Planning In Secret Out In The Open

Hubby and I desperately want to take the kids on a real vacation. We've been to Seattle a couple of times for a few days at a time, but we're talking about a two to three week drive down the I-5 to Anaheim, LA, and San Diego.

With one real income, that's just been out of the question. But now that I'm working (very) part-time doing housecleaning, I suddenly have a stream of income that we don't rely on for the day-to-day necessities.

I have this huge plastic jar that used to hold Winnie the Pooh cookies many moons ago. We cut a notch out of the lid, and it's been our savings jar for years. Right now, it has a piece of paper in it that says, "Van Fund". Now, we *are* saving for a van; we have money from income tax set aside for that, and are hoping to have another bit of money coming in soon so that we can go van shopping. We've let the kids know that the primary concern is replacing the van, to be followed by replacing Hubby's vehicle, and then we can start saving up for a vacation. And as far as the kids know, this jar is being used for that, in that order. In reality, this jar is solely for saving up for a family vacation. We'll take stock at Spring Break to see how much we have saved up, and that will determine the kind of vacation we can take.
                                                                                                                                                                    So what we've committed to is this:

- all money I earn from housekeeping goes into the jar
- all money I earn from selling my crafts goes into the jar
- all money we receive from D&D meals goes into the jar
- every time we have money come into the house (payday, child tax credit, GST, what-have-you), anything smaller than a $10 bill in our wallets/pockets goes into the jar
- any money I find in the dirty laundry goes into the jar

In addition to this, with the child tax credit increasing in July, we will have $350 more for both July and August, then when Quarta turns 6, we'll have $270 more each month, which will be immediately funneled into our long-term savings account (the home of the van fund at the moment, but will also hold replacement car and vacation money).

And once we've taken stock at Spring Break, we're planning how to surprise them. So far, the idea is to buy a new scrapbook, and do exactly one page for it - the title page. I already have a lovely, sparkly sticker that says, "Disney Vacation". Then we'll tell the kids that I bought a new scrapbook to put our vacation photos into, and ask if they want to see it. I think we'll need Uncle Jakk over here to take video of them freaking out :)