we’re on vacation!

So, the family and I are on vacation this week.  We’re down here at Myrtle Beach.  Let me tell you a quick story.

Terri and I have been planning a nice trip somewhere for the last year and this is where we ended up. 

• We got our passports last year so we could go anywhere we wanted to go.  By the way, for the cost of these passports, we could have went on a mini-vacation.
• We saved up Frequent Flier Miles so we could fly anywhere.
• We got us a Capital One Credit Card and started building points, paying it off every month (or most every month) so we could redeem the points for Gift Cards for Gas or to Restaurants that we liked.
• We joined Hilton Honors and Marriott Rewards so we could save up points to get some free hotel somewhere.

All that worked for us.  We saved some spending money also.  We could have went anywhere we wanted to go.  Then something happened.  We started thinking about lots of different things.   Here’s my thoughts:

• I need to get out of debt, including my house.  That’s Dave Ramsey’s fault.
• I need to be saving money in this crazy economy.  That’s Terri’s Grandfather’s fault.  He beat that into my head.
• I committed to give quite a bit of cash to the Ebenezer Baptist Church Capital Campaign.  (It is not too late for you to give either!)
• I can have just as much fun right here in SC as in another state.  (maybe)
• I’ll wait and take my wife to Hawaii next year for our 15th anniversary.

So, here we are in Myrtle Beach, SC and we went from spending several thousand dollars to trying to make this vacation cost less than $1500, including 5 nights in a really nice hotel.  Check back later to see how that’s working out for us.