84. Quick Getaways: How We Made a Last-Minute Vacation Work

In this episode, host Laura Sexton shares her love for the spontaneity of summer and recounts a recent impromptu family trip to Santa Barbara, a more manageable option compared to the initial idea of Las Vegas. She describes various aspects of the trip, including staying at a hotel with a courtyard, visiting the beach, exploring the zoo, and enjoying family meals. Despite initial cost concerns, they were pleasantly surprised to find they spent significantly less than anticipated. The overall experience emphasized the joys of spontaneous travel and the importance of focusing on enjoyment rather than expenses.

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Transcript

Laura: 0:03

Hello and welcome to the Accelerate Your Legacy podcast. I'm Laura Sexton, your trusted financial coach and money mindset specialist. Join me as we explore the world of money and money mindset while also paving the way for a lasting legacy that extends far beyond money. Together we'll eliminate stress, amplify freedom, and ensure you stop paying for your past so you can start saving for your future. If you're seeking peace in your finances, more margin in your budget, and a legacy that inspires generations to come, you're in the right place. Hey, accelerators. One of my favorite things about summer is the spontaneity of it all. The fact that anything could happen. There's really not a lot of structure to my summer, which I kind of love. We've been really thoughtful about how we want to do things. Camps are very expensive and I love the fact that my kids are just home. It's hard sometimes when I'm working. I'm like, I just want to be working and I can't. But I'm so thankful that I get these days I get to spend with them and I get to just enjoy their company. It's funny, as I was saying that I was saying how excited I am that you get to spend time with my kids, except it makes it hard to work. And then 1 of my kids came in my room. I think that 1 of my favorite things about summer is just you don't know what's going to happen. My kids left vacation Bible school on a Friday. It is something our church does every year and they came home and they were hyped up. I really thought them going to school. To this this activity was going to help them come home and just be calm because they were going to go for a couple of hours and just be wild. And then I was expecting them to come home. Just really tired and tuckered out and they did not. They came home more wild than they left, which. Was kind of an amazing feat, but on Friday, the kids came home and they were just, you know, singing and dancing and just being crazy. And my husband said, Hey, let's take the kids to Vegas. Now, I did a podcast a little bit ago about how I went to Las Vegas and saw Justin Timberlake concert. And I learned some really great money lessons and great things about myself and great things about my kids while I was away from them. We went to Las Vegas recently and it's a. It's a 4 hour drive. And I was like, well, when are, when are we going to go? He's like, let's go right now. I did not want to take 4 absolutely wild children in the car for 4 hours and drive to Las Vegas where it's hot. And I was like, look, if that's what you want to do, if that's what you want our spontaneous summer vacation to be, let's do it. But if there's another option, I would be very much open to it. So what we decided to do instead was to go to Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara is where my husband and I got married. It's only about an hour, a little over an hour away from where we live. So we thought that might be a better decision to stay a little bit closer. And it's only an hour drive in the car. My kids thought the best part of the trip was the packing. And they were very excited about the snacks on the road. They had no idea where we were going. They didn't know what we were going to be doing and it did not matter because we were going to be staying in a hotel and there were snacks. I think that it's amazing. I sometimes wish that I was a kid again, that I could be excited about the hotel and the snacks. So we didn't go to Vegas. We went to Santa Barbara. And I want to tell you about some ways that we we're able to keep our costs low. We are a family of 6, so it can get really expensive to go anywhere. Even if we're doing this little local staycation, it can get wild. And I will tell you all of the things that we did. And then I will tell you what we thought we spent and then what we actually spent. So the 1st thing we did was we had to pick a hotel where we wanted to be. We want to be able to go to the beach. That was a really big thing about going to Santa Barbara. We wanted to be able to go to the beach and we wanted to stay in a hotel that we just really enjoyed. And we had stayed before this 1 hotel that had these nice little separated courtyards. The kids could go outside and stay in the courtyard and they'd be outside and they'd be running around. And so we got really excited that we were going to stay at that hotel. We found a deal online and we prepaid for the hotel. So we knew how much we were going to be spending. And that was just done, taken care of out of the account. We knew what it was. No big deal. That was definitely the most expensive part of our travel. We drove there. It was one tank of gas there and back. So amazing. It's a 2012 Honda Odyssey that I'm driving around that I paid cash for, but it is still very fuel efficient, especially for a minivan. The 1st, night we were there, my kids enjoyed unpacking and getting to watch TV that they don't ever get to