This is going to be a bit long winded...but bear with me!!
When the kids were 4 and 2 (so, 9 years ago this summer) DH had the opportunity to attend a work conference in Paris and I went with him. We left the kids with my parents and were gone 9 days. We saw them in the morning of day one and the evening of day nine, so it was one full week with only a phone call to them at the half way mark. Leaving them when they were that small was rough but they had a great time with grandma and grandpa and DH and I had a total blast! In depth Paris on our own for a week. (We did a seven country European bus tour on our honeymoon and has less than 48 hours in Paris on that trip.)
The kids have never forgiven us for it! ALL of our vacations except that one have been as a family. And they never let us forget it!
They are in french immersion in school and have had an intense fascination with Paris dating back to that trip. I have been saving up for a London/Paris trip since the beginning of September. With most of our money going to Emergency savings and the down payment for a house...there's no ACTUAL money dedicated to vacations in our budget. I figured we would be able to go for about 10-12 days in the summer of 2017.
We always get a tax refund. It varies in amount but generally I think we should be able to expect about $2500 back this year. Back in the day, this money always went to debt. We always said it would go towards vacations once we cleared our debt but last year we put most of it into savings. This year we planned to save it all. It's bugging me though...since we used to say it would (and should) be fun money once our debts were discharged. But we made the house savings a priority this year, so that was the decision.
DD turns 13 at the end of July and is DESPERATE to celebrate her transition into her teens with this trip. She wants to be able to say, "I went to Paris the summer I turned 13." I love this. It's the kind of thing I would have wanted at her age. I honestly don't know if I can make it happen but I am determined to try.
So...I have two questions:
1. Would you be willing to share all your best frugal, cost cutting, money saving/making tips to see if there's anything I have overlooked to help raise this money faster than I currently am? I do a lot of things already, but I want to leave no stone unturned.
2. Should I take some of the tax refund and put it towards this trip? I really, really want to...and I feel like we owe it to ourselves. I am a little afraid to broach the subject with DH, not because I think he'll be upset about it, or even disagree really...I just can't seem to make up my own mind about it and if I have his stance one way or the other...the decision will be irreversible and I'm not ready to make that commitment yet.
I proof read this baby and all I could think of was...first world problems.