Friday, September 20, 2013

The cost of being an adult

One of the things I think is important to do as a family is to travel. So I've been researching some weekend and week long vacations we could go on next year so I can start saving my scheckels. And I've learned one thing in my research:

Dude. Vacations (and traveling in general) are freaking expensive. Gas + food + hotels = broke.

"Silly, stupid Daisy," you may say.

But hear me out.

Even though my dad was a financial advisor (or a stockbroker as we called it in the 80's) I learned approximately nothing about practical finances when I was a kid. 

Zip. 
Zero. 
Zilch.

By the age of 5 I could explain stocks to any stranger. A few years later I understood mutual funds and bonds. I even picked a stock when I was 4 that eventually paid for my first year of college (I'm not a kid genius, it was Coca-Cola). 

But when it came to budgets, saving, or the fact that in our world hours worked = amount of something you can buy....I'm self-taught. Usually not by a book, but by experience. And usually those experiences have been bad ones full of self-recrimination.

I got an allowance when one of my parents felt like it. Sometimes it was a set amount of money if I did my chores. Sometimes it was x amount of dollars per job. Sometimes everyone got easy and just handed me $5. (Side note: please don't think I'm blaming my parents. Because I'm not. They both worked A LOT and single parenting is no joke)

Now I have much more financial respect for the mini-vacays we took all the time as kids. We often drove to Chattanooga or Atlanta or the beach a couple of times a year, even just for the weekend. Gas + food + hotels = not even a little vacation is cheap.

So thanks mom and dad for taking me to the beach and Ruby Falls and See Rock City and Chuck E. Cheese and even the zoo over and over again. 

Oh Daisy. Still so much to learn.

And 'Lil D you are getting some schooling in money! 


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