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I’ve Never Been So Happy About Not Taking a Week’s Vacation

Yippee!

We got our first bid for house painting today and it’s only (ha!) $2,600! I was expecting something more in the neighborhood of $5,000.

Needless to say, we will not be taking a week’s vacation later this month to paint the house.

Yeah, I know, I shouldn’t just use the first company that quotes a good price, and I don’t plan to. But this at least gives us confidence that we’re making the right decision. I’ll be getting more quotes and checking references in the next few weeks, and we might not actually have it painted until summer/early fall.

Part of our “deal” for hiring someone else to paint is that we’re not going to go on vacation this year. That makes me sad, because we were planning to go to Minneapolis. I had the iteniary all planned out - Twins game (I’m trying to visit all the ballparks), Walker Museum of Art, play at the Guthrie, shopping trip to IKEA, riding the escalator with our shopping cart at Target, dinner at the German restaurant…sigh. But we really couldn’t afford it anyway.

So, we’re taking a vacation in our own city, and our house will be the hotel. Basically, we’ll be doing all the things tourists do that we’ve never done (or haven’t done in a while).

I’m just SO happy I’m not going to be spending the whole summer scraping and painting on a huge ladder!

(This post was included in the Carnival of Money Stories, hosted by Money Walks.)

Photo Credit: Cheerleader by Hometown Invasion Tour, used under Creative Commons licensing

6 responses so far

6 Responses to “I’ve Never Been So Happy About Not Taking a Week’s Vacation”

  1. mydailydollarson May 7th 2008 at 11:14 am

    Good for you! I love the picture, by the way. I think vacationing in your own town is a great idea. I did that a few years ago; it was one of my favorite “trips!”

  2. ldubon May 7th 2008 at 1:43 pm

    what a HUGE relief to not be painting the house yourself - it’ll be done right, quickly, you won’t have to do the cleanup, and you won’t be exhausted at the end of your week of vacation. seems like an excellent choice!

  3. financegirlon May 9th 2008 at 2:33 pm

    Yes, it is a big relief. Especially after I heard my friend’s story last night about her former roommate, whose father fell backwards off a ladder while painting his house and died. Yikes!

    I’m excited about the “vacation.” I told my stepson about it, and he isn’t too disappointed, as long as we go to the waterpark!

  4. [...] Gets Personal presents I’ve Never Been So Happy About Not Taking a Week’s Vacation …we’re taking a vacation in our own city, and our house will be the [...]

  5. [...] do not speak of: If someone paid me $2,992 to paint their house, would I do it? If so, should I be hiring someone to paint mine? Of course, another relevant question would be: If someone paid me to paint their house, would I [...]

  6. [...] etc.) and recent major expenses that we stretched to make happen (staycation, new mattress, house painting). Whatever the reason, the point is we had to skip our $800+ extra payment to the student loan [...]

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