Ah, vacations!
Times when you leave all the worries and stress of daily life behind.
Little to no schedule, work, or normal responsibilities to be found.
Nothing to do but recharge your batteries, savor time with family and/or friends, and be reminded how life can be.
That is, unless, the vacation follows you home and puts you to work for it!
How many of us have wanted so badly to get away from all of the daily responsibilities and experience that rest and recuperation that we did it without really thinking or planning. What credit cards were suddenly maxed out with fun and sun only to return home with you showing little more than doom and gloom? What spell did the Magic Kingdom place on you so that you are sending it money six months or a year after your magical encounter?
Like many things in life, if you want to avoid such experiences in the future, intentional planning and living will give you ownership over the vacation. Finding out how much something costs ahead of time, budgeting out the money you need to save for it, and intentionally saving it each and every month buys you that ownership.
Plane tickets
Hotel stay
Park tickets
Food
Once you have planned out how much you will spend on each of these, you now have a goal to reach toward! When you reach that goal, that's right, your reward is the vacation!
Imagine now, you've taken your vacation. You've rested, recharged, and are ready again to tackle the demands of your life. But this time, you don't have an extra bill to cover. There's no new account sending you statements. There are just the memories. Would that be worth the planning and effort beforehand?
Finally, this process is repeatable. Today, I encourage you to own each and every vacation you take from now on. I think you will find returning from a vacation you owned and paid for is much more preferable to one that owns you for a time afterward.