The effects of the current economy…..

In yesterday’s post about gas prices, I promised that I’d share how our family is being affected by the current economical downturn.

Since we are already a one car family, limiting trips is part of our life anyhow, but we really are trying to stay home in the evenings and not going out to run errands 2-3 or more nights per week. We are saying “no” to running the kids around to friends houses, etc every night, and are trying to consolidate all of the kids playtimes to the same day/times so that if we have to be out picking up/dropping off we are doing it all at once. We have decided that we won’t be taking any weekend trips this summer….we had planned a couple of camping trips, but gas is just too expensive. So we will do things here locally……we are going to do more picnics, playing in parks, etc. So that you don’t think we are total ogres as parents (which we TOTALLY aren’t!) we did take the kids for a surprise trip to Disneyland and California Adventure Park on Mother’s Day weekend……we planned it so that we’d go before summer gas prices went into affect, and before it got too hot. And we had a BLAST!!!!!!!!! The best part? We started planning it back in Dec/Jan and were totally able to surprise them 🙂 I love being able to do that 🙂 (That is actually the 2nd time we have been able to surprise them with a trip to Disneyland).

In addition to limiting our trips, and consolidating our errand running as much as we possibly can, we are buying much more locally produced foods. This will help in so many ways…….a) it helps local farmers/ranchers; b) it keeps the tax revenues local; c) it keeps EVERYONE’s fuel costs down; d) it’s fresher, better tasting and healthier food and food products!