Many things changed when I headed down the road of bankruptcy: A lot of my financial freedom got taken away, I became emotionally stressed very easily, and frustration and a loss of hope can set in pretty easily if I’m not careful.

One of the things that hasn’t changed for me is the need to take breaks. Really long breaks, sometimes. Not the kind of breaks that involve running away from the world forever (because that’s what got me into this in the first place) — but the kind that involve long savoring moments of just … living.

As a family, we’ve found that daytrips are a great way to take a break all together. Daytrips used to have a line item in our budget. But, since we’ve been trying to cut back and send as much as we can to the trustee, we’ve decided to use my wife’s tips as our ‘vacation fund’ for now, until we get out of this. (Yet another change).

We even got a ‘vacation jar’ for this fund.

My family is very visual. Visual aids = good.

And like most things with the bankruptcy, we’ve talked about it with our kids, and they’re counting tip change with us, to deposit (eagerly, I might add) into the ‘vacation jar’.

Saving for daytrips now takes patience. And lots of pennies.

Our next daytrip is going to be in October, and we’ve pretty much decided we’re going to go to Tucson and try to vacation as cheap as possible.

I can hardly wait.