A few summer vacation choices for those low on cash or time
I would be planning a summer vacation this summer, but there are
two problems: I have no money, and my kids don’t want to be seen
with me.
Actually, that sounds kind of harsh. It’s not that my kids don’t
want to be seen with me, but they have better things to do.
My eldest has a good excuse
– he is taking summer classes at UC Santa Cruz, working and
hanging out with his girlfriend. Also, he must play Minecraft, some
kind of incredibly addictive video game, that consumes hours out of
each day.
A few summer vacation choices for those low on cash or time
I would be planning a summer vacation this summer, but there are two problems: I have no money, and my kids don’t want to be seen with me.
Actually, that sounds kind of harsh. It’s not that my kids don’t want to be seen with me, but they have better things to do.
My eldest has a good excuse – he is taking summer classes at UC Santa Cruz, working and hanging out with his girlfriend. Also, he must play Minecraft, some kind of incredibly addictive video game, that consumes hours out of each day.
So obviously there’s no time for seeing dear old Mom, which I do understand. Kinda.
My younger one has adopted the life of a vampire this summer – no blood sucking, but it does involve staying up all night and sleeping all day. He likes to watch video game tournaments on his computer, which always start at 4 a.m. because they’re being streamed live from South Korea or Germany, and thus he has become a creature of the night.
It’s hard for me to object too much, seeing as there aren’t too many other options. We will have a week in the mountains, courtesy of my parents, so we are not actually vacationless. However, beyond that, there is probably not a whole heck of a lot we can do.
My whole goal this summer is to feverishly put away every spare nickel for my sons’ college expenses, seeing as there will not be just one, but two of them this fall at UCSC. Years ago, I realized that they would probably both be in college at the same time, but that was back when tuition and fees were rising at a predictable rate, instead of the current insane rate.
Ever since California’s budget meltdown, the universities have found ways to tack all kinds of interesting fees onto student expenditures, plus raising all the fees that were already there.
And so I am getting all my ducks in a row, battening down the hatches, preparing for whatever the worst may be. Which means spending money on vacations is probably not the wisest course of action this summer.
Yet it is summer, and it is important to do things together as a family. What those things might be, I’m not exactly sure, but I am getting some low- and no-cost ideas together:
– Dinner at Costco. There’s nothing like going to Costco and fighting to get those free samples. Sometimes you have to hang around at the sample tables for five or 10 minutes, waiting for the next round of items, but it can be worth it – especially when they’re giving out tiny pizza slices or little cups of frozen yogurt.
– Hanging out at the bowling alley. This offers plenty of options. One of us can bowl and the other two can watch. Or all three of us can watch strangers bowl. Or, if we’re real lucky, someone will walk off and abandon a game in the middle, and we can sneak over and finish it before anyone notices.
– Finding every freebie we can and take advantage of it. (This is actually a serious idea.) A lot of museums and attractions offer free days for locals, and with a little detective work (such as going to their websites), you can figure out which days to go for free. For instance, the Tech Museum in San Jose has occasional free Sundays. Not every Sunday – it’s kind of irregular – but all the dates are listed on its website (www.thetech.org).
– Mooch off other people’s vacations whenever possible. “Hey, you’re going to Reno? Can we come too?”
Okay, that wasn’t so serious. But you have to admit it has merit.
