Camping

It’s a long weekend here.  Our church is holding it’s annual camp, and we are going.  I wasn’t planning on going this year because of the logistics of camping with a baby, but Big Boy has been asking for the last eleven months when we would be going on Family Camp again, so off we go.  

The problem with camping is the amount of equipment we need, and how much I need to get organised.  Tent, sleeping bags, something to sleep on, cooking equipment, food, chairs, clothes. It’s hard to pack small when you have to fit everything in the car with four people.  And I have to do it all myself this time because my husband is working overtime to get his report cards written.

I’m doing my best to take only what we need, which is a fair bit when we are travelling with small children who need entertaining during the grown-ups talks, and who are likely to get too dirty to re-wear clothes. We need a table and stand for our little BBQ to make meals easier and safer.  We don’t need chairs, but I’d rather have a chair to sit in while breastfeeding, and it’s nice to chill back in a comfy folding chair.  It’s also expected to be a little colder than usual this weekend. I’m doing fairly simple food so as to take as little equipment as possible  , but I need to make sure we have enough food so that we aren’t caught short.

We do love camping, but unfortunately we haven’t done much of it for the last few years.  I think we have only used our tent five times in the last 2 1/2 years since we bought it.   Our options for going camping are for a one night trip on a weekend, but weekends during term time are full of doing schoolwork and “stuff maintenance”, or we can go for a few days during on or more of the school holidays, two of which we spend travelling down to visit my in-laws who are unable to come to us because of ill health, and we spend the other two holidays catching up on “stuff maintenance” that we’ve fallen behind on during the school terms.  And it all seems like a lot of effort with little kids when we can’t find others who want to come with us.  

If we had less “stuff maintenance” because we had less “stuff” - lawns, windows, overstuffed cupboards that need sorting, that sort of thing - then we could spend more weekends or a few days in the holidays, throwing a tent and some food in the back of the car and spending a night in a National Park somewhere.  Being too busy with “stuff” means we are missing out on an activity that we actually like doing, and have to allocate a portion of our house for storing camping equipment that we only use once a year.   In reality, we need to either ditch the surplus “stuff” or ditch the camping gear.

The Bus? But where's your car?

We only have one car.  We manage quite fine.   If I need to go anywhere, I either arrange to have the car that day, or I go there on the days that I already have the car.   If the bus is convenient, one of us is happy to catch the bus.

My husband is a school teacher, and in Australia it is coming up to the end of first semester when report cards are sent home.  He needed to go into school today for a few hours, so after church he took the car to work, and the kids and I caught a bus into the markets in the city mall, then caught the bus back to school.

In conversations after church this morning I mentioned that we were going to catch the bus, and I got two screwed up noses, one with a 'Where's your car?'

'Normal' people don't catch buses here. Buses are seen as for people who can't afford a car.    But if people were the least bit interested, I'd be happy to explain to them that every 10km I drive in my car costs me $1.45 in petrol, and just owning a second car would cost us between $7 and $12 a day. I'd happily tell them that the most I would ever pay for a return bus trip is $7.40, but my usual fare is $2.20 for a one way.   I would tell them that second car would be one extra thing to look after: to service, to clean, to insure, to find a place to park out of the weather.    I'd be quite happy to explain to people that we probably could afford a second car, we but we don't really need one and can find much better uses for that money.  I'd even happily tell them what bus routes go past their house, or at least how they could find out.   I'd happily tell them how I structure my week so that we barely notice not having two cars.   I'd love to tell them how I swallowed my pride and discovered that buses aren't all that bad, even if our local network isn't quite as efficient as it could be.

But unfortunately, no-one is really interested.  Most people will just screw up their nose and say "Why would you catch a bus?  Where's your car?"

(Actually, two people are interested.  My little sister who admitted to me this morning that she doesn't even know how to catch a bus, but is interested to know more.  And my four-year-old who told me the other day that cars are better than buses because you have to pay to get on a bus.  I explained that we have to pay the government to be allowed to drive on their roads, and pay for petrol, and pay for insurance, and he told me 'and you have to buy a car to drive!'  He's getting the idea!)

Excess baggage: my handbag

My handbag is too big and too full and too heavy. I bought a new one just before Christmas, and it’s been annoying me since just after Christmas. 

Once upon a time I used to just carry my wallet, phone and keys in a tiny little bag.  During the semester I would also have a pen and my student diary, but I’d leave them at home during term breaks, and would usually change handbags on weekends.  If I didn't need it while I was out, why bother lugging it around with me! 

When I had my first baby my handbag contained:

• wallet
• phone
• keys
• travel size baby wipes
• one disposable nappy 
• glasses case (I now wear glasses full time and prefer to wear sunglasses when I’m outside, and obviously need prescription sunglasses) 
• pen 
• a muslin wrap which I used as a breastfeeding cover, or a change mat, or a light blanket, or to wipe up spills.  
• when the baby was a bit older I also kept a small container with a couple of biscuits in it, and a drink bottle, and left the wrap out because I didn’t really use it anymore. 

I kept two more spare nappies and a change of clothes in the car, and if I knew I would need more than that I would take it with me. 

But, seeing as somehow in between babies I’ve managed to make my whole life incredibly more complicated, I’ve now ended up with a huge handbag with far too much in it.  Well, I think it is huge.  Apparently it’s not that big.  

