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So I haven’t even finished putting away my luggage from my last trip and I’m already making plans for the next one. Well, the next few. In the past few days, I have booked hotel rooms for three trips, registered for a race, and will probably register for another one soon.
The first trip planned is just a quick overnight stay. Since my half-marathon didn’t happen, I wanted to get one in before the summer so that I don’t end up with a mental stumbling block over the distance. I found one that’s fairly local and has great reviews, so I registered, and then, in the interest of not having to get up at 3am, decided to book a hotel room within walking distance of the start line for the night before. It will be a nice little treat for me.
The other two hotel stays are also for races – one in Florida and one in California. The California trip has been planned for months, my friend and I just didn’t have a hotel room yet. The Florida trip is a replacement for this most recent trip that turned out to be a bit of a bust. I haven’t registered for the Florida race yet, so for now, the trip is mostly refundable, though I really want to go. Next up will be looking for flights.
It feels like a lot of travel, and it is, but at the same time, it’s just a few weekend trips. It’s not cheap, but I do what I can to make the trips as cost effective as possible, and this is one of the reasons that I try to watch my spending in other categories. I would rather save on groceries and rent movies rather than go to the theater and then spend my money on fun trips. Other people don’t like to travel, so they splurge on fancy groceries or cute shoes. It’s all about the balance.
I kind of like the idea of traveling to run a race. It gives me an excuse to go to a new destination and something to do while I’m there. Plus it’s a good way to stay in shape. Never a bad thing.
Now to just kick the rest of this illness so I can get back to running this weekend!
I guess I should have been more clear that I was on vacation over these past few days! Whoops. I was just so excited that I forgot to remind everyone to not worry, that I was just out of town and not worrying about blogging.
Sadly, the trip was a bit of a bust. This was the weekend I was scheduled to run the half-marathon I’ve been planning for for over a year. Because of all the snow, I’ve been slogging through many treadmill runs, sometimes spending almost two hours on the treadmill. I overcame that and worked through a few injuries. I was ready.
And then I caught a stomach virus. It’s no fun to be sick on vacation. It’s especially no fun to be sick when you’re supposed to be running a huge race. I was so upset to not be able to run. I could hear the fireworks from the start line and it made me so incredibly sad. But sometimes things just don’t go as you plan.
Other than that, the trip was great, but there’s still kind of a dark cloud over it all. Thankfully, no one else got sick. I was so worried that someone in my traveling party would end up sick the day that we were all scheduled to fly home. As my mom put it, they still might get sick, but at least now they’re all home. Being sick on vacation is bad. Being sick while traveling is much worse.
Because the race was a no-go, I decided to take advantage of the “book now and save” offer that was in the hotel room. There’s another race in October that I really want to run. So I called and booked a hotel room. I can cancel it later for a full refund, but the discount was pretty great, and it’s nice to take that first step towards committing. My race partner did end up running the race and she did amazing, so I’m happy for her, and she’s willing to come back with me for the October race. I just hope it all works out. After all, what are the odds of getting sick again?
So now I’m looking for a local half-marathon to run so that the half-marathon distance doesn’t become my albatross. I think there’s one in June that looks good. Plenty of time to get healthy and train.
Excellent month for my net worth! Up 2.93%. This month, that change is due to a lot of little things. My tax return came in, and I dropped most of that into savings, but even without that, I managed to save a good amount of money this month. Little bits here and there add up. My investments also moved in the right direction, which is great. The interest rates dropped on my savings accounts, but the rates are still better than zero, and that’s what matters.
I realized as I was updating this that I still have not set up my automatic investments for my Roth IRA. This was intentional – I decided to do some research and wait until March before I started up the automatic investments. Of course, have I done that research yet? No. So that’s something to add to the list for when I get back from vacation.
Is anyone else sad that the Olympics are over? I found myself watching more sports over the past few weeks than normal, like most people, I think.
I think my new favorite sport is the winter biathlon. Cross country skiing combined with rifle shooting? Awesome. Ski really hard, then stop and shoot at a target. Miss, and you have to ski a lap. Someone said that a good way to try to approximate just how hard it is to shoot after all that skiing is to go for a run, stop mid-run and try to send a text message (without using auto correct). With all that adrenaline pumping, it’s hard to stay still and aim correctly. Besides, it’s really the only sport that’s also a survival skill.
This year, P&G based their ad campaign around Olympic Moms. I believe they had something setup in Vancouver for all the US Olympians and their families, but the commercials were all about mothers of Olympians. It was sweet, and as part of their coverage, they interviewed moms and asked them about the sacrifices made for their children’s training. It was amazing what some of these families have been through – parents living apart so one parent can be with the training child, spending thousands and thousands of dollars on coaching and lessons and costumes and competitions. It was amazing.
I think every parent thinks their kid is the best, but listening to how much money these people were spending on their kids made me wonder how you know when to stop. Or if to stop. Clearly, all these athletes who made it to the Olympics definitely shouldn’t have stopped and have achieved a huge goal (even if they didn’t win). I found myself contrasting it with Toddlers and Tiaras, a ridiculous TLC show where parents pay crazy amounts of money for their kids to be in pageants. I know, it’s a totally different situation. Even if your kid turns out to not be a world class skier, just getting them outside and getting exercise is a positive thing. Plus it looks like fun.
I’m impressed by the families who have made such crazy sacrifices for their kids. But as the P&G commercials say, when those moms see their kids win, it’s worth every penny.
The office is a bit slow today, so my coworkers got into a big conversation about marriage (I think it may have started with Tiger Woods). That morphed into a conversation about family finances, and it was very eye opening.
One coworker thinks that when a couple gets married, each person should put a percentage of their income into the family accounts and then keep the rest for their own use. (He did admit that if one person is a high paid exec and the other person is a teacher or in some other profession where they’re making less, then that situation changes.) I’m a fan of that idea.
One coworker said that everything should be combined, no exceptions. I see the value in this, but I do think that in a relationship, couples need their own money. A few years back, my dad started getting an “allowance.” He knew that he was allowed to spend from the family fund, but felt guilty taking money from the family to buy something for himself. Now he has his own money, which makes him happy.
One coworker was raised that the husband pays for everything. That makes sense – if the wife is a stay-at-home mother. But this coworker (a female) thinks that the husband should always be the breadwinner for the family, no matter how much the wife makes. I thought that was fairly ridiculous and unfair.
Two coworkers then started debating the percentage idea as if they were married to each other (with no kids). What then qualifies as a family expense and what is a personal expense. If the husband wants a new tv that the whole family will use, is that out of his money or the family money? His reaction was that if it was out of his money then she wasn’t allowed to use it and he was taking the power cord with him when he left. I’m pretty sure he was joking, but it did open up some of the conflicts that could come up with separating finances. What about vacations? She said that if it was his idea to go on vacation, he should pay and he laughed. Clearly these two people should never get married.
It was interesting to hear these coworkers debate about finances and to see just how different everyone’s views are.
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