watch. They got to watch Nickelodeon and they watched. I think we watched some Disney Channel movies. But my kids were like, why can't we skip these commercials? Which I thought was hysterical. And they're like, can you put on this movie? I'm like, well, that's not how TV works. That's how streaming services work, but that's not how TV works. So we got to explain that to them. And we had pizza for dinner that first night. The pizza was From a different place, the place that we don't normally get pizza. It was okay. It wasn't the best pizza I've ever eaten. It wasn't the worst pizza I've ever eaten and the kids were just so happy to be able to unpack their suitcases that they were super excited to pack right before then. And they were just thrilled. Again, thrilled by the hotel. So the next day we were planning on having a beach day, but the day got started a little wonky because when we checked into the hotel, we weren't in that courtyard room that we had prepaid for and they put us in a basic room. And so we, the reason they did that was because there was a wedding and they had given away our room. They'd upgraded somebody to our room and I was like, that's not okay. We prepaid for this. So they did move us and we did start the day by moving all of our belongings, packed it all back up and then move to a new room and unpacked it all. So we could have that nice little standard courtyard area. We wanted to have a beach day. But can I explain to you how upset my kids were that we had to leave the hotel? They love the hotel. The hotel is their favorite part of the trip. It's a different place. We don't normally stay there. They're like, can we just stay in the hotel? And I was like, no, we're gonna go to the beach. So we packed everything up and we walked the stroller the very few blocks it was to the beach. And we just had a beach day. It was nice. I mean, it could have been warmer. The water was definitely colder than I like to get into. So I don't get into the water out here in California. It's too cold. My kids just loved it. They had so much fun. One of them found this giant piece of driftwood and was like trying to carry it, but she wasn't big enough. So her brother helped her. It was like a whole, whole experience. They just loved it. My husband and one of my daughters ran into the water and they were more than happy to get cold. I don't understand that, but okay. One of my daughters started to get a little questionable. She was like, can I just lay down on the towel? And I was like, oh boy, like, is she getting sick? Is something wrong? I don't know. And she fell asleep right there on the beach. And I'm watching seagulls come and eat people's food and watching the other kids enjoy themselves digging in the sand and having the best time. And. When the little 1 woke up, we said, all right, I think we're going to go get something to eat. We're in a little beach town. So, anywhere we go eat, they expect you to have sand and and be a beach. We went to this cute little restaurant we've been to before when rose was our when we only had our oldest child. And we'd enjoyed it, so we went back and it was just 1 of those experiences where I had to go back and forth and back and forth and back and forth with 1 kid or the other to the restroom. And I didn't get to sit down and eat my food. Mom life, right? And we had to take it back to the hotel, but it was a really nice lunch. Everybody got a meal, which is not something we do. Usually we have the kids split between each other, but we're like, no, we're on vacation. Everybody gets whatever they want. And so the kids got whatever they wanted, was it grilled cheese, macaroni and cheese, was it chicken tenders, was it a cheeseburger, whatever they wanted, they got to get their own thing, which is something really special. We don't normally do because it's very expensive. Again, family of 6, it can get very expensive to take us all out, especially when you add alcoholic drinks on top of that. So that was our nice big lunch that we got to have. It was kind of later in the day, so we knew that it might possibly just be our lupper, our lunch and supper mixed together. It did end up being that. We ended up getting some vending machine snacks later. And again, we had that big bag of snacks that we brought with us. So the kids were more than happy to just kind of snack around and then they were really tired and we just checked out for the rest of the day. Kids got to watch TV to go to sleep. This is something I have never let my kids do, even in a hotel before. But my husband was like, it'd be fun. They've never done it. And so we did it. And it was fun. The next morning we got up and we went to McDonald's for breakfast. I love a good McDonald's breakfast. Kids did too. And then we went to the Santa Barbara zoo. Now, when I tell you, it costs you over a hundred dollars just to walk into the zoo. I'm not kidding admission to the zoo for a family of 6, it's over 100 and we had to pay for parking. And once you're in the zoo, there's all of the things that you can get in touch and feel and the kids immediately beeline for the store. And I'm like, no, the last thing we do is buy something. The last thing we do is buy something that you can carry because I'm not carrying it around. I'm not, if you buy it, you carry it. If you bring it, you carry it. That is my mom's role. It is my role. I'm not carrying your stuff. You got to do that. We enjoyed our day at the zoo. We were there for quite some time. The kids got to run around and play. And then we went to the grocery store for lunch. We were planning on going and getting Chinese food, but it just so happened it was