Life Advice

/

Health

Ask Amy: Beach sand has slipped through hourglass

Amy Dickinson, Tribune Content Agency on

Dear Amy: When my parents divorced a few decades ago, they understandably stopped organizing family beach vacations.

As soon as I started making a little money (in my 20’s), I stepped in and began pulling the vacation together. I was also footing the bill for my siblings and our children.

It was important to me that we all get together at the shore once a year, and I continued to do this for about 30 years, paying between $2,500 and $10,000 a summer – without asking for any help.

This summer both of my children are in college and my budget priority is tuition. This spring I let folks know I wasn’t going to be able to handle the family beach vacation.

When asked, I shared the rental catalogs and budgets with members of the family so they could handle the details if they wanted to.

There won’t be a beach vacation this year because no one stepped up.

 

While I’m sad not to have time in the sand, I have exactly zero guilt over this.

The problem is that there seems to be some resentment that I wasn’t able to do the planning and that it was out of my budget to even share expenses this year.

What do you think I can say to my family – other than that I have other priorities right now, and if they want to organize a beach vacation they need to do it on their own?

– Vacation Buzzkill

...continued

swipe to next page

 

 

Comics

Dogs of C-Kennel Dennis the Menace Get Fuzzy Garfield 1 and Done Gary Markstein