In my handbag today I have:

• wallet
• phone
• keys
• glasses case
• small notebook for writing things down when I think of them at the shops
• larger notebook for when I want to do some writing at a coffee shop while Big Boy is at Kindy and if Small Boy is asleep
• a disposable nappy
• a slightly larger travel case of baby wipes (but it is refillable, so I don’t mind too much that it is bigger)
• muslin wrap
• spare clothes for the baby and spare underpants for Big Boy. 
• a folder with crayons and a notebook for Big Boy’s amusement
• a small pencil case containing a pen, lipgloss, lip balm, an emery board, and a tube of Pure Wipes
• A small stack of loyalty cards for various stores all tied up with a rubber band (it means I don’t have them all in my wallet and can have a smaller wallet but still have the loyalty cards)  

My bag is twice as big because I have twice as much stuff in there. I don’t hear my phone ring, and I have trouble finding my keys.  And guess what. I don’t even need it all. I don’t need the Pure Wipes when I’ve got baby wipes anyway: they’re left from when I only had a toilet trained but still messy toddler. I forget about the lip balm because it’s tucked away inside a case, and don’t really use it that often anyway.  I don’t use either notebook enough to warrant carrying them all the time.  I managed without spare clothes in my bag when my first son was a baby, I’m sure I can still manage now. 

Sadly, I spent a lot of money on this bag.  I wanted a nice leather handbag that would see me out five years or more, and had been looking few a weeks weeks at different bags and had narrowed down between two or three bags. I had a 30% off voucher for a particular bag store, and had decided I would get a bag there.   But then I saw this other bag, one that I hadn’t seen before.  It would definitely hold all I needed (or didn’t need, as it turns out), and it was very stylish bag.  It was black, not the red that I was hoping for this time, but it was very nice.  It also cost somewhat more than what I had intended on spending.   But it was ‘perfect’ and i had to have it.  And the kids were getting grumpy and my husband was starting to get that ‘just make a decision’ look in his eyes.   It was an impulse purchase.

It is still a lovely bag.  It’s just too big for me.   I might try selling it and getting something smaller and a little more wieldy.  But first I need to get all the unnecessary junk out of it!

To drive, or not to drive.

We couldn’t go car-less for the following reasons:

• We don’t have great public transport where we live.  Taking the bus at least doubles our journey time to most places, especially since we rarely experience traffic congestion.  Most services run 20, 30 or 60 minute intervals; changing services can mean a long wait. 
• Only a few of the bus routes operate on a Sunday; the route we live on doesn’t. 
• A lot of places we might go with friends and family, including friend’s houses, aren’t accessible by public transport.
• We have small children and riding bikes isn’t an option, especially at night.

We do try and go car-light:

• We only have one car. My husband takes it to work 2-3 days a week, I drop him off and pick him up the other days.  In four years this has hardly been an issue.  Once a week the boys and I get dropped off in the morning, then we catch the bus home from playgroup.  
• We are now experimenting with my husband catching the bus home from work one day a week.  It’s a half hour round trip to pick him up from work. If he is able to get the right bus, he can get home in less than 40 mins for the same cost of fuel to pick him up.  If he can’t get that bus, it’s about 15 minutes on the bus, then a few minutes each way to pick him up from where that bus stops (or a 25 minute walk home). 
• I don’t make special trips. If I need to go to a specific place, I do it to/from work or kindy pick up/drop off, and group together things in the same area of town.
• My husband has tried riding home from work, but has had a few problems with his bike and hasn’t got around to fixing them.  It’s too far and too hot for him to ride to work in the mornings.
• We have Big Boy’s name down for school next year at the same school as my husband works at, partly to cut down on time I spend ferrying people around.  

Future considerations: 

• If we were to move house, we would consider location in relation to riding distance from work and proximity to bus stops.   Our town does have great bike paths right along the river.
• Child restraint laws are pretty stringent in Australia.  Big Boy still has 2 1/2 years sitting in a booster seat, and God-willing we hope to have a third child in that time. Three car seats probably won’t fit in the back of our current car, so if we need to change cars we will get the smallest and most economical car for our needs. 
• My estimate is that insurance, registration (state taxes) and maintenance probably costs us $2200 a year, or $6 a day.  By driving less, we have less wear and tear on the vehicle which means longer time between things like new tyres and new brakes, but we can’t reduce much more by driving less.   I think $6 a day depreciation is an appropriate figure, considering the price we paid for our car and what we could get for it now.  Driving less might help with depreciation.  Less kilometres on the clock should mean more value when selling.

I would consider catching the bus more often but the only place the bus runs to is the shops, and I’m trying to avoid the shops!  We could catch the bus into the museum/aquarium.  It would be an hour on the bus each way, plus a 750m walk each way (according to Google maps), and it would cost $3.90 each way in bus fares. Alternatively, we could catch the bus from my husband’s work (15 minutes from home), which would be 20 minutes into the same bus stop, for $3.50.  That would be during peak hour, and I don’t like the idea of taking the pram on the bus in peak hour (I have a much smaller stroller, but Little Boy is still too young for it). My husband still has to get to work, which is about $2.50 in fuel.    Total cost for the day would be $9.40 - $9.90, with about 2 hours travel time (including the walk). 

The other option is to drive the 17km, dropping off my husband on our way, and stopping for a play at a park or running an errand in the time before the aquarium opens, parking just outside the aquarium, then driving the 17km home again, then having to go pick up my husband from work in the afternoon, which is roughly a 20km round trip.  Fuel for the day would cost $6 - $7, total travel time would be a little under an hour and a half, but I would also have to pay parking fees of no more than $3.  

I can’t think of many other places we go that we could catch the bus, that isn’t already on the way to or from work. 

We have no trouble living with one car, but it is not realistic for us to have no car.