No Money and I Almost Canceled the Vacation

In this episode of Stand Up and Redo Petra explains how she heeded the wise words of an older friends and learned a life lesson she kept with her into her fifties. Don’t cancel the vacation because these are the memories you and those you love will hold onto.

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Welcome to Stand Up and Redo with Petra Demuse, the podcast where transformation isn't just possible, it's inevitable. If you've ever felt stuck, weighed down by past choices, or like life's chapters have been written in ink, think again. Here we believe every day is a fresh page, and you hold the pen. We're diving deep into real stories, bold insights, and life-shifting strategies to help you stand up, shake off the old, and rewrite your narrative with power and purpose. Ready to rise? Let's get started. Hello. Did you ever cancel a vacation because you didn't have any money? Or worse, did you ever look at the whole year ahead and say, I just can't afford to do anything, so no vacations for me. You use that vacation to paint your house or to do something like icky. You don't use it for fun. Well, this is really geared towards little kids, not little kids, parents with little kids, more so, even though I'm Petra Demuse and my podcast is called Stand Up and Redo, and I'm an over 50-year-old woman, and most topics come to you about travel or being over 50. Well, this is has a lot to do with travel, but we're gonna talk about having no money and still traveling, because travel is so important for memories. And I'm gonna tell you why. I used to work at the Coast Guard base. I used to work the night shift, and I would get in to work at 11 p.m. I took care of the sick recruits, and some of them had mental illness, you know, emotional breakdowns, or they might truly have a physical problem. But we usually had like 10 to 20 recruits in, and there was always a nurse on the ward. So I would come in at 11, and there was an older nurse there, and this was her retirement job. So she was really smart. She actually did a lot of the counseling with the recruits. She was like kind of the psych ward nurse, but she told me something that was so crucial. I was only 30 years old, and my husband and I would go up and down financially year to year. He was a commercial fisherman. So one year he might make a lot of money, and then the next year we just dove down and he made no money. So our life was always just kind of like this financially. And I remember I was just telling her, Yeah, I'm gonna take some time off, but I just don't really have time to go anywhere or do anything. And my kids were like 10, 9, you know, actually maybe younger than that. But they were all adolescent and in school. I remember my little guy was probably like three. He was the youngest one. He was was probably preschool. She sat there and she looked at me and she said, I want to tell you something, Petra. Your children are not gonna remember sitting at the kitchen table doing their homework every night. She's like, they're not gonna remember waking up and eating breakfast every morning at your house. They're not gonna remember doing all the chores and making their bed and cleaning the house. They're not gonna remember all that. They're gonna remember the vacations that you take with them. So she's like, even if you have to scrounge together a little tiny bit of money and you have to go sleep in a tent somewhere, she's like, you need to do that with them. Because I guarantee when they grow up, those are the memories that they're gonna have. Wow. Talk about pressure. I had no money. Well, I was able to scrounge up enough money to rent about four hours away along a little river, hunting cabin. And when I say a hunting cabin, this cabin was rough. It was like a cabin. It did have a refrigerator in it, and it did have like a gas stove, not anything elaborate. No bathroom, no toilet, no shower. I don't think it even had running water in it, honestly. But it did have a refrigerator and a stove, but it didn't have any running water. Um, and it had like these old rickety cots. I don't even think we I know I I layered up like sheets and sleeping bags on top of those cots in the rooms. But we ended up getting this cabin, I think, for$300 for a full week from a Saturday to a Saturday. And it was out in the middle of nowhere in the woods. I didn't even have phone service. When I got my kids there, I didn't even have any cash at all. I remember I didn't have a credit card even to use. I remember talking. I had$50 in cash. That was it for the whole trip. And actually, that$50 had to give me enough gas to get home. And I knew that there was a little town near the um the little place that we were camping that I planned on taking them into just for one day to like walk around and go in the shops. And I thought maybe get ice cream with my$50. Well, it was really interesting. I took my$50 cash, I remember, and I think I took, I think I saved$15 of that$50. So I had$35 left. I hid the$35 in the glove compartment. So there's$35, and I mean I tucked it, I I would tucked it so far down, I just got it out of sight, out of mind, and thought, this$35 is gonna get me home. It's my gas money. So I had taken my ex-husband's pickup truck and the three kids, fishing poles, we packed bikes, we packed rollerblades, we packed everything in the back of that truck with a big tarp over it. And I mean, everything that we had, I I packed like a little bug catcher cat set for my son. I packed this little portable like camping hammock that I had. I packed every food, everything I had from my refrigerator. I lugged it from my home refrigerator to that cabin refrigerator. And we did have firewood, which was thank goodness we had firewood, because every night we did a fire. Well, it was funny. It was me alone in the woods with my three kids. And I remember thinking, wow, this is kind of scary. And all the cabins, other cabins were empty. There weren't people in them. I guess it wasn't really the kind of place that people went in the summertime with their kids. It was more a place that hunters used in the fall. So it was very isolated. There was a really scary bathroom that we had to walk to. And I remember there were like cobwebs across the toilet. And all I remember is at night when we would go, there were no lights in the bathroom. I just remember going to this bathroom, and it wasn't even flushable toilets. It was like outhouse toilets, you know, the kind that you just