Vacation is on my mind. I had the cruise ship we're traveling on as my desktop background at the office and decided to change it today to encourage myself to think more about work. We've worked out the details of our shore excursions with our travel companions yesterday and they booked them today. Being the gazelle that I am, I decided to add up the total cost for our five excursions in the five ports of call. Initially, when I saw the number it seemed high. But we are determined to make the most of this trip, and not cheat ourselves by being cheap. Anyhow, when I broke it down it comes out to be $73 per person per day in port. Not bad, considering lunch (read: Atlantic seafood) is included in a couple excursions. Next on the agenda is to sit down again and write out a spending plan for the whole trip. We did this once, but the closer we get to the trip I can see better what things are going to cost us.
I did two stupid things involving money this weekend. First, I planned to work a deal on South Beach Cereal Bars at Walgreens which would have net me $2 in overage. Six boxes for $15, less $12 in total coupons ($2/off per box) + a $5 rebate was the deal. We went out for pizza with a friend, and I left the receipt laying on the table. Forgetting that I needed the receipt to claim my rebate, I told my friend it was fine if her 3 year old wanted to play with it (he was playing with it already and seemed happy to do so.) So the bottom line is I don't get the rebate now, and the cereal bars cost me 50 cents a box. I kicked myself a few times for that one.
The second stupid thing I did was abandon my two-week shopping plan & menus and decided to shop for just this week. That wasn't necessarily the stupid part. I went to the store with no list and no calculator and a vague idea of what we had on hand at home. A two-week shopping trip costs me arount $65-$75- I spent $50 for a week's worth of groceries! All I could do was fish out a few coupons to bring my total down to $46 and walk out of the store with my sorrows.
So, this weekend the cheetah had this gazelle for supper.
Also, I think I've decided to stop writing about some of my super couponing steals. Christmas is coming, and I don't want my gifts to be looked down upon. But my thinking is this, even if I did get it for free or nearly free, I still worked hard and did the research to do the deal, right?
Monday, September 15, 2008
Vacation Draweth Nigh
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3 comments:
You inspire and make me feel guilty at the same time! You are such an awesome gazelle. 50 cents for a box of cereal bars? Shame, shame!
I won't mind if you give me a free gift for Christmas! LOL ;)
It's all about QUALITY of gift, not how MUCH you wasted on it! I've always been about that! The toughest part is trying to figure out what to buy who on the ever-growing list. I think this year, we are going to buy Logan one thing and each other one thing and that's IT. Yeah, right! I wish! It is so hard though!
Where are you going for vacation? Was it a good deal?
Something I found is if you go out on your own you can get the same excursion for cheaper from a local tour. And the food is usually more authentic!
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