Conversations About Money: Vacations

What kind of vacations did you take while growing up? My family did a lot of hiking, backpacking and skiing. I’m not sure that we ever took ‘normal vacations’, but I look back on them fondly. They were full of variety.

We got to hike and backpack when you could drink the water from the trailside streams and rivers. I had my own Sierra Cup that hooked into my belt. (wish I still had it!) My parents brought eggs to hide one Easter weekend up in the Olympic Mountains and there was always coffee for them. (I did not yet imbibe.) One hike along the beach was a disaster because there was grilled steak for dinner and “someone” [not me], failed to pack the steak knives. So we ate it with our fingers. My brother and I were cool with that.

Costs of these weekend outings were generated by: gas, freeze-dried and real food, paper topographic  maps, a battered copy of Trips and Trails by Bob and Ira Spring, the occasional purchase at REI Co-op (my dad had a very low membership number), and maybe a hamburger at the XXX Root Beer Drive-In on the way back. I was a cheap date (plain hamburger-no condiments). My family didn’t drink soda back then.

The Kendall Katwalk Trail along the stretch of the Pacific Crest Trail in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We hiked in the real mountains, on the Pacific Crest Trail, in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, in Mt. Rainier National Park.

While in high school-I did get to a fake mountain-the Matterhorn.

Disneyland (Photo credit: CAHairyBear)

My high school band director entered my name for the McDonald’s All-American HS Band and I was one of the 100 musicians selected.

The band made two trips to march in parades at Disneyland and in New York City! Cost to me: free, save for the missed homework. (Oops, there was the family investment in the private music lessons-but as a teenager, I wasn’t bearing that cost.)

Like many families with children, we began to travel for athletic events. I distinctly recall the trip we took to a swim meet in Santa Clara. I was the spectator and my mother was the competitive athlete, however. (Masters Swimming!) My brother went to her swim meet in Toronto.

While many of my peers travelled to Hawaii while I was in high school,  I didn’t get there until I was over 30! (Cost of that trip: airfare for two, shared meals and entertainment, thank you gift to the owners of the time-shared condo). Loved visiting a coffee plantation on the Big Island.

big island of Hawaii (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Eventually I went to Europe when I was older. The 3-week trip was  paid up ahead of time due to our DINK status (Dual Income, No Kids).

In summary, we didn’t take extravagant vacations while growing up, we didn’t know what we were missing,  and I have some adult habits that have served me well. (see them below)

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Learning about personal finance can be “informal”

“Across our lifespan, humans spend more than 80% of their 16 waking hours in “informal” learning environments outside “formal” classroom walls.”

(University of Washington College of Ed. publication Research That Matters, Volume 10)

So why are some of us stuck in our learning patterns about money?  Or School’s Out Forever?  Apparently we have ample hours after our “formal education” is over to pick up new material, concepts and even practical things like improving your financial infrastructure.

Have you ever heard a friend or colleague say things like the following:

• Math and I don’t get along
• My wife/husband takes care of that
• The economy doesn’t affect me (yes, I heard that once)

My all time favorite is, “I don’t do live math”. (heard during a public radio pledge drive)

Perhaps some of this goes back to the way we all learned about math in school, whether we learned “good” or ‘bad” money lessons at home, or if our education has all come from ‘the school of bad experiences”. Granted, some of us had truly bad math instruction, and some of us just didn’t see the relevance to math, personal finance and economics at the time we first saw with the material. Some people learn about stocks at age 15, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t pick up new concepts at any age.

My reason for beginning my blog with this research is to give yourself permission to begin anew with your learning. You can also give yourself permission to approach your personal finances in a way that is different from “keeping up with the Joneses”, the way other members of your family learn, and the way you learned math from “Mrs./Mr. Smith” in high school. In other words, allow yourself to embrace new informal learning opportunities!

As you follow this blog, you will learn and even change your perceptions about personal finance for the better. I will help you understand that small, consistent, sustainable changes matter. You don’t have to hit a home run. You don’t need to have that ultimate, sexy cocktail party story about your fabulous investment that made you so rich. You do need to remember that “right-size” changes, are what are best for you.

When we learn new things, as youth or adults, remember this advice from UW Professor Walter Parker:

“We have to help [learners] develop the sense that, “If things are tough, it just means I am a novice, it doesn’t mean I don’t have the competency for this work.”