look down. I just remember going and thinking, oh, please don't be any snakes. Please don't be any snakes in the bathroom when we go. But it was quite an adventure with my kids. And I took my kids fishing. We actually dug in the dirt for worms. I taught them how to freshwater fish. Well, that's not true. My kids knew how to freshwater fish. But I had one friend and her she brought her two kids up for the one of the weekends that we were there. And she spent, I think, two nights with us. So we all squished into the cabin and she brought some more exciting food along with her. And with her, I her kids, we taught them how to fish. They had not gone fishing yet. So it was kind of fun. I got to teach her son and her daughter how to freshwater fish. We went swimming in the little um stream there. We went hiking. I would lay in the hammock and read for hours why the girls were rollerblading up and down. There was a paved road, like a little paved road that went in front of the cabin, and the girls would rollerblade for hours. I mean hours upon hours. They would rollerblade why Austin would go around my son and just collect bugs. And I would just lay in that hammock, and there was not a sound around. It was so quiet. I can't even describe it. It was so peaceful. And we went into town and I had my$15 with me to drive into town. You know, I only had so much gas to use, so we weren't going to be driving a lot that week. So we drove into the little town, which was a quaint touristy town. It was um along the Delaware River. The town that we went to, I'll tell you what the town was because it's a great town. It's if you're older and you want like a romantic place to take like a husband or a wife or a lover, even it's just this romantic town, and you'll might know what town it is when I say it. It's New Hope, Pennsylvania. So I took the town, the kids into New Hope, Pennsylvania. And we walked around. I mean, for kids, you know, it was just like go into whatever store they wanted. It was all about them. It wasn't about me. So I just kind of meandered around the town and followed them around and let them go into whatever store they wanted to go into. They didn't want to get ice cream. They're like, Mom, we want french fries. I'm like, oh great. Like, we want french fries with like cheese on it. I'm like, oh my gosh. So like, where am I gonna get french fries with cheese on it and just order that and then nothing else? Well, we found a little Italian um in a pizzeria shop. And I asked the kids, because I couldn't afford drinks too, and I didn't want to be embarrassed, you know, and they're I didn't want to take up room in a restaurant just to go in and order french fries with cheese on it. So I remember we went to this little pizzeria and there was outside seating that if you wanted to sit there, you could. They didn't have weight service. So I sat the three kids at the outside seating. I said, All right, guys, I want you to sit here. I'm gonna go in and buy these french fries with cheese on it. So I come out and we're sitting there eating the french fries with cheese. And I will never forget this because it just, I feel like we don't give people enough credit on how kind they are. But there was an older gentleman, he was Italian for sure, and they had these really, you know, those Italian sodas that are in the glass bottles. They had these Italian sodas, and he brought four out for all four of us and just set them right down in front of me. And he said, Hey guys, these are from me. I don't know how he couldn't how he could possibly know that we couldn't afford drinks, but I think he could probably hear the kids talking about it, or somehow he caught wind of it, because I know I wasn't gonna tell him that we were just getting cheese fries because that's all that we could afford. But I just will never forget that. And I just the joy that I felt when he did that and just how nice that older gentleman was. And we went back to our campsite, and basically the biggest thing we did all week, the big event was go to town and get cheese fries with soda, but it really wasn't the biggest event because the kids still talk about that vacation. I mean, I can't even describe what a peaceful, memorable. I mean, there were there were there was a couple there were a couple events. There was a wh um bees. We ran had to run away from a bee's nest. There was a coup there were a couple events that happened, but nothing that wasn't that took away any of the joy, that's for sure. It was a little scary, and it was when I realized I just wasn't afraid, and maybe I should have been afraid, but we were out in the middle of nowhere. It was hot. I had to open the windows at night, and there were screens. And I remember my mom coming, her and my dad actually, it was kind of funny. They came one night at the end, and I feel like I left a little early. I had to leave early, and they spent a night alone there. It was a really interesting vacation, but I was alone most of the time, but she came. She came one night. I think I was gonna leave on Saturday, and we had the place till Sunday or something. So she came on for some reason, she came without my dad, and then my dad was gonna meet her there, and they were gonna stay in the cabin the last night. Me and the kids were gonna leave. And I remember her. It was really hot, and she was so terrified. She put all the windows down and it was hot. I mean, we were hot. We it was the summertime. And then she put sticks, she had gone out and collected these sticks and blocked the windows and like shut them with these sticks jammed in. And then she piled up like cans all around the windows so that we could hear, I guess, if someone were gonna break in the window. And I just remember thinking, I wanted to just we had lived, we had stayed in this cabin all week with the windows wide open. And I just remember saying to my mom, Mom, we are in the middle of the woods. There is nobody here but us. If some person really wants to get us in the middle of these woods, the cans and the little stick on the window are not gonna hold them back. It's like we might have a little bit more time to like be terrified of them, but they're just not gonna hold them away from us. But it was just kind of funny. I just remember that I felt a little bit funny. I'm the kind of person that feels safer when things are open and I can get out quicker. And she's the kind of person that feels safer when you're trapped in the building. But either way, that memory, like I said, I