For years, I thought the hardest part about vacation was getting time off work.
Or finding the perfect place to go.
It wasn’t.
The hardest part was coming home.
Coming home to the credit card bill after a week that was supposed to be relaxing.
The stress started before we even got home.
Every dinner. Every souvenir. Every excursion. Every time I pulled out my credit card, I knew I didn’t really have the money set aside for that trip.
Instead of enjoying the moment, part of me was already thinking about next month’s credit card bill.
I’ll be honest: I’ve always loved traveling and spending time with my family. I just hated paying for it afterward.
The Vacation Fund Just Entered the Group Chat
After years of repeating the same cycle, I finally had enough and decided to do something revolutionary.
I started a Vacation Fund.
Turns out, budgeting for vacation before you take it is a whole lot less stressful than paying for it afterward.
I looked back at what we usually spent on vacation and started planning for it in advance—the hotel or Airbnb, flights, rental car, food, excursions, and a little extra for the unexpected.
I took the entire anticipated cost, divided it by the number of paychecks in a year, and saved every two weeks.
And I’m telling you, once I switched to this, I actually felt like I was on vacation instead of wondering how much it was all going to cost when I got home.
Vacation actually felt like a . . . vacation.
Lesson Learned
These days, when we head out on vacation, I don’t wonder if we can afford dinner or whether we should skip an excursion to save money.
We already made those decisions before we packed our bags.
It turns out a Vacation Fund didn’t just change how we paid for vacation.
It changed how we experienced it.
The Vacation Fund worked so well that it wasn’t long before I created a December Fund for Christmas and birthdays, too.
But that’s a story for another day.
🐝 That’s the buzz for today!