College Tuition Ain't Got Nothing on Summer Camp!

When you are done paying off your student loans I would recommend saving for your future children's Summer Camp expenses.  WOW!  Most are listed at around $250/week but some (of course the ones my daughter likes most) are $400 and up!!

Cute Ad highlighting the plethora of choice options

But that is not the real problem here.  The larger problem as a consumer of these services is that fact that there are so many choices!  I took time off of work to attend Bozeman's annual Summer Camp Roundup.  I left with a bag FULL of pamphlets and registration forms for various options around town.  There is art camp, horse camp, nature camp, swimming camp, gymnastics camp, animal shelter camp, theatre camp, survival camp, bible camp, and actual camp camp.  And so much more!!

Geez.  No pressure here!

I literally spent hours with these pamphlets spread around my kitchen counter and trying to map out my daughter's summer experiences.  "Do you like this one or this one?"  To which she responds, "I like them both!"  This conversation repeats itself the entire afternoon.


This experience made me think of the dilemma Barry Schwartz had in the book The Paradox of Choice when he just wanted to buy a pair of jeans.  Are we really better off by weighing all our options and scrutinizing every decision?  Ultimately, I am sure my daughter would have just as much fun swimming and she would riding horses.

Even with the chapter Keeping Doors Open from Predictably Irrational fresh in my mind, I still could not eliminate options from the table.  I agree with the authors advice that we should just "flip a coin and move on" yet I still kept our options open.

Finally we made the selections and filled out the piles of release forms.  Still unable to make a firm decision in one direction, we chose a little bit of this and a little bit of that.  Here's to hoping they offer Summer Camp loans......