almost didn't do that vacation. I almost skipped it because I was like, I only have$50. There's no way I'm gonna take my kids away for a whole week with just$50 in my pocket. What am I gonna do with them? That memory is something that they will have forever. So traveling should not be limited because you don't have money. You just have to be creative with traveling without money. I want to tell you about also just, I think I already talked about the time that when the kids were little going out to dinner. We didn't go out to dinner ever, but we loved this place called El Rodeo that was in York, Pennsylvania. I don't even know if it's there anymore. I think it is. It was the first El Rodeo. Now they have a couple of them, but it was in York, Pennsylvania, and it was real authentic back then. I don't know if it still is, I haven't been there in a long time. But we would go to El Rodeo if we had money. And a lot of times we didn't have any money. But finally I got smart because I told the kids, I said, listen, guys, I said, if you can get the electric bill for each month from$100 to$80, we'll say I'll be able to take you to El Rodeo. And when we would go to El Rodeo, it was like every second Wednesday night we would drive to El Rodeo. It was like our big night out. And it was kind of a neat event because the kids, it was a 30-minute drive, so I got to talk to my kids at night. I was exhausted driving home. I remember trying to stay awake and thinking, what am I doing? But because I was working all day, kids were going to sports, things were happening, and then we were going to El Rodeo at night. But either way, we made an effort to do that, and they actually looked at that electric bill, and it truly was that the only way we were going to be able to go to El Rodeo is if the electric bill was less than$100. And it was because my kids were so good about turning the lights off, being responsible with the electric, turning the TVs off, and just keeping our bills low. And I was so proud of them. But we got that experience, and that's a memory too, that my kids will always have. And I feel like the memories that we have cherished and we have created amidst hard times and that we have made happen are just even more special than when it was easy to do it. When it's challenging and the payoff, the payoff is just so much more. But I just I know that you're probably thinking, yeah, Petra, it's real easy for you to say go away when you don't have any money or do a vacation without with your kids. But there are so many creative things that you can do. I know my daughters now every year go away. This is like the third or so year that they go to the outer banks and they rent a house, but they all just cram in one house and they have like multiple families and they all pay like a percentage of this glorious vacation. And they manage to do it on a budget. Someone will cook dinner each night, bring a casserole, each person's assigned food. They actually have a meeting to talk about it. They don't frivolously go spend money on food. The kids don't care. All they want to do is run around on the beach, have fun, play hide and seek in the house, do whatever they do as kids. And it it's interesting because I usually skip out on this vacation because I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't want to be in a house with a million kids for a whole week. But this year I'm gonna make it work. I'm gonna go there at least for two or three nights. And I want to see my grandkids. I want to watch them run around on the beach. And even if they don't remember that I'm there, it'll be a memory I have. And maybe one of those kids will remember if I read them a book before bed, or I take a special walk with them on the beach. Maybe they will remember when they grow up that memory that they had with me. I don't know. But either way, I think the whole purpose of this story is to think, what are your memories gonna be when time goes by and you look back? What memories will you have? And you have to think about that not just as a mother or a father making memories for your children, but for yourself in this in this race of work, work, work, race of money, money, money, race of pay the bills, pay the bills, pay the bills, race of being responsible, responsible, responsible. Think about making a memory. Think about your memory. You're not gonna remember sitting on the couch and watching Longmire or watching Bad Sisters, which these are shows that I like, or watching Lily Hammer. You're gonna remember when you grow up when you grow up, ten years down the road in the next decade. You're gonna remember the decade before. I'm gonna remember that hundred-mile bike ride I did with friends, or those walks in the woods I took with my dog or my friends. Those are that's what I'm gonna remember. I'm not gonna remember putzing around the house. I'm not gonna remember going to work every day. I'm not gonna remember staying up late to finish an assessment for work or just anything like that. I'm gonna remember those special things that are outliers and make that happen. So for my stand-up and redo this year, I'm gonna go on, of course, a couple vacations, but I'm also gonna take those weekend trips, those little weekend trips, even if it's just driving down to the river at night to ride my bike, even if it's just taking a walk on a path that I've never walked on before, it's gonna be these small things that don't cost anything, but that make a memory. And that's gonna be my stand up and redo. Thank you. This podcast is a work based on the personal experiences, reflections, and memories of the speaker. The events described are true to the best of the speaker's knowledge and recollection. Some names, locations, identifying characteristics, and timelines have been changed or altered to protect the privacy of the individuals involved. In some cases, composite characters have been created or dialogue has been reconstructed based on memory. The intention of this podcast is not to defame, malign, or harm any individual or entity. Rather, it is to share the speaker's journey with honesty, vulnerability, and integrity. Any opinions expressed are solely those of the speaker and are not intended as statements of fact regarding any person, group, or organization. Listeners should keep in mind that human memory is inherently subjective and selective. And while every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, this podcast reflects the speaker's perspective and truths. Thank you.