“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
-Ferris Bueller
I haven’t posted in a while.
I have a bunch of excuses:
- Bought a house
- Moved
- Rented the old townhouse
- Started a Master’s degree
- Worked
- Tried to be a good Dad/partner along the way
A few of my excuses might become blog posts in the future.
We’re finishing up a road trip to Florida, and I have actual time to write. (yes, we drove from Maryland…see why I like $5/gal gas). One daughter is sound asleep. The other recently learned how to braid and is braiding everything in sight. At least it’s a quiet activity….
I’m reflecting on our whirlwind trip. Ok, I was scrolling through Mint and seeing just how much our whirlwind trip cost us. Instead of sweating the dollars, I realized this is exactly why we have worked hard, saved, and invested for years! And that’s what prompted me to put quill to parchment again.
For the record, we rented a mini mansion with two other families and filled it with laughter and joyfully squealing kiddos, lazed away a couple of afternoons bobbing around the resort river, completely throttled two Orlando area theme parks, and visited with family.
If this were Instagram, that would be the only perfectly coiffed image you would get.
But we weren’t quite so polished when our over-tired two year old raced off, red shoes a blur, through the packed theme park restaurant dodging patrons better then Rogue 5. Our first warning that something was amiss came from a staff member yelling, “we got a runner!”
Nor was I ecstatic when my little ones both turned up their noses at the tepid, slightly sulphury Florida tap water I had filled their reusable bottles with. I gritted my teeth and shelled out $8(!) for two nicely chilled plastic bottles of filtered water. But I totally poured the purchased water into their reusable bottles first…
So much of the personal finance space is full of tactics for how to get a certain number of dollars in some accounts. And, we’re not going to neglect our financial journey either. But sometimes, we miss out on the real purpose behind all that working, saving, and investing.
Yes, we’re exhausted from the trip. Yes, our wallets are lighter. Yes, we had plenty of aggravating moments. But our hearts are full.