the middle of the day where they were normally closed and I'm sitting and going, this is the part of the day where we actually eat dinner. We were either going to have to wait, or we were just going to go to the grocery store and pick up some things that we could go back and microwave at the hotel. It's an adventure. And I was like, let's just have this adventure and whatever we find, like, sounds great. Let's do it. So that evening we were considering doing room service because the kids have never had room service before and it sounded like a good time, but instead we just went and grabbed some burgers at a local place and brought them home and just snacked on that. While we were considering the room service, we took the kids to the pool. Now, we had spent the 1st, majority of the day. At the zoo, but the kids really wanted to go to the pool and it was not the biggest pool ever. It was the perfect size for my kids, though, and they just had the greatest time jumping in and jumping out and jumping in and jumping out. Oh, my goodness. I could not keep up, but we had a great time and it was nice and it was warm out and the pool was lovely. And so we just went and we splashed and we had a really great time. That's why we were considering room service because I was exhausted. I didn't want to go get anything. My husband was wonderful and he went and grabbed us something Every morning, My baby woke up at the crack of dawn and the last thing I wanted was for her to be rolling around in the room and screaming and talking and waking up the other kids who had gone to bed way too late. So she and I got up and we explored the hotel. if there was 1 single inch of that hotel that I did not see, I would be amazed. She went everywhere. She was into everything. She wanted to touch everything and say hi to everybody. It was great. We explored. We had a good time. The morning that we checked out. It was such a bummer because the kids were having so much fun. They didn't want to leave. They enjoyed packing their suitcases, which again is weird. But we came home because I had clients and I did not want to be late. So we checked out and plenty of time to get home and let me come home and be prepared to work with my clients. So, my friends, you heard all of those things. I told you all the stuff we did. There's so much stuff. We did the hotel itself with the deal was 750 dollars. So, how much do you think we spent on the whole vacation? My husband and I, when we came home, we guessed that we had spent around 2500 dollars. And then we sat down and calculated it out and we were shocked at what we actually spent because we only spent 1125 dollars. Like, what? What is this staycation that we have taken is the cheapest vacation we've ever taken and we took everybody. It was shocking. It was shocking how little we spent, especially because when we went out to eat, we got all of the things. And when we got the pizza, we got the multiple pizzas. And when we went to the grocery store, we bought all the other snacks and we, we bought gifts at the zoo. And so we just thought that we had spent more and more and more. And what we're realizing is that even when we have a big budget that we can spend pretty much whatever we want our spontaneous trip budgets, rather large, because we put money away for that. Even still. We were way under what we thought we were, and I just think it's so interesting because I just assumed that we had spent so much money and we hadn't. So, sometimes when we travel their expenses that we don't pay attention to. There are things that we didn't even think about, right? Like, tipping at the hotel and our hotel, we're in California, and they're still not doing made service. So we weren't tipping the maid, which, you know, whatever. But we tip our service and we just we Overtip whenever we can, and we expected to be spending more than we were. We still make really smart, frugal choices, and I cannot wait. My friends, it was an exercise for me on not paying attention to the money, just going and doing and enjoying because I can get so focused on the numbers and so focused on what if we overspend and what if we like, I get so harried about that because of how I grew up because of how money used to be. When you're negative 372, 000, every penny counts. So you focus on the number. You read the menu right to left. And so this trip, I was very purposeful to say, I'm not going to worry about the money. We're just going to do whatever. And then we'll tally it up when we get home. First trip I've ever been on that I haven't been stressed out about money. No, that's not true. That was Hawaii, but that was because we had a lot of money set aside for that. This is the first spontaneous trip. I've ever been on that. I wasn't concerned about the money. I hope that for you 1 day friends that 1 day, you can just up and go on a trip and stay at a nice hotel and take the whole family and do whatever you want. I'm wishing that for you. All right, accelerators, that's it for this week. Go out and make a difference. Thank you for investing your time with us today on the Accelerate Your Legacy podcast. Remember, your legacy isn't just measured in dollars and cents, but in the tools, habits, mindset, and reputation you leave behind. Don't just listen to the show, but take action on what you've learned. Share this wisdom with a friend who can benefit and help us spread the word by rating and reviewing the podcast. For questions or encouragement, reach out to me on Instagram at Accelerate Your Legacy or explore the resources listed in the show notes. I will be back with you next week. Until then, build your legacy with intention.