Cruisin' online

It's been kind of a slow afternoon so I've been doing some online "window shopping." Mostly for trips...cruises. My MIL would LOVE to go on an Alaskan cruise. Thought I'd poke around to see how much it would actually cost. What a nice retirement present that would be...of course that may be for a year away...the retirement, that is. Her work is offering some packages...unfortunately only 75 are available and she's 300+ on the list. Bummer. Anyway, the trip is pricy, but not as bad as I thought. It was about $4000 for 2 people. Though that could change depending on the time of year she chose. Who knows, if/when we have a party for her, maybe we could have a money tree and it could pay for part/all of the trip. Hmmm...glad I checked.

A while back I looked into a trip to Hawaii for the family. I'd love to go but it was something like $4000 too. Kind of hard to afford especially when DH's work is unpredictable. You never know when there will be a layoff. Thankfully, he is still working and prospects look good for the next while. I'm starting to think about starting a travel fund. I know it's important to pay down the debt we collected...but it's also impt to save. I think if I keep waiting till everything is paid off, we'll never get anywhere. So, I'm going to start re-jigging the budget to include savings for different things...like putting money back into our RRSPs (we had to stop contributing ages ago), starting an RESP for L, and a trip fund, among other stuff.

Talking about budgets, I started doing our taxes last night. I got most of DH & mine done...missing some info for both of us. Found DH's and got mine today so I can easily wrap those up tonight. I have to do my MIL's too (she buys the computer program, I do her taxes and ours...good deal). Looks like DH & I will be getting back a $2-3K...depends on what the missing info reveals. We haven't discussed what to do with it but I'm pretty sure it's going to pay off 1 credit card. Maybe we'll spend a little bit on ourselves after the rough year we had...but it's hard to justify when the debt is mountainous. I guess I have to look at it the same as weight loss. Eating dessert shouldn't be seen as being counter-productive to losing weight. I should be able to enjoy the things I like, as long as I don't over eat. Same with spending. We should be able to enjoy some of the money, as long as we don't over spend. Wow...pretty profound. Sometimes I surprise myself. It's taken me a long time to accept/learn that deprivation doesn't help...nor does over indulging. You need to find the happy medium, right?

Well kiddles, I best get going. Enjoy this amazingly beautiful sunshine. A welcome sight, isn't it? Makes +9 feel like summer. :)

TTFN!
~B