My Backyard Vacation Area

Fifteen years ago, my wife and I purchased a 26 foot round above ground pool, a Hot Springs Prodigy 5 seat hot tub, had a rather large deck built around it all that included a 12' X 12' eight sided gazebo...  the deck had enough room outside of the gazebo for 6 loung chairs as well, plus we purchased deck furniture to go under the gazebo...  All of this cost us about $5,000 and today, if we had done the same thing, our cost would have been somewhere between $15-$20,000...

We did this to have a backyard vacation area in case we did not want to drive down to Myrtle Beach and spend time at a resort.  A week at Myrtle Beach for an ocean view efficiency apartment/condo is about $1,500 to $2,000 which includes the rental, gasoline there and back, and meals.  This is in South Myrtle Beach below the main part where the ferris wheel is located and all the drugs are sold.

I get into the hot tub about 3-4 times a week and use the jets to relax my shoulder and back muscles and just chill out for a while.  I am usually out there about 45 minutes which is probably too long but it is so damn relaxing.

My hot tub soakings are take place 12 months out of the year although if it is really cold out there in January, I will not go out now whereas for the first 12 years, I did not worry about the cold influencing my body negatively...  I have been concerned about that for the last 2-3 years, so if it is below 30 degrees, I am not going to soak.

Needless to say, I suppose that our backyard vacation area was well worth the effort, even every 3 years when the damn thing needs to be restained.  It usually takes us about a week to accomplish this task and about 10-12 gallons of stain.  We buy two 5-gallon containers at one time, making sure we get the same lot numbers otherwise the colors will differ.

Our cost of maintenance over these 15 years has been another $5,000 including pool upkeep during the summer months of use which averages out to about $56 dollars a month over the 15 years of ownership or 180 months that also takes into consideration the purchase price. For me, that does not seem like a bad tradeoff...   I think I would have been willing to pay $100/month for this or maybe $150 which would have been pushing it...