Managing the Family Budget means no trip to the beach

Well, it happened again. I was given the guilt trip last evening for declining a family trip to the beach next weekend. If you have not read my first post on Peeves, please take a minute to look at my discussion on The balance between family and money to get some background. A family member recently had a baby and decided to have the baptism over 200 miles away at the beach. Now, I have been to this beach location and it is fabulous! If I had all the money in the world I would probably have a beach house there. It is also one of the most expensive places that I have visited.

I did some number crunching a figured that the trip would cost us a minimum of $450. This is if we left on Saturday and stayed only one evening for the baptism and turned around and came right back home. I figured the following costs -

• Gas - $100 (I saw gas this morning for $3.81 / gallon - OMG!!!)
• Accomodations - $250 - (Not too many cheap options for a 1 night Saturday evening stay unless we go 50+ miles away)
• Food - $100 (would have to eat out at least one time + groceries are very expensive there)
• Misc - ??? I did not even budget in required ferry rides and any parking expenses

When it came down to looking at the possible $450 associated costs, the decision was easy. I would much rather give the baby the $450 to put in their college savings plan. That $450 is about 3 - 4 weeks of our monthly grocery bill budget. Needless to say, I informed the family member last evening that we would not be going and thanked them for the invite. Unfortunately, it turned into a personal thing and heavy questioning. I explained to the family member that it was nothing personal but we just don’t have it in the budget to make the trip.

Have you ever been in situations like this? How do you handle yourself? Do you let guilt set in?

Sincerely,
passivefamilyincome

Tagged as: Family