay half at the beginning of the month and half by the 15th. Each payment has a 5 day grace period, and then the late fee is tied only to the payment not made. However, since this is an inconvenience to us, the rent increased to $1500. They could be saving $95 per month if they pay both payments on time. However, they could also be paying as much as $1650 per month now if they pay each payment late.

We got one house turned over and rented last month, and rent was paid timely this month. We also received credits from our KY property manager for costs they overcharged us on.

NET WORTH

We continue to hold high balances on credit cards because of 0% interest incentives. As I mentioned, you don’t typically see a personal mortgage line increase, but we drew almost $9k out of the HELOC to pay for concrete replacement at our new house. Our investments have increased in value over the last month, offsetting the additional draw on the HELOC and higher-than-average credit card balances, helping increase our net worth.