Time for a Vacation

The dear sweet man I call my own decided that he needed to join in on a Kickstarter campaign for a band he really likes. One of the "donations" included a copy of the new record they'd be making along with a small listening party with the band. The "donation" was honestly very small in reality (about the same cost as two new video games) but the listening party is in Nashville Tennessee. So really the cost is in driving to Nashville, getting a room, and food and activities along the way. He asked me if it'd be okay for him to make the donation. Come on folks, lets be honest, this is a step in the right direction. I mean the man once bought a Gibson Firebird guitar without asking or telling me.

Together we planned to take a nice little family vacation to Nashville. We've taken little Abe to Chicago twice but outside of those trips we have not had a family vacation, the three of us (and my mother in law went with for both the Chicago trips since both trips involved my hubby and I going to a concert together). For Nashville I'd plan food, pack lunches, and we'd eat cheap. We'd get a discount hotel room somewhere (I love booking hotels online through priceline or hotels.com where you can get really great hotel rooms for super cheap). Most likely we'd rent a car (Since I drive a lot for work I don't like taking our cars on trips, it's more worth it to put the miles and extra wear and tear on a rental). The kiddo is not big on car rides so I thought we could find something touristy outdoorsy where we could all have fun and he could run around maybe half way to Nashville, then he could nap for a good portion of the second half of the drive. Okay, so in my mind this would be a fun trip.

My husband made the kickstarter donation several months ago and I went through our budget and scraped together $700 for the trip. Over the past several months that $700 has turned into about $250. I cannot get my husband to understand that once you spend money it's gone. Seriously, I gave up being mad at him a long time ago and he has come a long way but I could just pull my hair out. Gah!

I told him today that if he still wants to go to Tennessee then WE are going to have to get on the same page and both sign a spending contract. He snarled but I'm fairly certain that with his trip on the line and my foot planted VERY firmly to the ground I might, maybe, possibly will be able to get him to commit, we should be able to have a nice frugal family trip, and we shouldn't have to go any further into debt (always my main goal).

Here it is:

For the record, the exercise goal is so that I have to commit to something as part of this deal as well. You know I can go without buying anything and without eating out (I already do). This will be VERY difficult for him. He would really like me to exercise more often (and I need to) so that part of the contract is for his benefit. I added the "go for a walk together" so that we can not only get exercise and spend time together but also so that we have some quite time to maybe talk about the trip and how we're doing with the contract.

The box at the bottom is to record if we spend money that shouldn't have been spent, or if I don't do the four work outs one week; for anytime we break the contract. It's my personal belief that accountability is enormous and so I want us to have to write down on the contract anytime that we break it.

Here goes!