Vacations come and go.  Mine has come and gone.  It was fantastic.  There was good food, fun times, and lots of great memories.

Let me share 4 lessons that I learned on this vacation.

• Planning is important.  I may lose some of you with this one.  But, we planned out our entire vacation before we left.  We had a spreadsheet that listed our plans for each day.  We even tried to decide in advance where or what we would eat for each meal.  This may not sound like a vacation to you.  But for us, it was incredibly helpful to have all of these decisions made in advance.  Granted, we had to make some adjustments to the ‘plan’ during the week.  But, overall I believe having this plan was tremendously helpful.  You may think I am weird, but I enjoy waking up in the morning and having already decided what I am going to do that day.
• Cash is powerful.  There is something magical about cash.  I am not talking about money in general.  I am talking about actual cash – the green paper that has pictures of dead presidents.  Part of our vacation planning included deciding how much money we were going to spend.  Once we made that decision, I took that amount of cash out of the bank.  Now, get this – I did not use a debit or credit card at all during our vacation.  We used cash for everything.  We have not always done this in the past.  But, we decided to try it for this vacation.  I strongly believe in the ‘power’ of cash.  If I spend $100 on something, paying with a Benjamin Franklin makes me feel different than paying with a ‘card.’  Handing over cash stirs my emotions.  ‘Cards’ feel cold and devoid of emotion.
• Spending money is a ‘skill’ that has to be taught.  We did something different on this vacation.  Usually we buy one special toy or item for each of our kids when we go on vacation.  Often it is a stuffed animal or doll from the latest Disney movie.  This year we did something different with our two oldest children.  We gave each of them $20 and allowed them to spend the money on whatever they wanted.  It was interesting to watch our girls.  Our 5 year old wanted to buy everything.  She has not quite grasped the concept of money yet.  She does not always understand that $10 is more than $5.  So, she required a lot of our help.  But, we had a lot of good conversations with her about money and how it can only be spent once.  Our 7 year old daughter understands money really well.  It was fun to watch her ‘shop.’  In the end, she decided to purchase several smaller things rather than one large thing.  Spending wisely must be taught.  It does not just magically happen when children become adults.  I want my children to have the experience of ‘spending.’  I want them to make mistakes with money now – while they are young and the amounts are small.
• Vacation Ownerships are a big scam (in my opinion).  Disclaimer – I really hope that I do not upset any of you with this.  It is possible that many of you own a Vacation Ownership.  Please understand, I am not attacking you or criticizing you.  I am simply sharing my opinion of a ‘product’ we were offered during our vacation.  Here it comes…  We stayed at a place that sells Vacation Ownerships.  We stayed there because I rented a week from another owner.  I rented it off of ebay.  During our vacation, the resort invited us to a Vacation Ownership ‘tour’ and offered us a $175 gift card for attending.  $175 is a lot of money so we decided to go.  I was stunned at the cost of these Vacation Ownerships.  The amount of money they discussed was comparable to our mortgage payment.  Most of the offers they presented involved monthly payments for 10 years.  It was shocking – especially when compared to what I paid to rent the week off of ebay.  One thing that struck me was that the Vacation Ownership concept is extremely complicated.  It involves points, finance charges, fees, maintenance costs, reservation fees, etc.  Points expire if you don’t use them.  It is very difficult to determine exactly how much money you paid for a specific vacation.  It is not simple.  Every time we declined their offer, they just presented another offer.  Each offer was complicated and difficult to understand.  Our vacation was fairly simple.  I found a rental that was offered at a specific price.  I paid that price and in exchange received a one week reservation.  My advice to you – be very careful with Vacation Ownerships.

What about you?

Did you take a family vacation this year?  What are some of the lessons that you learned from your family vacation?  I would love to hear them.  Leave a comment below.

Stephen